720. EBB to Mary Russell Mitford
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 213–216.
Torquay.
Friday. [13 December 1839] [1]
Ever dearest Miss Mitford,
I do trust & pray that the better accounts may be followed by more & more betterness of which to take account. I was very uneasy about you—& am still so in a measure,—although reluctant to turn that trouble of mine into unnecessary trouble to you by intruding it & its interrogatives upon you oftener than I should. In the meantime your editorship is prospering. “Finden” says Sette in his letter yesterday “must be selling I think—for I see it in all the shops”. And if I may stand next to Sette as an authority, why .. Finden must be selling, I [2] think too .. for I see it praised by all the critics: nemine contradicente [3] except Mr Jerdan of the Literary Gazette who is so out of breath with lauding Miss Eliza Cook’s poems that he cant do it for anything else. But even he was humane enough to pick up “two or three” of your stories & all the engravings, from the general wreck. [4]
I sent you the Atlas & Morning Chronicle [5] —the former most benignant,—& the latter scarcely less so, “hormis les coups” to me & Mr Horne. [6] For my part, I felt incline<d> to cry out, like children when they are whipt .. “Indeed I didnt mean it—indeed I didnt! It was all the fault of the geranium frame”. [7] At any rate the moral is obvious .. that the poet of Rienzi shd never henceforward desert herself—& that the next tableaux must gather light around them from some of her dramatic scenes.
Well!—then, there is the united service Gazette which I have not seen—& the New Monthly which I have—& Tait who is as gracious as usual & ever, [8] —& who altho’ he does not like my ballad as well as last year’s, makes full amends (overflowing!) by speaking of me in reference to my ‘friend the editor’! Dearest dearest Miss Mitford, I must be sensible to the pride & pleasure of calling you my friend & of hearing you called mine, while any sensibility is left to me for the world’s use.
Altogether I do trust you are pleased & satisfied—& that your own consciousness of having successfully accomplished your task, is seconded by something like gratitude from the Findens.
Mr Hughes’ poem I really believe never to have mentioned to you .. It is excellently done for a doing of that sort [9] —strong, & with a scent of ‘morning air’ [10] about it; but to you who know my frailties, I need not confess some indifference to the sort.
Your Roundhead’s daughter makes an impression & very justly. The tale opens with exquisite descriptive writing .. Miss Mitford’s own .. & if I did not myself single out the whole for a chief niche, it was only from the story appearing afterwards rather broken & fragmentary—the obvious consequence of the Finden or Tilt sledge hammer [11] —Free-masons indeed! Niche after niche may well be made for your stories,—and the word “beautiful” be lip service for each!–
See what Tait says of my! mistake of a ‘manifest boy god’ for a sleeping child in lady fashion ..
But that little god upon roses reclining
We’ll make if you please Sir, a Friendship of him ..
or something as innocent as Friendship. But the mistake (if such) was Miss Mitford’s not mine. [12] ‘If you please Sir’ not mine by any means! Oh that geranium frame! It was more fatal to me than to you—if not more fatal to the Findens than to either!——
Papa has gone away—but is coming again. So he promised, in the last good-bye two days since!– Coming again, very very soon. For my own part, my health’s part I mean, I am going on tolerably well—still kept in bed, except for the one hour a day, & not very likely to emerge as long as the winter & Dr Scully do after their will.
