426. EBB to Frances Steers [1]
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 323.
Hope End
Wednesday Morng. [17 August 1831] [2]
My dear Madam,
I return you the books—you will say at last; & I will say with a great many thanks—which you were kind enough to lend me. The Messeniennes [3] are animated & vigorous, & full of high & ardent feeling: but in spite of every thing I could not call their writer a great poet,—and even if I were to call him “a real poet”, I should not feel quite safe. But, you know, I am not Voltaire judging Shakespeare [4] —I may be wrong!!! Will you trust me with Keats?–
Miss Clarke & my sister desire their best compliments to you. Believe me,
Yours sincerely.
E B Barrett
Address, on integral page: Miss Steers.
Publication: None traced.
Source: Transcript in editors’ file.
1. Frances Steers (1797-1860), of Well House, Malvern Wells. In a letter to Robert Browning, 7 April 1889, George Moulton-Barrett wrote: “With this I send, what seems to me a pretty drawing of Hope End. It was executed by a Miss Steers, who … was an artist at Malvern & gave lessons to my sister Henrietta in music & drawing.”
Miss Steers later became a member of the New Water-colour Society (subsequently the Royal Institute) and 59 of her works were exhibited there between 1846 and 1860.
2. Dated by Diary, pp. 92–93, entry for 17 August.
3. Casimir Jean François Delavigne, Trois Messéniennes. Elégies sur les Malheurs de la France (1818).
4. It is not possible to guess which of Voltaire’s several critical comments on Shakespeare EBB had in mind. They included such disparagements as: “Shakespeare is a savage with flashes of genius that shine out in a hideous night” and “the genius of Corneille was to that of Shakespeare as a nobleman is with regard to a man of the people” (Œuvres de Voltaire, 1831, IX, 472 and VII, 549 respectively).
___________________
