4854. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 32–36.
—Rome 126 Via Felice.
Friday. [22 March 1861] [1]
Be careful about what I told you of M– [2] I am a little late, dearest Isa, with my prudence, but better late than [n]ever,—for I would rather that M.’s coming here should not be mentioned in public– Get into the papers– P– [3] was astonished to hear of it, & observed that it could not be without permission. Yet the pope’s allocution does not suggest any compromise—far from it,—the church cant get on with modern civilization, he frankly says,—which really is a tragical statement for the church. [4] By the way, I read every word of this allocution out of the Giornale di Roma, [5] in its undiluted Latin last night after going to bed,—& when the pure absurdity & madness of it had given me sufficient satisfaction to produce a glow of healthy good humour, I could feel (dramatically, from the papal stand-point) a sort of effective & majestic pathos in certain passages towards the close– “He forgives as the Christ did, those who know not what they do, [6] .. but let men remember that it was precisely after those words of pardon, that the miraculous darkness fell, the ground was rent, & there was a great earthquake–”
Something really fine about that, .. is there not? Not perhaps as I say it—for the paper has gone away– The poor old Pope howls in the storm like an ecclesiastical Lear!—and if he does really take himself to be, besides, the representative of Jesus Christ, no wonder that he only howls & does not yield.
Mr Pentland [7] (who had to do with Murray, & was so much with the P. of Wales) has just arrived from Paris, & Robert spoke with him yesterday– Robert came home quite excited about the Emperor .. & you know Robert is’nt a Ba on that subject. The madness & fury in Paris are said to be indescribable. Guizot corrected with his own hand that discourse of Keller [8] naming Orsini– Guizot’s daughter went about collecting subscription’s for the Q. of Naples’ casket. [9] The coalition of parties lifts the mask—& the rage of despair produces an audible gnashing of teeth against the Napoleon policy. Now or never, seems the idea among these haters. Mr Pentland says that there is positive danger of N.’s being assassinated by some fanatics,—but that being as “brave as a lion, he is resolute to carry his point.” “He has the army with him & nearly the whole population” .. says Pentland, .. “with the exception of Bretagne & certain priest-ridden districts”– Prince Napoleon’s speech, he says, was approved before hand by the emperor, who knew precisely what line was to be taken in it. Pentland heard that from Persigny. Observe, this man, Pentland, rubs up a good deal against the social sommités, [10] & certainly has means of knowing. He seemed to think that Napoleon could command the situation, but that there was danger. Think of Robert’s ending his relation to me of all this by adding, “I feel as if I could die for him, Ba.” It’s worse than a poem before Congress .. is’nt it? And this in spite of Cartwright!
Still, you know, it was only a moment’s flash. We dont act on such things .. happily.
But it struck Robert as great (which it is) this position of a powerful ruler at bay, struggling, not for his power, but for the right of using it in the cause of another nation.
Then I think, the attacks on England of his enemies, have done him good with Robert–
Dont write of this however—for things shift so.
I felt impelled to tell you what has pleased me .. and what is likely to hasten the crisis–
The Cartwright influence remains towards despondency—. Poor Mr C. has been extremely ill, & is only now beginning to be strong enough to move towards England.
I cant tell you how sorry I am to hear of dear Sophia Cottrells eyes. I do wish she had had Zanetti before—but we may hope now for a cure– Give her my affectionate love.
As to you, my Isa, you wont condescend to mention yourself– I shall miss you one fine morning, & hear of you at .... Chicago!!! [11] —& not a word of notice to a Ba– Dearest Isa, say how you are–
Hughes, the pre-Raffaelite, has painted a picture of “Aurora in the Garden” for Miss Heaton, .. & is about to paint a companion one from the ‘Court-Lady’ ..
“He was a Piedmontese, & this is the court of the King–” selected by Ruskin. [12] Which pleases me extremely, for the sake of the association with Italy.
I should very much like an Italian translation of all my Italian lyrics .. (I have more than as many again of the Congress Poems) if I knew any one who would undertake it– I would not mind preparing a prose translation myself for the use of a competent Italian poet– But you see, it must be a real poet—& the real poets naturally have better work on their hands than this. Perhaps its vain of me to dream of it at all,—yet there’s more love than vanity in me, as you know, .. & I never thought of wanting my other poems translated—not I––though I heard the other day of somebody’s talking about a translation into Italian of a great Eastern work. You understand? [13]
I should’nt at all wonder if Mr Landor threw up Wilson, & took rooms in the Piazza dell’Independenza, when Kate goes. [14] Such a letter of complaint he sent to Robert the other day .. all about mutton & calves head, but with a plain yearning of the eyes after Kate– [15] By the way, not for a whole course of Latin literature, would I accept a course of Landorism. She is brave, tell her with my love. And so clever, he says .. ‘capace’ [16] of nouns & verbs in such a supernaturally short time!–
I think Mr Anthony Trollope was imprudent with regard to Mrs Trollope’s book. [17] He should certainly & before all things have accepted & pocketed on the spot, the fifty pounds– Ah—his own brilliant fortunes have made him credulous in publishers– Great is his faith in Chapmans. Now mark– If Chapman had considered a second edition a good speculation, he would have undertaken it without any pecuniary smoothing of the way– I dare say it will sell—and I dare say he would have tried that, even if the fifty pounds for the first edition had drifted undisturbed to its owner. Really I am sorry–
Publishers are one’s natural enemies .. except when one writes Orley Farms—& I dont like to see them sweep away the sixpences in this fashion.
