4563. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 117–119.
[Rome]
[1 January 1860] [1]
Dearest Isa, Robert says there’s no room for me, but there shall be—just to say on this first of the year, may God bless you through & beyond it.
I dont like Mrs Trollope’s article in the Atheneum arrived yesterday– She does not make the part of dignity to the Italians– They only want a ‘pat on the head’ from England, do they? That’s a womanish way of talking, & moreover does not represent the situation. [2] I have just finished a poem, called Italy & the world, [3] in which I have given my Tuscans a nobler character. Then the injustice! And the absurdity of exaggerating the religious movement, just for the sake of flattering Exeter Hall– [4] Oh—the Zouaves have done nothing, have they? Its a religious movement chiefly– [5]
Now I honor the truth, even when the truth does not seem to me of a special utility.
Also I think its unworthy to flatter England as Mrs T does in her articles.
The Emperor has risked everything for Italy .. dynasty, popularity, the peace of France– Even the English diplomates here see it & know it now– It is said there can be no Congress, because of results being seen so plainly by the enemies. The P. government is in the last despair. LN. is abused at the Vatican like a .. brigand, I was going to say, but brigands are in comparative favor– Out of the Emperor’s private income, arms were provided for Romagna, & Perugia corn [6] —& if there had been Congress England & France would have moved together step by step. I wish I could give you the facts as I know them, but Robert always swears me to secresy when he tells me anything– Odo Russell’s conclusion however resumes all– “LN has acted throughout like an Italian rather than a Frenchman”. That is, there has been no drawback in favor of French interests.– Robert dined at Mr Cartwright’s two days ago with the Neapolitan & Portuguese ministers, the Russells, Pantaleone, & Demidoff’s brother. [7] Yesterday, last night rather, he was at the Macphersons. Hatty is better & is to come to us tonight with the Cushmans– [8] The weather is beautiful– Make up your mind & come– And meantime write, write– The two swords prepared as gifts from the Roman people to VE & LN are shown at Castellani’s & are miracles of art– [9] The R government declares the presentation of them an act of treason, so that there is a difficulty about getting them away– [10] May God bless & love you dearest dear Isa prays
your loving Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 271–272.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. This letter accompanied letter 4562.
2. In her article in The Athenæum for 24 December 1859 (no. 1678, pp. 852–853), Theodosia Trollope wrote: “And what is to become of all this striving after a wiser and nobler form of political and social existence. … Must it all be trampled out and cloaked over with the show of a general amnesty, and a promise ‘to say no more about it’ for the present? Surely not, while England takes our part, and pats us on the head, bidding us not be scared at the frightful faces which Antonelli is making at us from behind the feather fans” (p. 853).
3. “Italy and the World,” published in Poems Before Congress (1860).
4. Mrs. Trollope’s Athenæum article begins: “One of the most fruitful sources of that strong sympathy which is just now manifested by all classes in England for the fortunes of Central Italy, is the newly proclaimed liberty of conscience, which has been so eagerly received by the daily-increasing congregation of the Italian Evangelical Church, both here and in the Romagna” (p. 852).
5. Mrs. Trollope continues: “The spread of its [the Italian Evangelical Church’s] doctrines has, of course, occasioned paroxysms of impotent rage among the ‘blacks,’ as the Jesuit party are familiarly called; and they leave no stone unturned … to throw disrepute on the peaceful opponents whose antagonism, they instinctively feel, will work them more ultimate woe than Zouave bayonets and rifled cannon” (p. 852).
6. Unconfirmed.
8. Charlotte Cushman and her nephew Edwin Charles Cushman (né Merriman, 1838–1909). Edwin, the son of Charlotte’s sister, Susan, was staying with his aunt, who had adopted him in 1851. He was U.S. consul in Rome from 1865 to 1869.
9. These gold presentation swords were made for Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III by Castellani (see letter 3717, note 15). Designed by Michelangelo Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta (1804–82), the swords were financed via subscriptions to which thousands of Romans contributed (see Geoffrey C. Munn, Castellani and Giuliano: Revivalist Jewellers of the Nineteenth Century, 1984, p. 38).
10. In a dispatch of 28 December 1859 to Lord John Russell (British foreign secretary), Odo Russell commented on the swords: “They are now completed … and Prince Gabrieli, who is connected by family ties with the Bonapartes, has been chosen to convey them to Paris and Turin and to present them to their majesties in the name of the people of Rome. Before starting, Prince Gabrieli, having applied for his passports, thought it best to adopt the most open course and called on the Cardinal Secretary of State to communicate the object of his journey. Cardinal Antonelli, however, refused the passports, declaring in the name of the government that the presentation of these swords by the subjects of the Pope would be considered as a hostile demonstration by His Holiness” (The Roman Question, ed. Noel Blakiston, 1962, p. 72). According to W.C. Cartwright, the swords were to leave Rome on 12 January in the possession of Angelo Gavotti Verospi (1835–1916); see Cartwright’s journal, 11 January 1860, ms at Northamptonshire.
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