1626. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 13–15.
[London]
Wednesday. Thursday rather. [13 June 1844] [1]
My dear Mr Horne, The poem which I called domestic is one, I think, in an octave stanza, containing a story .. the history of a wife who becomes aware of the dishonor of her husband. It succeeds the Dream– It has more power, than any composition of Mrs Norton’s which I ever read. The name quite escapes me—& I have so painful an association of a personal nature with the book, as to lose all courage to look into it. [2] There are domestic poems also, which refer to herself personally .. & to the pictures of her children—sweet & tender.
In respect to Barry Cornwall, I am delighted to hear that you admit him,—& the first omission was probably accidental or from reasons of time & haste. His lyrical poems are most exquisite, .. like an embodied music– In the melodies of words he is learned, & in the causes of tears, not uninstructed. His dramatic fragments are not masculine—but Ford was not masculine .. when he wrote alone. [3] They seem to me to have dramatic intonations, moving if not deep. His fault is only felt in a continuous reading, when one becomes aware of a certain sameness .. a one tonedness which is not the tone of a trumpet. It is a more effeminate instrument—it is an effeminate instrument. In my own private opinion, Barry Cornwall has done a good deal with all his genius, & perhaps as a consequence of his genius, to emasculate the poetry of the passing age. To talk of “fair things” when he had to speak of women, & of “laughing flowers” when his business was with a full blown daisy, is the fashion of his school. His care has not been to use the most expressive but the prettiest word. His Muse has held her Pandemonium too much in the cavity of his ear. [4] Still that this arises from a too exquisite sense of Beauty as a means as well as an object, is evident—and for all sweet & exquisitely pathetical lyric qualities, we need not go farther than to Barry Cornwall. In this last republication, I miss (it may be there, but running the book through hastily I cannot find it) what used to thrill me through & through with the charm of lyric cadence & matchless pathos. I admired it so, that I used the stanza in that slight poem of my own, called ‘Loved once’, .. only reversing it in every second verse. But the tune ran in my head.
“Must it be? Then farewell!
Thou, whom my woman’s heart has loved too long.
Farewell—and be this song
The last in which I say, I loved thee well.[”] [5]
It begins so, I remember—& the whole lyric is most exquisite & moving. I wish I had it to send you.
You know his poem of “Marcian Colonna,” [6] & others perhaps which I do not know. I admire Barry Cornwall much.
Mr Moxon was good enough to send me yesterday Mr Patmore’s poems. I had not time to cut the leaves, when Miss Mitford came, & I gave her the first fruits of the book– Between you & me,—“dreadfully private,” [7] —this wd have been more generous of me, if I had not by a few glances, nearly satisfied myself that he is not a Tennyson & never cd have been. Also he is not to be reproached with Barry Cornwall’s fault of over-affluence in music. Still I have no right to judge—for the leaves are uncut.
I heard of your meeting Mr Chorley in Miss Mitford’s presence. It never struck her what a meeting of thunderclouds it might be .. until I made the suggestion.
In reply to what is [“]dreadfully private” .. my dear Mr Horne, I shall do my book the honor of placing your name in it,—& prove that we are not under different banners, .. & that I am
Ever faithfully & gratefully yours
EBB.
Enclosed is ‘Pan,’ at your service.
How well she looks .. Miss Mitford! I write in great haste.
But I must thank you (having forgotten it before) for your criticism about the “many miles.” Certainly I made out by the loose expression that Eve had travelled many miles in one day—which might have been!—though I wish I had the power of altering it. [8]
Publication: EBB-RHH, I, 231–241.
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Dated by the reference to receipt of Patmore’s Poems, acknowledged in the following letter to Moxon.
2. Mrs. Norton’s The Dream, and Other Poems was the last gift EBB received from Bro (see Reconstruction, A1756). EBB is responding to Horne’s query in the preceding letter. See also letter 1635 in which she explains that the poem in question is “The Creole Girl; or, The Physician’s Story.”
3. EBB refers to John Ford (fl., 1639); in addition to works in his own name, he collaborated with Thomas Dekker and William Rowley.
4. Cf. Paradise Lost, I, 787.
5. EBB slightly misquotes the first verse of “The Last Song,” from The Poetical Works of Barry Cornwall (1822, III, 197).
6. Marcian Colonna, an Italian Tale was published in 1820. It was inspired by Leigh Hunt (DNB).
7. EBB is echoing Horne’s emphatic admonition in letter 1625.
8. Despite EBB’s fear that it was too late to correct her “loose expression,” it did not appear in the published text.
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