Mr Severn (Keats’s Severn) [18] is consul here, & coming to see me. I want him to come & tell me of Keats. That mask which Robert has, was taken from his (K’s) face, not after death, as we supposed, but when he was alive & well– [19]
What news of Agnes Tremorne? So anxious I am about her.
May God bless you in all things my dearest dear Isa,
whose I am while in
the flesh, & after–
Ba–
Do say how you are– Robert has four invitations for tonight.
Publication: B-IB, pp. 427–431.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to the Pope’s allocution (see note 4 below).
2. i.e., Carlo Matteucci and his planned visit to Rome.
3. Dr. Pantaleoni.
4. The Morning Chronicle of 28 March 1861 carried a translation of Pius IX’s allocution, delivered in Rome on 18 March. The Pope began: “We have observed for a long time past how, in this most wretched age of ours, civil society is distracted by a miserable conflict between the opposing principles of truth and error, virtue and vice, light and darkness. For one party worship certain dicta of Modern Civilization, as they choose to call it, while the other defend the rights of justice and of our most sacred religion. The former demand that the Pontiff of Rome should reconcile himself to, and come to terms with, ‘Progress,’ with ‘Liberalism,’ as they call it, with modern civilization. The latter ask, with reason, that the unmoved and immovable principles of Eternal Justice should be preserved entire and inviolate, and that the most salutary might of our Divine religion should be wholly upheld” (p. 5).
5. In the issue of 20 March 1861, pp. 257–258.
6. References to incidents connected with the crucifixion in Luke 23:34 and Matthew 27:45, 51.
7. Joseph Barclay Pentland (1797–1873) edited a number of handbooks for Rome, Italy, and Paris for the publishing firm of John Murray. “From 1845 he made Rome his winter residence and was so well acquainted with the topography and antiquities of the city that he was selected to act as Cicerone to the Prince of Wales on the 2 occasions when he visited Rome” (W.B.C. Lister, A Bibliography of Murray’s Handbooks for Travellers, Dereham, Norfolk, 1993, pp. 159–160).
8. Émile Keller (1828–1909), an ultramontanist French politician, spoke before the Chamber of Deputies on 13 March 1861. He attacked the government’s policy on Italy, claiming that it had gone beyond a policy of non-intervention to one of assisting a revolution and that Napoleon III’s actions in Italy had been motivated by fear of assassination: “Who was it that thus spoke of completing the work of 1848? It was revolution, supported by England, and personified in Orsini” (Galignani’s Messenger, 15 March 1861, p. 2). We have not verified the assertion that Guizot edited Keller’s speech.
9. Presumably Pauline Guizot, afterwards de Witt (b. 1831), the younger of Guizot’s two daughters by his second marriage. The Paris correspondent for Galignani’s Messenger (15 March 1861) reported that a subscription was to be taken from an “association of ladies,” but that “the fair deputation should not include any lady who is the wife of a senator, or indeed of anyone holding office, honorary or otherwise, under the Imperial Government. The casket is said to be a very handsome one, and will be accompanied by an address to the ex-Queen, suited to the occasion” (p. 1). The correspondent made no mention of Guizot’s daughter.
EBB’s poem “Nature’s Remorses,” Last Poems (1862), which presents the Queen of Naples in a sympathetic light, contains a reference to Mlle. Guizot in stanza X:
What will ye put in your casket shut,
Ladies of Paris, in sympathy’s name?
Guizot’s daughter, what have you brought her?
Withered immortelles, long ago cut
For guilty dynasties perished in shame,
Putrid to memory, Guizot’s daughter?
10. “Leading lights.”
11. An allusion to Dr. Gryzanowski, who may have asked Isa Blagden to accompany him to Chicago. EBB mentions him in connection with that city in letter 4861.
12. Arthur Hughes (1832–1915), a painter closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Brownings’ acquaintance, Ellen Heaton, was one of Hughes’s most important patrons. She commissioned him to paint “Aurora Leigh’s Dismissal of Romney” (1860, also called “The Tryst” and “The Parting”). When she asked Ruskin to suggest another subject for Hughes, he recommended “That was a Piedmontese; and this is the Court of the King” (1862), illustrating a scene from “A Court Lady” (see SD2429 in vol. 28). Both paintings are now in the Tate Gallery, London. Ruskin and Hughes discussed the first painting in letters to Ellen Heaton; see SD2423, SD2424, and SD2426 in vol. 28.
13. A sarcastic allusion to Mrs. Eckley’s The Oldest of the Old World.
16. “Knowledgeable.”
17. Social Aspects of the Italian Revolution (1861), published by Chapman and Hall.
18. Joseph Severn (1793–1879), painter and engraver, had travelled to Rome with the ailing poet in 1820 and remained with him until his death in 1821. Severn was British consul in Rome from 1860 to 1872, after which “he continued to live in Rome, painting almost to the last. … His remains were at first interred in the new cemetery, but ultimately removed and deposited by the side of Keats” in the Protestant Cemetery (DNB).
19. This life mask, described as a death mask in Browning Collections, lot 1394, was a gift from Dante Gabriel Rossetti (see letter 4697, note 8). It can be seen in Felix Moscheles’s watercolor of RB’s study at 29 De Vere Gardens (see Reconstruction, plate 32, where it is misidentified as H271, “Head of a Cherub”). The present whereabouts of the mask is unknown.
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