4648. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 275–277.
28. Via del Tritone.
Monday—& Tuesday. [16–17 April 1860] [1]
Ever dearest Isa, I send you under this enclosure an abstract of some papers given to me by somebody who cant be named, with a sketch of Antonelli. [2] I was’nt allowed to copy: I was only to abstract. But everything is in– The whole has been verified & may be absolutely relied on I hear. So long I have waited for them– Should I have translated them into Italian, I wonder? Or can Dall’Ongaro get to the bottom of them so? Dates of birth are not mentioned, I observe– From another quarter, I may get those. About has the character of romancing a little– [3]
Not a word do you say of your health. Do, another time. Remember that your previous letter left you in bed.
Dearest Isa, how it touched me, your putting away the Saturday Review– [4] But dear, dont care more for me than I do for myself– That very Review, lent to us, we lent to the Storys– Dear, the abuse of the press is the justification of the poems, so dont be reserved [sic] about these attacks. I was a little, little vexed by a letter this morning from my brother George [5] —but pazienza—we must bear these things. Robert called yesterday on Odo Russell, who observed to him that the article in the Saturday Review was infamous, & that the general tone of the newspaper had grown to be so offensive he should cease to take it in– (Not on my account, observe.) “But”, said Mr Russell, “its extraordinary, the sensation your wife’s book has made. Every paper I see has something to say about it”– Added he, “It is curious– The offence has been less in the objections to England than in the praise of Napoleon– Certainly Monkton Milnes said a good thing when he was asked lately in Paris, what, after all, the English wanted. “We want[”] he answered, “first, that the Austrians should beat you French thoroughly, next we want that the Italians should be free, and then we want them to be very grateful to us for doing nothing towards it.” “This,” concluded Russell, “sums up the whole question.” Mark, he is very English—but he cant help seeing what lies before him, having quick perceptions moreover. Then men have no courage. Milnes, for instance, keeps his sarcasm for Paris, & in England supports his rifle-club & all parliamentary decencies.
Mind you read Blackwood & tell me of anything particularly bad elsewhere– Though I was rather vexed by George’s letter (he is awfully vexed) I could’nt help laughing at my sister Henrietta who accepts the interpretation of the Athenæum, (having read the poems) & exclaims, “But, oh Ba, such dreadful curses!” Would’nt you suppose that I had been D .. g the Is of everybody belonging to my beloved country.
Mrs Apthorp has arrived but I have not seen her nor received the paper. Pins were right—though I should have liked some smaller. Monitores arrived up to the 12– Beyond, nothing– I hear that Mr Apthorp was struck with the “brilliant conversation between you & Miss Cobbe.” You made an impression to[o] on Mrs Apthorp.
Oh Isa—how I should like to be with you in our Florence today– [6] Yes yes, I think of you– Here the day is gloomy,—& with a sprinkling now & then of rain. I trust you may have more sun. God bless the city & the hills, & the people who dwell therein–
I have just sent a lyric to Thackeray for his magazine. He begged me for something long ago. Robert suggested .. that now he probably wanted nothing from such profane hands– So I told him that, in that case, he might send me back my mss. In the more favorable case it may be still too late for this month– The poem is “meek as maid” [7] though the last thing I wrote—no touch of “Deborah” [8] —“A Musical Instrument.” [9] How good this Cornhill magazine is. Anthony Trollope is really superb. [10] I only just got leave from Robert to send something: he is so averse to the periodicals as mediums–
Which reminds me that I have two numbers of the Spiritual Magazine– Hume is in great force, it seems, in London– [11]
There is news, Miss Cushman tells me, of Hatty’s father who is better, but never likely to recover his mind– I was inferring from that, the difficulty or impossibility she wd feel in leaving him—when Miss Cushman told me that Hatty was prepared for any eventuality of the sort & had determined to be in Rome next winter at whatever cost. Miss Cushman had said to her .. “Now consider possible circumstances, Hatty– Could anything keep you from returning next winter?” She answered, “I know what you mean. Nothing [12] can keep me from returning.” [13]
Her sketch of her monument [14] was sent to America on a wooden roll by “the Hungarian”—the ship which went down, every soul perishing [15] —sent in the post-bag– Bags recovered, & sketch found! Miss Cushman mentioned it as a proof of her wonderful good-fortune.
The voyage to America may have an excellent effect on her health, which has not been strong this winter.
Lamoricière’s arrival produces a painful sensation among the people here: & the withdrawal of the French troops has become most unpopular. I am anxious– If the emperor has consented to his coming, it was pure magnanimity, & very characteristic—but the cost of this should be paid by France & not Italy, we must feel besides. I am content about Savoy.
Dearest Isa, you and your Saturday Reviewer [16] shall have Robert’s portrait. [17] Are you sure he did’nt ask for mine? How good you are to us & Landor! God bless you says your tenderly loving
Ba–
Publication: B-IB, pp. 327–330.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s remark that she has “just sent a lyric to Thackeray” (see letter 4646).
2. EBB’s source was most probably Odo Russell. In a lengthy dispatch to his uncle Lord John Russell, dated 7 January 1860, he included a biographical sketch that described Cardinal Antonelli’s origins and traced his rise to power. According to Russell, the cardinal had been “the object of general, bitter and unceasing hatred” since being made the Vatican’s secretary of state in 1852: “His youth irritates the venerable members of the Sacred College, his low origin annoys the patrician families, his firmness exasperates the liberal party, his commanding position excites the envy of all” (The Roman Question, ed. Noel Blakiston, 1962, p. 79).
3. The chapter in About’s La Question Romaine entitled “Antonelli” opens: “He was born in a den of thieves” (The Roman Question, trans. H.C. Coape, 1859, p. 133).
4. See letter 4645, note 4.
5. To which EBB responds in letter 4651.
6. On 16 April 1860, King Victor Emmanuel II, along with Cavour and a large contingent of parliament members, entered Florence to help celebrate Piedmont’s annexation of Tuscany.
7. Cf. Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, Prologue, line 69.
8. An allusion to the “Song of Deborah” as recorded in Judges 5:2–31. The song celebrates Deborah’s leading the Israelites to victory over the Canaanites.
9. See letter 4646, note 4.
10. EBB refers to Framley Parsonage (1861), serialized in The Cornhill Magazine from January 1860 to April 1861.
11. In the February issue of The Spiritual Magazine, a letter to the editor, dated “January, 1860,” noted the following: “While in London he [Home] has had interviews with several of our most distinguished literary and political citizens and statesmen” (p. 89).
12. Underscored three times.
13. Harriet Hosmer returned to Rome in November 1860.
14. The family cemetery monument that Miss Hosmer designed for Wayman Crow (see letter 4536, note 21).
15. The Times of 5 March 1860 carried the following item: “The steamer Hungarian was totally lost on the morning of the 20th [of February], off [Cape] Sable Island” (p. 9).
16. Charles Synge Christopher Bowen (1835–94), son of Christopher Bowen, of County Mayo, was educated at schools in Lille and Blackheath before going to Rugby and Oxford. A regular contributor to The Saturday Review from 1859 through 1861, he had recently spent three weeks in Florence, as indicated in letter 4651. In January 1861 Bowen was called to the bar and began a successful career in law that in 1893 culminated in his being “appointed a lord of appeal in ordinary, receiving at the same time a life-peerage” (DNB).
17. Presumably the photograph taken by the Alessandri brothers earlier in the year (see letter 4571, note 6).
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