2094. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 163–164.
[Bath]
[Postmark: 10 November 1845]
My dear kind friend,
Before I have half re[a]d thro your Dramatic Romances, I must acknowledge the delight I am receiving,—in no small doubt however, whether with all my haste I shall be in time for the post. [1] What a profusion of imagery, covering what a depth of thought! You may stand quite alone if you will—and I think you will. [2] I confess to you I do not greatly like our Sub-Shakesperian poets. It is only now and then that a breath of fresh air breaks in among them, sitting (as they all do) in the tavern, and smelling of ale and cheese. We have better poetry from the living. Even the despised and ridiculed Annuals confirm it. This very year there is in the Book of Beauty a poem by my friend Theodosia Garrow, on Italy, far surpassing those of M. Angelo and Filicaia. [3] Sappho is far less intense. Pindar is far less animated. We never had so many good poets as at the present time, or lately. Campbell’s Hohenlinden, Hemanses Ivan and Casa-bianca, [4] are unequalled since—ay, since when? But there is a stanza too much in each of those last.
Æquam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem [5] —is a difficult rule to keep in poetry, where it is as much wanted as anywhere.
If ever you receive my collected Works, [6] pray do not say a single word about the poetry. I might have been a poet if I had given up my mind to it. In prose I found more room. We had no prose-writer interesting in his subject and graceful in his style. We had none who could stand with Pascal, De Sevigné, Bossuet, and Le Sage; nor do I think the Romans had, or even the Greeks. I detest the subjects of Bossuet, but what eloquence! [7] I threw out both artists to their full length, and made room for myself beyond their sphere– Allow me this little glass of rosoglio from my private cup-board, and believe me
Your very sincere and obliged
W S Landor
Address: Robert Browning Esq / Hatcham / Surrey.
Postmarks: BATH NO10 1845 D; AN 11NO11 1845; RIPLEY NO12 1845; AP 13NO13 1845; 12NN12 NO13 1845 D; 1AN1 NO13 1845 A.
Docket, on envelope in unidentified hand: Not Near Ripley / Try Hatcham.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 17–18 (as 12 November 1845).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Landor’s letter was posted on the 10th, but it was misdirected to Ripley and did not reach RB at Hatcham until Thursday, the 13th.
2. Landor’s comments seem to reflect his lines “To Robert Browning” (for the text, see illustration facing p. 178).
3. Vincenzo da Filicaja (1642–1707) was a Florentine poet. This was not the first time Landor had compared Theodosia Garrow to Sappho; see letter 847. Miss Garrow did not contribute to the Book of Beauty for 1846; however, she did contribute a poem on Italy entitled “She is not Dead, but Sleepeth” to The Keepsake for 1846. A copy in an unidentified hand formed part of lot 261 in Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, L99). The Keepsake also contained a poem of three stanzas by Landor entitled “Lines,” which immediately followed the poem by Miss Garrow.
4. Felicia Hemans’s “Casabianca” appeared in The Forest Sanctuary (1829), and “Ivan the Czar” appeared in Records of Woman: With Other Poems (1828); Thomas Campbell’s “Hohenlinden” was first published in Poems (Edinburgh, 1803).
5. “Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep an even mind” (Horace, Odes, II, 3, 1, trans. C.E. Bennett).
6. A two-volume edition of Landor’s works, published by Moxon, was reviewed in The English Review for June 1846, and in The Athenæum for 8 August 1846 (no. 980, pp. 805–807).
7. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704) was a priest who wrote in defence of orthodoxy. His Sermons were published posthumously. Landor’s comment is evidence of the natural rhythm as well as the imagination and emotion that are characteristic of Bossuet’s style.
___________________
