2835. RB to Henry Fothergill Chorley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 16, 72–75.
Florence,
March 11, ’50.
My dear Chorley. I think I will transcribe what my sister writes in her last letter. “I see by the “Athenæum” that <Mr> Chorley has had a play produced at the “Surrey,” and that it was very successful. [1] I heartily rejoice at it, for I never for<get> his kindness & consideration when yours came out, [2] and the pleasure he gave (us) for which may his own be played six nights <a> week during the next fifty years—pray I! If it is published, I will buy it—wonderful patronage!—but all in my poor power. I felt half inclined to write & congratulate him, but did not “like,” as the children say,—beside I never heard a syllable of the matter till I read it in the “Athenæum,” a week after the event—but you will write, I am sure.” All that (for it is something—from her, in her way of life & feeling now)—all that, from your old friendship to me,—so what should I do or say? I could not bring myself to write the very moment I heard of the success—(by the newspapers)—because I hoped & believed I should get better evidence by waiting—and so I have. I see the run of the play, [3] and discriminating criticisms, and extracts which are surest of all: so I neither wish you, nor give you joy, as the phrase is, but take & sympathize with your joy, which is better. I know you wished this particular kind of success, did you not? Indeed, of the other you were always sure: and I am quite certain that every atom of it is genuine and unpurchased by the derogations & contrivances generally supposed indispensable. Well now!– Is not the spell broken? You have talked of your “old luck” before now—and, though I will not undertake to say what amount of good fortune you have a right to expect before you account it good indeed,—still, any way you will,—this is, & must be, good fortune, and the like shall presumably follow. I was sharper eyed than my sister—detected the play’s announcement—reported the same, to my wife’s great pleasure—waylaid the papers,—read in the D. News the good, assuring notice, [4] and ran home at once with the intelligence. Take both of our warmest congratulations. I wish I had been at hand to see for myself and .. who shall say? .. even help a little .. that was your part to me,—but keep the better luck there, also! (You remember your note was the news itself to me .. not mere sympathy, like this .. for not a newspaper next day contained a word about it.) I also consider your success to be the more complete that you can have had no tolerably-prepared & instructed audience at the “Surrey” [5] —they must be very rough yet—all the better, for when you take the same play elsewhere its attractiveness will assuredly be doubled & tripled. Will you write, yourself, and tell us how it all was, and if you have yet what you wanted, and all about it?—secure of affectionate well-wishing on the future as of rejoicing in the past.
I have very little of my own news to tell you: I sent off two days ago the second half of a poem I have been writing since November [6] —the first part preceding it by a week: I wanted to begin again with as much effect as might be attainable—and the fancy occurred of writing a Christmas Story in verse—but it grew in the doing and I could not send it off in time– I then thought of Easter as next season—and finding that my poem would suffer by any change for the purpose of adapting it to the latter festival, I wrote another as supplement or complement, and the two make what I suppose you will soon see now. I make no doubt I shall give many well-meaning people offence .. such have a knack of being sure that everybody else is ill-meaning—but I care rather less than usual about that, perhaps from being rather more than usual certain of my own purpose and feeling. In any case, I have no inclination to do anything more in this way, let it please or not please. I hope to be able for sometime to come to write regularly now, and so “fulfil my destiny,” as they say, for good or bad—& this is the beginning. Forster, to whom I applied in the first instance for an opinion of the thing’s feasibleness, answered very promptly & kindly, and will manage the business. You know that my wife’s new edition is in hand by this—there are very many new poems,—and not the worst of the collection.
How are you—in health & spirits? And your family,—in a condition to enjoy your success, I hope– And your plans for the summer,—for you have forethought in those matters! (NB) Should you be bent on seeing the Church in the Square of the Town of San Felice, where Sig Filippo Brunelleschi gave such inordinate satisfaction of old by his machineries .. see last Athenæum but one or two, [7] .. come straight to us, who lie alongside the church, & at corner of the square!) Ourselves may go to England, after all,—some imprudent walking having caused an illness [8] (which ended, together with the obstacle to which your letter alludes.) But there are plenty of difficulties in the way, as it is. Florence is very empty of English & full of the hateful white & blue [9] —the weather is magnificent,—I don’t think we have had a shower since the end of January,—the sun & warmth compensate everything. My wife is quite well now and able to profit by all this. Her warmest congratulations have gone along with mine in all written above,—as now her kindest regards mix themselves with those of, Dear Chorley,
Yours ever affectionately,
R Browning.
Will you give my love to dear Arnould & his wife; I will write to them by next letter: the quantity of mere scribe work that I have had to do while this poem was in hand, quite tired & incapacitated me p<icking> the pen up again when once let fall. They will understand & forgive, as their way is.
Address, on integral page: H. C. [sic] Chorley Esq. / Victoria Square.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. In a review of the first performance of Old Love and New Fortune in The Athenæum of 23 February 1850, John Westland Marston observed that Chorley’s play “was successfully produced on Monday [18 February]. … The piece is written with remarkable care and point, and at times the dialogue rises into poetic fervour” (no. 1165, p. 211). Marston is given as the reviewer in the marked file copy of The Athenæum now at City University (London).
2. A reference to Chorley’s letter of congratulation on the revival of A Blot in the ’Scutcheon. See letter 2760.
3. There were ten performances of Old Love and New Fortune between 18 February and 7 March 1850.
4. A positive review of Chorley’s play appeared in the 19 February 1850 issue of The Daily News, p. 7.
5. The reviewer in The Times of 20 February 1850 remarked that the Surrey’s staging of Old Love and New Fortune was “a new indication of an attempt to elevate the amusements of a populous neighbourhood, hitherto for the most part dieted with coarser food” (p. 8).
6. Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day.
7. A review of Peter Cunningham’s, Inigo Jones: A Life of the Architect (1848) in The Athenæum of 23 February 1850 refers to Jones’s designs for masques and pageants, and explains that “many of these brilliant innovations on previous dramatic practice were derived straightway from Italy.” The review goes on to mention “the early celebrity of Brunelleschi’s vivid representation of all the glories of the Annunciation, annually enacted during the early part of the fourteenth century in the great square of the town of Santo Felice” (no. 1165, p. 202).
8. EBB’s most recent miscarriage; see the beginning of letter 2836.
9. The colours of the Austrians’ uniforms.
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