592. RB to William Charles Macready
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 289–290.
Camberwell.
Thursday Morg [12 October 1837] [1]
My dear Macready,
I availed myself last night of your kind pass-port, for which I am sure Mrs Macready has thanked you, “mending my weakest phrase,” as she obligingly promised. The getting-up of the new piece is most admirable:—do not you think the last scene would be improved by the withdrawal of Clotilde and Herman during the matrimonial arrangement of the Baron and the Aunt,—the fun of which would come out better were not the real lovers in the way? [2] Just as I pondered this, Cattermole, [3] who was next me, made the same remark. I should like Miss Faucit [4] to incline her head merely, instead of “praying” downright, in the scene with Mr Warde; [5] and are not Mr Anderson’s [6] hessians un-artistlike, a little, and unfavourable to the expression of “amorousness,” as Godwin would say?– [7] You must excuse my selfishness in this matter––for wishing you a splendid success is nothing better. As for the charming piece, impleat orbem (the dress circle) and all thats orbum, [8] and may it gratify you as much as,
My dear Macready,
Yours ever faithfully
Robert Browning.
Publication: NL, pp. 13–14.
Manuscript: Huntington Library.
1. Dated by the reference to Macready’s new play.
2. The play discussed by RB is William Dimond’s The Novice, first presented by Macready on the night of Wednesday, 11 October 1837.
3. George Cattermole (1800–68), painter, illustrator, amateur actor and a friend of Dickens, was a member of the theatrical set revolving around Macready.
4. Helena Faucit Saville (1814–98), later Lady Martin, had played the Countess of Carlisle in Strafford. She was playing Clotilda Lilienstein in The Novice.
5. James Prescott Warde (1792–1840) had by this time been relegated to secondary roles.
6. James Anderson, engaged by Macready in 1837 as “jeune premier.”
7. William Godwin (1756–1836), philosopher, novelist and political theorist, was Shelley’s father-in-law. He was brought up on strict puritanical tenets, and objected to marriage on principle.
8. “May it fill the circle, and all that pertains to the circles” (cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI, 453).
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