2109. RB to Alfred Domett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 192–194.
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.
Sunday Night, Nov. 23. 1845.
Ah, dear Domett, how sad it is—here am I writing in reply to your last, some six or eight weeks after its receipt, and yet “availing myself of the earliest opportunity,” “not letting next post slip,” and complying with every form of good fellowship: “Mr Earp’s line” [1] goes in and out of its place in the newspapers, describing the truest zigzag, and his last packet’s departure was put off a month—as I doubt not you know to your cost, laden as it must always be with the good wishes, put into words, of everybody who knows you. Your kindest of notes I got, and, thro’ Arnould, a sight of his letter, and a bit of one as reported by C. Dowson—then all those capital “Examiners” [2] —of which more in a moment—and, last of all, I manage every now & then to waylay your Father [3] .. and if it were not for the purely selfish pleasure I confess to receiving on my part,—I would cry aloud to you for due acknowledgment of the unequivocal delight I give him in casing his love in words—we met not long ago in Regent’s Street—he, passing alone and erect and straight on like the lion he is, on his return from a call on Alexander, [4] (whose report on the state of the eyes was quite favorable, he said)—and we “had it out” to heart’s content: for—tho’ your last communications were in that desponding vein, we here, who knew of that recall of Fitzroy and the appointment of Grey, [5] saw the sun unrisen on your far side, and made sure that your position would acquire value just in consequence of and in proportion to, its present disadvantages—and that you may plainly turn the past couple of years to their legitimate profit, nor have to begin afresh this wearisome “going on adventures” to Ceylon or any such novel ground: oh, but this distance—this undoes everything—and between what we know and what it has become worth by when you know it, what a difference! Here a day or two, does so much! Chatterton can only go without food a certain number of hours, so he ends it, while at that moment some benevolent man .. see his name in Southey, [6] I think,—is actually started on his way to Bristol “to inquire into the circumstances of,—and, if necessary, assist—the author.” But do you, “dear my friend and fellow student”—bear up like the good strong man you are,—“easy of me to say!”– God bless you in any case, and whenever the whole world dies off by any chance, be sure you find your way to me, and we two will keep house in the merry grim spirit of poor Hood’s last-man-but-one & the very last—do you remember? “All the world wide, is dead beside, and we will be brother & brother”—(and if I go on and end the couplet, “I’ve a liking for thee in my heart. As if we had come of one mother,” [7] ‘it is not for the rhyme’, no! but the sober reason). [8]
I read those “leaders” with the greatest interest and satisfaction—they evidence so clearly your available talent—over above what I knew before: but now! You know best, best & best again! But, that admitted, why not have taken that happy opportunity, the offered representativeship, and gone there and “jawed” if but in John Lilburne’s method; [9] who when pilloried, or carted rather, “did justify himself to all men” [10] —whereon they gagged him and tied his hands lest he should gesticulate and explain something by that—“yet did he protest against them by a stamping with his feet”—to the no small comfort of his stout heart, I warrant. For see—out of this “stamping of the feet,” tho’ the hands were tied & the mouth stopped, came the very decided opinion here which has overset your foolish Governor. And to-day: the affair of Despard [11] —the outrageous folly of that man .. but you will see our papers for yourself, no doubt. It is most sickening to read or think of.
Let me get out of it: I have not seen Dowson very lately .. but he is well, I hear: Arnould is your heartiest of lovers and wellwishers, [12] and my admirable friend as ever, and his wife is a true piece of him– My father, mother & sister are well, and send kindest regards .. (no figure; they have just enjoined me to send them)– A glance at any side of a newspaper tells you all our book news. Herewith goes my new Bell—“wishing what I write may be read by your light”– [13] I send, too, a Review that may interest you at odd places. I saw Pritchard yesterday, full of this New Zealand news; always hoping & believing in you.
God bless you, dear Domett; write to me if but a line; as you could not help doing if you knew how it gratifies your ever affectionate
RB
Publication: RB-AD, pp. 115–120.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Advertisements for Earp’s line of packets to New Zealand appeared in The Times of 22 September, 16 October, and 22 and 24 November 1845.
2. Domett was the editor of the [New Zealand] Examiner from 1844 until 1846, and he was “practically the sole author of the petition” to recall the governor in November 1845 (A Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Wellington, 1940, p. 214).
3. See letter 1847 in which RB mentions having seen Nathaniel Domett at chapel.
4. Henry Alexander, a surgeon oculist with offices at 6 Cork Street.
5. The “leaders” RB mentions below are almost exclusively related to the recall of Robert Fitzroy as Governor of New Zealand. Fitzroy was replaced in November 1845 by George Grey (1812–98) who had been appointed the previous July. His term as Governor of New Zealand for the next eight years was noted for the return of peace and a fair balance between the white and brown races.
6. i.e., The Works of Thomas Chatterton, ed. Robert Southey and Joseph Cottle (3 vols., 1803). Actually, G. Gregory’s “The Life of Chatterton,” contained within Southey and Cottle, explains that Chatterton’s “temperance was in some cases exemplary. He seldom eat animal food, and never tasted any strong or spirituous liquors; he lived chiefly on a morsel of bread or a tart, with a draught of water” (vol. 1, p. lxxviii).
7. Thomas Hood, “The Last Man” (1826), lines 55–60.
8. Cf. As You Like It, III, 2, 399.
9. RB made similar comments about John Lilburne in a letter to Domett in July 1844; see letter 1664 and its note 16.
10. Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 26.
11. The Times for 22 November 1845 carried a detailed account of the unsuccessful attempt of British troops to attack the fortress known as Heke’s Pah during the previous July. The underestimation by Colonel Henry Despard (1785?–1859) of the abilities of the native forces resulted in the deaths of 121 of the 490 soldiers in his command.
12. Arnould makes a similar comment to Domett about RB in SD1239.
13. Cf. the preface to John Webster’s The White Divel (1612). RB used this quotation in his dedication of Bells and Pomegranates, No. VIII to Walter Savage Landor.
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