1630. Richard Hengist Horne to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 17–19.
[London]
Saturday [15 June 1844] [1]
My dear Miss Barrett, the “Dead Pan” is quite as fine as Miss Martineau thinks and says. When do you think your vols. will be published? If this question puts you into a “state” do not reply—but you see, I want to know, because I should like to change the quotation from the Seraphim to the D. P—i e such stanzas as I fancied best to detach. But it would not be quite well for my book to appear before yours—unless it might be supposed that the D. P. had been published in some periodical—American or Nova Scotian? If you do not object, I shall do it. Also, I intend to change the quotation from Mrs Norton’s Poems. [2]
(I am writing at a friend’s house with a lady’s steel-pen—such a thing!)
Yes—I met Mr Chorley—for the first time. I felt wicked as I looked at him. Did you ever see him? Shall I give you my “first impressions?[”] [3]
One thing I sh’d tell you in extenuation of a part of
<…>. [4]
You know he set all the press “a-going” with the cry of clique and coterie. He was misled. Hoaxed and led astray by the dancing vanity of a gentleman who lent some portraits—knew some booksellers—had authors to dine with him &c[.] Now, the truth is, that I suffered nobody to influence me in the books or to dictate, or even interfere in any way. The good & evil is upon my own head. Not all the evil certainly—because I was not the proprietor, and could not help some short-comings, but I mean that
<…> [4]
the too short time, and too limited space, the good is far more conspicuous than the bad. Also, I expressed in a note, my dissent for certain things. As to clique or c[o]terie it was all a mistake—natural for Mr Chorley to fall into at the vision and hearing of Mr Powell’s rodomontade and romancing—but he (Mr Powell) did not write one line in the book, and I refused to tell him even the name of a single contributor! <Nevertheless he is one of the proprietors. See what I say of him.> [5]
If Miss Mitford is in the dark about all this, please to tell her the truth.
I have only seen her dear Sunshine [6] once since she came to town. She is largely in request, and I have not liked to call too often.
Yours truly always
H.
P.S. May I make a pencil mark or two, on the Dead Pan in returning it? I have some thoughts of going to Germany or to Spain—if I determine, I must see you before I go, as my return will perhaps be indefinite. Do not think of hesitating as to being well enough to see me; for it will surely be—ought—must.
P.S. [7] But going to Spain or Germany for a few months must be “a good”—more especially if it extorts an interview previously, with the Lady in the Iron Mask. [8] If the instant I entered, you vanished, and left only a large Indian shawl quivering upon the sofa—I should say (taking my breath) “I thought as much!”
Oh yes—I know to what extent you are right as to Mr Powell’s poetry; but while we hear of Rogers the Poet, in even intelligent people’s mouths, one feels that half a dozen random sparks are at least as good as the comparison.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Dated by the following letter, which is EBB’s response.
2. In the second edition of A New Spirit, Horne left unchanged the quotation from “The Seraphim.” The first passage from “The Dream” (1840) by Mrs. Norton was cut from 28 lines to 11, and a second quotation of 11 lines, commencing “By the sigh, whose different tone,” was added.
3. Congreve, The Way of the World (1700), act IV, sc. 1.
4. About half a line is missing where the manuscript has been torn.
5. The sentence in angle brackets has been squeezed in as an afterthought.
6. i.e., Miss Mitford. In the following letter, EBB says “She is both sunshine & moonshine, .. in her gaiety & kindness.”
7. This postscript is on a separate slip of paper.
8. A jocular reference to EBB’s inaccessibility, comparable to the anonymity of the character in Dumas’s The Man in the Iron Mask.
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