4525. RB to Henry Fothergill Chorley
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 43–45.
[Florence]
[25 November 1859] [1]
You will have read my wife’s letter, dear Chorley: I know she feels as grateful & honored as she tries to say: & you must understand that I take that feeling of hers, and add others of my own to it: thank you most truly. I agree, too, in the main with her estimate of the book, tho’ I should be inclined to dwell more on the artistic merits (great they are) of the characters, and agree to take more for granted in the pre-supposing a sufficient cause for action of some sort, of which you, in the present case, only choose to consider the irregular and blameable examples. Still I wish you had given satisfaction on this point to everybody by a paragraph—no longer, of necessity, than a pregnant one I admired in “Pomfret” [2] which disposed of the previous question of the right or wrong doctrine, and then explained that the story would only deal with conscientiousness and its results, upon any conviction whatever so long as it was honest. After that admission in this case—of the existence of a great cause requiring great sacrifices, I should go on to enjoy the portraiture of the false, cowardly or foolish instruments, self-elected or ill selected, just as one enjoys the castigation of Sir Samuel Luke, “that Mameluke,” [3] and does not cry out against the outrage to Milton or Vane. [4]
I don’t think it would be hard to prove this by accepting for a moment all your characters as samples of the whole body of professing patriotism, abolishing them accordingly with hearty good will, and then beginning over again by dropping you into the middle of an Italian province, suffering as you would see, and bidding you, supposed an Italian born, set about remedying what you saw as your conscience should instigate and with the best means your intelligence could suggest. Here is on the table, for instance, an extract from the documents now publishing at Bologna in exemplification of the Pope[’]s rule in Romagna: the first three letters, declaring the simple state of things,—written by those who, having caused it are most interested in understanding it,—say—that of Cardinal Massimo, [5] the Legate of Ravenna, “that tolti i vecchi, le donne, e i fanciulli, il resto della popolazione dai 18 anni in sopra, meno pochissimi spauriti legittimisti, è tutta per massima ostile al Governo,” [6] —for which state of things he simply recommends “polizia vigile,—giustizia esecutiva, rapida,—armata sicura.” [7] The letter of the governor of Rome, Marini (now Cardinal) [8] replies to this that “il quadro nero di quella provincia è pur troppo naturale, per le precedenti cospiranti notizie e per la perspicacia del descrittore.” [9] And the last letter is from Antonelli himself complaining bitterly that after a month’s quiet occupation of Bologna by the Austrians, only one citizen had as yet “fatto atto di ossiquio a Sua Santità” [10] by a letter to the Pope at Portici. Here you have the universal grievance,—protest against it in any degree, take the poorest means to make your protest effective and help the whole population to a voice if not a blow—& you begin Roccabellaism—better than he, because you are better in head & heart: but when he, or the like of him, begin to imitate you badly, and the rest to simulate you both for worse purposes—all I ask is, don’t let yourself be blamed, don’t condemn all heroes because they breed faquins [11] —even these last do call attention to the corrupt carcass, tho’ they feed on the same, and because of all the last ten years Roccabellaism comes this day of the congress’s judgment, at worst—as a continuance & extension of the present state of things which would be best of all. Archbishop Cullen [12] gets up and declares that the Pope’s subjects love him of all loves, and that nobody but Sir Eardley Wilmot [13] says otherwise; and what would disprove this were the Roccabellas silent this ten years? Even loud talking pulls down a snow-mountain on people’s heads, in default of more active measures; and, somehow or other, it does seem rolling down at last—God speed it!
I hope you will write another novel and manage it more dexterously than the booksellers seem to have done in this case: I never see you advertised nor, consequently, (I suppose) noticed: and your book just wants that only to succeed. What a notice was that in the “Athenæum”: [14] your self-abnegation is wrong in the very interests of the journal—for if a writer, doing deliberately his best, deserves such a comment & no more,—what would his weekly thoughts & fancies deserve in the way of paragraph-room. I expect you will analyse a brace of novels, at adequate length, for many a week to come before you stop the way with somebody else’s “Roccabella”! These are poorer considerations to you, however, than to your friends. And we two, here, are; as of old, your fast friends, dear Chorley: I have got stiff at a distance with daily nothings to do & chronicle (in head, at least) & my words do not fly out as promptly as I could wish, & as once may have been the case; but I know what I know, & remember all your kindness to us both. You are often in our mouths, generally in our thoughts, always in our hearts. God bless you– Yours affectionately ever, R Browning
Publication: LRB, pp. 55–57 (as 1860).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library, Gordon N. Ray Bequest.
