611. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 9–10.
74 Gloucester Place
Monday. [?29] [January 1838] [1]
Thank you my dear Lady Margaret for the kind interest you express towards me & in me. I am better than I have been—altho’ this severe weather has been hard to bear, & enforced the precaution of keeping me more in bed than out of it, for a fortnight past. The illness arose entirely I believe from cold—one cold upon another falling upon the chest & producing cough—so that for four months past, I have not left the house. Dr Chambers says that he is very confident of there being no disease on the lungs—“not the least bit” was his expression—but that the lungs & chest being in a weak & delicate state, I am not likely to lose the cough until the warm weather—April or May. In the meantime he gives me soothing medicines which I am sure do me good– Still I am suffering a good deal from lassitude & feebleness—(scarcely at all from pain—a great blessing) and do not sleep well at nights– May God teach me more & more that His providence & His love are one! a lesson often learnt in weeping, tho’ the fulness of its knowledge be the fulness of all joy!——
Thank you for the good news about Finden. Mr Tilt has been doubting as to continuing it thro’ another year—notwithstanding its selling so much better than it did last year under Mrs Hall’s editorship. [2] And I do hope that he may go on with it—that being or involving a pecuniary object, to dear Miss Mitford.– Have you seen Mr Chorley’s annual of living authors? [3] which did not sell, & to no surprise of hers Miss Mitford says, as she always feared for the fate “of 13 ugly profiles & a long volume of short lives”. Her own profile is among the “ugly” ones! & notwithstanding this liveliness & fear I am very much surprised that a book of a character so lastingly interesting, could not sell for one Christmas day.
Dear Lady Margaret, I rejoice in hearing of your enjoyment during the past one! and I rejoice too, more selfishly, at the news of your being about to go so soon to Reigate [4] —remembering as I do, among my shreds of geographical learning, that Reigate is nearer London than Worcester is!– I do indeed hope to see you this spring—tho’ you give me no hope of it, by word or breath.
I have not coughed away my ambition yet—and your Ladyship wont think me very very bad when I tell you that I am still thinking gravely of publishing in the present spring. The booksellers tell horrible tales about poetry not selling—yet I am not frightened quite from the thoughts of trying mine. Thoughts however have been my only activity, hitherto—& if there is not soon some of another kind, the season will be too far advanced for even thoughts.
We are not in Wimpole Street. The workmen have been there for six weeks, and have not yet prepared the way for the furniture. It will be March I dare say before we leave Gloucester Place.
May God bless you dear Lady Margaret!
Ever believe me
Your affectionate & obliged
E B Barrett.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: James Hervey-Bathurst.
1. EBB’s statement “We are not in Wimpole Street” suggests that this is a reply to letter 610, which was addressed to Wimpole St.
2. Anna Maria Hall (née Fielding, 1800–81), the wife of Samuel Carter Hall (1800–89), had edited the 1837 edition of Findens’ Tableaux.
3. The Authors of England (1838). It dealt with fourteen eminent writers, including Scott, Byron, Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, and, of course, Miss Mitford, accompanying the text with medallion portraits by Achille Collas (1795–1859); that of Miss Mitford is reproduced facing p. 40.
4. EBB’s comment may appear to disprove the assumption in note 1, as letter 610 was postmarked Reigate; however, as it was common practice for a bundle of correspondence to be sent to Earl Somers for franking, his doing so at Reigate Priory was not of itself proof that Lady Margaret was herself there.
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