3785. RB to John Chapman
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 22, 219–220.
Paris– 3 Rue du Colisée,
May 18. ’56.
My dear Sir,
Your kindness, I know, will allow me to deliver a message I am charged with– Madame Blaze de Bury, of this place, an acquaintance of ours, and I dare say well known to yourself by her literary reputation, wants very much to write an article for the “Westminster” on “Les Contemplations” of V. Hugo and Lamartine’s poetry in general—so I understand her. [1] She is a practised “hand,” the fingers of which have been in the “Edinburgh,” you may remember perhaps, in a paper on “Villemain” [2] —& others. I am told she writes cleverly & popularly, all which is particularly out of my own “beat” but not, so necessarily away from yours! So I have done as I promised,—and do you, please, do as I promised her for you, say “yes” or “no” just as if she had applied to you point-blank,—the better way. I dare say she writes lively, readable articles,—and everybody does not do that, you’ll agree with me.
Believe me,
My dear Sir,
Yours very sincerely ever,
Robert Browning
My wife would be particularly glad to know how Miss Martineau is.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. We have been unable to trace such an article by Mme. Blaze de Bury. However, she may have written a brief review of Victor Hugo’s Les Contemplations (1856) that appeared in the July 1856 issue of The Westminster Review (pp. 262–264). Although it is unsigned and not attributed to her in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals, RB suggests in letter 3793 that she submit a short article for the July issue.
2. A review of Abel-François Villemain’s Souvenirs Contemporains d’Histoire et de Littérature (1854–55) was published in The Edinburgh Review of July 1855 (pp. 60–87). Mme. Blaze de Bury is identified as the reviewer in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals.
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