1. This letter was sent with letter 4524.
2. In the novel Pomfret; or, Public Opinion and Private Judgement (1845), Chorley’s hero, Charles Pomfret, confides to his daughter, Grace, that he must in conscience give up his living as a clergyman in the Church of England because he no longer subscribes to all the articles of faith. He does not tell Grace where he differs; nor does she inquire. But “P. Gray,” the presumed author/narrator, interrupts the family chronicle with an apologia for not naming his cousin Pomfret’s heresy: “[Here the author is prepared to apologize to all such readers as are desirous of a fuller report of the conversation, and of knowing the particular grounds upon which my Cousin Pomfret had become of late so heterodox. The curiosity which tendeth to controversy, merely, I am not prepared to encourage. This narrative will be unpopular enough as it stands:—many, like Harriet’s husband, my brother-in-law, sincerely maintaining that, without some grievous mental disease, such a state of things as a voluntary renunciation of the comforts and privileges of the Establishment is impossible. What were the use, then, to recapitulate prayers, the efficacy or the manner of which would be disputed as a necessity? to particularize trains of inquiry to those with whom inquiry is in itself a thing to be suspected as an idle use of human conceit and wisdom? And for one body of Christians I could propitiate, several would be affronted by the report, were it offered: some, because the doubter had not joined them; more, because he seemed to tend towards the heresy they held in peculiar disfavour … ]” (I, 131–133).
3. It was assumed that Samuel Butler’s protagonist of the mock heroic Hudibras (1663–78) was a thinly-disguised portrait of Sir Samuel Luke, a magistrate whom Butler had served as clerk. Luke, a colonel with Oliver Cromwell, was said to be a wealthy braggart and a zealous puritan, who swore never to cut his beard until England was free of bishops and kings. One of Butler’s rhymes plays on Luke’s name: “’Tis sung, There is a valiant Mamaluke / In foreign Land, y’cleped ___ / To whom we have been oft compar’d, / For Person, Parts, Address, and Beard” (I, 1, 903–906).
4. Sir Henry Vane (1613–62), Puritan statesman, colonial governor in America, and Parliamentarian. He was executed for high treason after the Restoration.
5. Francesco Saverio Massimo (1806–48), created cardinal in 1838 and appointed head of the legation at Ravenna in 1843.
6. “Apart from the old, the women and the children, the rest of the people, 18 years old up, except for very few frightened legitimists, are mostly against the government.”
7. “Vigilant police—fast, armed & safe executive justice.”
8. Pietro Marini (1794–1863) was appointed governor of Rome in 1845 and created cardinal the following year.
9. “The black picture of that province is unfortunately natural, because of the previous conspiracy news and of the perspicacity of the describer.”
10. “Having paid homage to His Holiness.”
11. “Rogues.”
12. Paul Cullen (1803–78), Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, became the first Irish cardinal in 1866. On 5 November, addressing his fellow clergymen on the subject of Protestant interference among Catholics in Italy and its consequences for Pius IX, he stated: “What shall I say of the love and affection which are every day manifested towards the Pope by all Christian nations. … Never was there a Pope so much loved and respected by all as his Holiness Pius IX” (The Times, 7 November 1859, p. 6).
13. RB probably has in mind Culling Eardley Eardley (1805–63), 3rd baronet, wealthy advocate of religious freedom. He had lately been in the news in his role as vice-chairman of the Mortara Committee (see for example The Times, 8 November 1859, p. 10), which presented a signed formal protest to Lord John Russell condemning the Pope’s actions in the Mortara case (see letter 4305, note 6). John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot (1783–1847), 1st baronet, had served as lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). His son, also John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot (1810–92), 2nd baronet, was at this time a “judge of the county court at Bristol” (ODNB).
14. In the issue of 24 September 1859 (see letter 4512, note 2).
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