Correspondence

567.  Lady Dacre to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 245.

2 Chesterfield St

Wedy Morng [3 May 1837] [1]

Lady Dacre begs Miss Barrett will accept a copy of her translations [2] as the homage of age to virtue, Genius, and learning in youth.——

Address, on integral page: Miss Barrett.

Publication: BC, 3, 245 (as [mid-May 1837]).

Manuscript: Scripps College.

1. Lady Dacre’s gift was acknowledged by EBB the following Saturday, 6 May (see 37:20.15).

2. Barbarina Brand, Lady Dacre (née Ogle, 1768–1854) published Translations from the Italian (mainly Petrarch) in 1836 (see Reconstruction, A740). EBB, in letter 570, mentions her being a relative of Miss Mitford, but we have not been able to establish the relationship. L’Estrange says: “Sheridan’s second wife, a Miss Ogle, was a sister of Lady Dacre and cousin of Miss Mitford” (L’Estrange (1), 1, 113). However, this was not so: Sheridan’s second wife, Esther Jane, was the daughter of Newton Ogle (1726–1804), Dean of Winchester; Lady Dacre was the youngest child of his brother, Sir Chaloner Ogle (1729–1816), so the two ladies were cousins, not sisters.

Miss Mitford dedicated the 1838 Findens’ Tableaux to her.

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