1596. Thomas Westwood to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 8, 297–299.
Chase Side[,] Enfield
April 11th [1844] [1]
Thank you, dear Miss Barrett– Thank you for both kindnesses—for the promise of your book, which I shall have to thank you for many, many times again, I know, & also for allowing my poor wishes to take so near a place– They have nothing, I fear, but their honest heartiness to enable them to lift up their heads in such goodly society–— With respect to the advertisement,—it did not altogether mislead me—knowing Mr Moxon of old, & being fully acquainted with his [‘]‘go-ahead” propensities. It was so, I remember, with Tennyson. Indeed so long a period elapsed after the first intimations, & the advertisements no longer appearing, I began to fear that we were to have no Tennyson, & went to the office to enquire. Nevertheless, he is a good man of business, & I would rather, a great deal, see you in his hands, than in those of your former publishers, who display too much of charlatanry in their dealings, by virtue of their connexion with Punch’s “old-womanish” Metropolitan, to be worthy of a book of yours– [2] Do you remember Moxon’s staunch support of Tennyson, in the ‘Englishman’? [3] Some said, it was the death of the magazine– The successful republication of those condemned poems must be a rare triumph to him methinks—for verily the world’s hissing has changed to an “all-hail![’]’– [4]
And have you suffered so from despondency? ah yes—I knew it must be so—it is so with every poet in his degree—bodily & mental exhaustion, & worse than that, the consciousness of having fallen far short of one’s own ideal– Surely the despair is quite natural, & salutary it may be, though bitter to bear. But when you talk of burning your poem, dear Miss Barrett, I have no longer any sympathy with you, & can do nothing but scold. I assure you I feel quite aggrieved, & vexed & cross at the very supposition & have the greatest mind in the world to fill up the rest of my paper with all the angry, sharp, spiteful words, I can rake together– Fortunately however, & thanks to Mr Kenyon, my indignation, may after all moult its feathers, & content itself with the wish that on all future occasions of the kind, the same good cousin, may be near at hand to stand between you & your sin.
Just before your letter reached me, a friend came in with Mr Horne’s book—& I have since read (purposely delaying my letter that I might say something about it) three of the papers—that on Dickens—the Howitts, & Wordsworth & Hunt. The first I think worthy of all you have said of it, & of a better appreciation than it has met with;—the second, I suppose, is by some other hand, & seemed to me too exclusively biographical—so much of their goings & comings, & so little of their works—but the third—this review of Wordsworth—it puzzles me;—either it is yours, or partly yours, or else Mr. Horne must have had your review very freshly in his memory when he wrote the article—for both your thoughts, & individuality of style are there. [5] This struck me very forcibly at the opening, & Mr. Woods [6] ejaculated spontaneously—“That is Miss Barrett’s!” I suppose I must not pry into the mystery so far as to ask for enlightenment, but I give you my impressions thereupon .. Well then, the book, as far as I have gone (& I have not received the second volume yet—) is much less sketchy than I anticipated. It is quite natural that such a book should disappoint—but the measure of disappointment which appears to be felt on the subject, is, as far as I can judge from so limited a reading greatly exaggerated. Certainly I expected, from the notices I had met with,—much less of thought & earnestness, & more of anecdote, & popular gossip. I am more anxious now than before to see what is said of yourself—peradventure, I may be inconsistent enough to look upon the personality, which I thought a loss in the one case, as a gain in the other–
As to the Sermons [7] —why do you say one word about them? Indeed, & in truth we shall be much vexed if you send them back, or even wish to send them back, before you have quite done with them,—& you will be busy yet for some time to come, I dare say– And now, dear Miss Barrett, I promise you, I will wait & be as patient as I can, till Mr Moxon’s few days or few weeks are accomplished—& when the book does come, be sure it will be as welcome as any book can possibly be to
Ever faithfully yours
T. Westwood
Address: Miss E. B. Barrett / 50 Wimpole St. / Cavendish Square / London.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Year provided by postmark.
2. EBB’s previous work, The Seraphim, was published by Saunders & Otley.
3. In April 1831, Moxon launched The Englishman’s Magazine, with himself as editor. The August number contained an unsigned essay “On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson” (pp. 616–628); it was written by Arthur Henry Hallam (1811–33). The magazine’s short life ended with the October issue.
4. III Henry VI, V, 7, 34. Critical opinion of Tennyson’s poetry had changed greatly from the mainly dismissive comments that greeted his earliest work (see, for example, letter 1452, note 2).
5. Westwood’s conjecture was, of course, correct. Horne had solicited EBB’s comments on Wordsworth in letter 1406.
6. Either George Woods, the friend to whom Westwood dedicated Beads from a Rosary, or Henry Newsom Woods (see letter 1388, note 8).
7. The second volume of Melvill’s sermons, acknowledged in letter 1542.
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