2158. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 11, 284–285.
[London]
Monday. [5 January 1846] [1]
I thank you my dear Mr Horne for your kindness in the gift of your Ballads & Romances, & for all the pleasure I have had in the work. The ‘Monk of Swineshead Abbey’ & the ‘Three Knights,’ & the unforgotten ‘Delora’ strike different keys, & are all three deep with various music. The monk is very vigorous & significant, & in the three Knights, I like your satyr who swears by his horn, & your giant who wakes “like a giant from his slumbers” & swears like the same. What I like least in the volume .. now, you know, I always persist in telling the truth, .. is the Elf-story .. though I enjoy the beginning & the end just as you would have me. But .. but .. I eschew Grandmama Grey & her nightcap & ‘the small dog’ who is not “the small boy,” entirely, for machinery: it is no right machinery for the elves, in my mind, & I say what I think. The familiar & the supernatural are brought too close together perhaps—‘shoetye & blue sky’ .. as you say in your Apocrypha– Now look at Drayton’s talk of the fairies—how pure & musical that is!– I hold that a Grandmama Grey would never have sight of a real elf, let her put on her spectacles ever so!– The opening of the poem has great beauty, & so has the close of it, as I said & must say again!– And that surprises me, that you should allow yourself to wander from the keynote after the fashion you choose.
But the monks—but the knights—oh we must all thank you for these things just as I do!–
& Ben Capstan has vigour & meaning too—only that I object a little to his Doric which is not sweet Doric, & take the liberty of thinking it unlawful.
Scotch is lawful–
But I shd object to Zummezetshire! I, for one!–
And I shd object to Cockneyism á fortiori. [2]
Wrong perhaps!—but I tell you the truth.
And so, you go to Ireland, to wrestle with the one man there! [3] —or to patronize him peradventure. Do you go directly, & is it a prospect which pleases you?– I wish you the most satisfying of successes in the dirt of politics, & hands still white for the Muses.
May God bless you for this year & other years!– Success to this book, especially!–
If you could see what a tangle my thoughts are in, you would smile!
Ever most truly & gratefully
your friend
Elizabeth B Barrett.
What a beautiful image that is in illustration of the transiency of life ..
‘—the shadow of the windmill sails
Across yon slope of sunny green’ [4]
It strikes me much.
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 179–182.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. Dated by letter 2156, in which Ballad Romances is discussed at length.
2. The reviewer in The Athenæum for 14 February 1846 (no. 955), citing examples of “Mr. Horne’s false rhymes,” said “these are only miserable cockneyisms, which the tyro of verse every day commits from inexperience and incapacity” (p. 169).
3. Perhaps an allusion to Daniel O’Connell.
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