4623. Walter Savage Landor to RB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 222–223.
[Florence]
[Postmark: 17 March 1860]
Dear Browning, When I was about in a summary way a quantity of loose papers, it astonisht me to find a score or more of Epigrams. These I have been busy in collecting and transcribing. It is not very improbable that toward the close of this century or soon after, my Poems will be collected in four or five volumes, and divided according to their materials.
Gebir is an epic. [1]
There are tragic Scenes I forget how many–
There are Epistles—nor did I remember how many of these.
There are Pastorals, or something like–
There are Tales
There are Epigrams–
These last are only better than Göethes, which are more like conundrums. I hate metaphysics worse than physic—and he is more of a metaphysician than a poet. This will be found out when the Germans are sober. Schlegel, his friend, seems to have thought so.
I have 5 new Hellenics. 1 Niobe. 2 Theseus & Hippolyta
3 Homer & Laertes in the morning [2]
4. Sappho and the Rivals [3]
5. Trial of Æskylos– In my first conversation of Homer & Laertes I was cautious ne quid nimis, [4] because Homer had come weary. Yet I fancied I could properly add a little. In the second the conversation is more interesting and much longer. Never have I written anything which more satisfied me. —You have been rather too indulgent. Here are a few more thoughts on Schlegel. [5] —[If] Mr Field[s] would hazard the publication of my Latin, I will send it to him, together with the pieces of english (and others) beside what you took the trouble to transcribe. These united will form something of a small volume.
First part
Niobe.
Theseus and Hippolyta
Homer and Laertes
Sappho and the Rivals
The Trial of Aeschylos—24. P.P. [6]
Second Part
Diana de Poitiers
To Arndt [7]
On Schlegel
To Italy
Orsini’s last Thoughts
Ingratitude. [8] —28. PP.
Third Part
Varieties—24. PP
Latin 20 P.P.
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My Defence 8. PP
Submit, the consideration of this matter to Mr Field– If he approves of it, may not be well to insert the first Interview of Homer and Laertes before the second. This will add three more pages. I hear good accounts of you all, which you may be sure is the highest pleasure of W. S. L
Address: Robert Browning Esq / 1mo Piano 28 Via del Tritone / Roma.
Publication: BBIS-5, pp. 60–61 (without assigned date).
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
1. Gebir (1798), an epic poem in seven books.
4. “Nothing in excess” (Terence, The Woman of Andros, I, 61, trans. John Barsby).
6. All of these pieces appeared in Heroic Idyls (1863); those listed under “Second Part” did not.
7. i.e., “On the death of Ernst Moritz Arndt”; see the enclosure with letter 4604.
8. Described by R.H. Super as “a long poem” that “reiterated his [Landor’s] complaints against his son” and that concluded with a “comparison of himself to Lear” (Walter Savage Landor: A Biography, New York, 1954, p. 472).
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