4161. EBB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 25, 89–90.
[Florence]
[ca. 8 April 1858] [1]
My dearest Fanny we are barbarians & have no Boccacio, [2] nor Ariosto [3] .. (Robert declares,) though certainly I had an Ariosto of old, if the earth has opened & swallowed him– There would be little use in sending you his bad comedies I think.– [4]
Then for the book on spiritualism, I have none since Wilkinson. [5] Wilkinson was the last. Mr Kirkup lent me a French book, & Mr Jarves an American pamphlet,—but both are returned, & you were not cognizant of their being even in my possession.
I told Ferdinando to enquire if you would like a little pigeon-pie, which we had today, unseasoned. If you do, send for it–
Mr Stuart is giving some very good lectures, on wednesday & friday, at one oclock, on the influence of Italian on English poetry. Robert liked the first extremely– There are to be eight, the first having been delivered– Taken separately, the price is three pauls. Perhaps before they are over, you may care to go. I have’nt strength for it so far, however it may happen with me presently.
I do hope you are feeling stronger & more cheerful, dear Fanny– Dont wear yourself out, & poor Mr Lotti, by enforcing my sonnets—after the fashion of the torture invented by a Greek brigand (says E. About) who first pulled out the teeth of his victim & then hammered them into his skull from the outside. [6] My sonnets are hard to pull out, & blunt to drive in, be sure, & little worth the trouble either way– Which being the opinion of the author, what must the reader think?—and he a Lotti?
Dont you fancy that Wilson’s baby has had just a little touch of meazles.? Ask your doctor to say honestly–
Peni is very anxious to go to you, but I am afraid still,—having heard that the convalescence is a particularly communicating time–
Do laugh at me, do, do, dear Fanny– Robert & Isa Blagden go to Mr Stuart’s on monday evening to meet Milli, the Improvisatrice. Salvini is going to act– [7] Did you hear? Not a word of Hume– I expect everyday to hear of his being about to arrive, & revolutionize Florence.
Your ever affectionate Ba–
Address: Miss Haworth.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dating suggested by EBB’s reference to the first of Stuart’s eight lectures, which was probably delivered on 7 April.
2. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–75), author of The Decameron (1349–51).
3. Lodovico Ariosto (1474–1533), known for his epic romance poem, Orlando Furioso (1516).
4. Ariosto wrote four complete comedies: La Cassaria (1502), I Suppositi (1509), Il Negromante (1520), and La Lena (1528). A fifth play, Gli Studenti, unfinished at the time of his death, was completed by his brother as La Scoliastica (see Comparative Drama, 10, Spring 1976, 84). I Suppositi was later adapted by George Gascoigne and staged as The Supposes (1566), which in turn served as a source for Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. A copy of Ariosto’s works, Opere in verse e in prosa, ed. G.A. Barotti (4 vols., Venezia, 1741), sold as part of lot 340 in Browning Collections. EBB and RB’s names are inscribed in vols. 1 and 4; EBB’s in vols. 2 and 3 (see Reconstruction, A76).
5. Spirit Drawings: A Personal Narrative (1858); see letter 4112, note 4.
6. In Edmond About’s Le Roi des montagnes (1857), the title character, a brigand chief named Hadgi-Stavros, describes his treatment of a thief who stole 50,000 francs from him: “Je l’ai puni à la mode de Perse. Avant de le pendre, on lui a arraché toutes les dents l’une après l’autre, et on les lui a plantées à coups de marteau dans le crâne.… pour le bon exemple, vous entendez” [“I punished him in the Persian way. Before hanging him, all his teeth were pulled out, one after the other, and they were driven into his skull with a hammer.… as a good example, you understand”] (Chapter VI, “L’Évasion,” p. 196).
7. Tommaso Salvini (1829–1915), celebrated Italian actor who specialized in Shakespearean roles, began an engagement on 5 April at the Cocomero theatre in Florence with his troupe, the Drammatica Compagnia Italiana (see Monitore Toscano, 5 April 1858, p. 4).
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