I have lately held within my hands Miss Eliza Cook’s poems, as consecrated by Mr Jerdan. [13] Have you? And, if you have, in which half of the world do you find yourself? She divides (in her introduction) the whole round literary world into two, in relation to her poetry; & being convinced of her own merits, equally by “the fierce malignity of the few, & the praises of the impartial many!”, has “equal pleasure & confidence” in bringing herself before the public. Are you a ‘fierce malignant’ or an impartial applauder? I am inclined a little to fierceness. The modesty of the introduction, illustrated by the frontispiece .. a full length of the lady in mourning à la mode & hair à la Brute & a determination of countenance “to be poetical” whatever nature might say to it—are my provocatives!— to say nothing of the facsimile of her handwriting obligingly appended, to show how great geniuses dot their i[’]s like vulgar clay. [14]
There is malignancy for you!—but more mirth, I do hope. The sight of the book & its whole tone amused me very much. For the rest I cd read nothing in it worth reading again. No, Mr Jerdan, it wont do: that is .. Miss Eliza Cook wont do to reign in the stead of LEL! though she has courage enough to match with Zenobia’s regality!—— [15]
I have heard no word of Mr Kenyon, who however, on leaving England, thought it so possible that he might go onward to Italy that I cannot think his return this winter probable.
Have you heard lately of Lady Dacre? Will you tell me how she is?
God bless you & yours my beloved friend! Give my love & kindest wishes to Dr Mitford & ever believe me your own
affectionately attached EBB–
I will read Geraldine the very first opportunity. I believe it has made converts– [16] Do say particularly how you are.
Publication: EBB-MRM, I, 163–167.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by the reference to EBB’s father’s date of departure, 11 December, which is also referred to by Henrietta in SD1090.
2. Underscored twice.
3. “No one opposing.”
4. The Literary Gazette (no. 1188, 26 October 1839, p. 684), reviewing the forthcoming Illustrations of Poems by Eliza Cook, speaks of her “poetical genius.” Page 676 in the same issue reviews Findens’ Tableaux, and says EBB’s “The Dream” “is a beautiful specimen of the whole plan.” Miss Mitford’s “The Bride” and “The Woodcutter” are considered to be “the only essays to be noticed with praise.” (For the full text of the review, see pp. 411–412.) William Jerdan (1782–1869) had written poetry himself before turning to journalism. He wrote for, inter alia, The Morning Post, The Sun, and The Literary Gazette.
5. Findens’ Tableaux was reviewed in The Atlas (26 October 1839, pp. 684–685) and The Morning Chronicle of 26 November 1839. (For the full text of the former, see p. 411.)
6. “Except for the blows.” EBB’s comment is perplexing; Horne is not mentioned in the Chronicle’s review, and EBB is not directly named, although the reviewer does say he would rather read Miss Mitford’s poetry “than that of any of her contributors.”
7. From the context, apparently some private joke relating to avoidance of blame.
8. Reviews of the Tableaux appeared in The United Service Gazette, 2 November 1839, p. 6; The New Monthly Magazine, December 1839, p. 559; and Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, December 1839, pp. 813–814. (For the full text of these reviews, see pp. 412–413.)
9. John Hughes (1790–1843) had contributed “The King’s Forester” to the Tableaux.
10. Hamlet, I, 5, 58.
11. “The Roundhead’s Daughter,” one of Miss Mitford’s six stories, had been somewhat arbitrarily edited by the publisher to keep the book to the prescribed size.
12. Tait’s said of “The Dream” that “Miss Barrett, as many ladies have, wittingly or unwittingly, done before her, chooses to mistake a Sleeping Cupid—a very palpable boy-god—for a dreaming child.” While the illustration accompanying EBB’s poem does show Cupid (see the reproduction facing p. 193), her comment suggests that Miss Mitford did not make this clear in her original instructions to EBB.
13. Melaia, and Other Poems (1840).
14. In her preface, Miss Cook spoke of “the fierce malignity of the envious few, and the warm applause of the impartial many,” claimed that the rapid sales “afford indisputable proof of the good opinion I have gained” and announced that “it is with equal pleasure and confidence I now issue my productions in a superior form.”
The frontispiece shows Miss Cook in a severe black dress, relieved only by lighter cuffs and collar, with her hair arranged in side ringlets. Underneath, reproduced in her handwriting, are two lines from “The Old Arm Chair,” her best-known poem, written in memory of her mother: “I love it, I love it and cannot tear / My soul from a mother’s old armchair” followed by her signature.
Eliza Cook (1812–89) had written verses from the age of 14, the first being published when she was 17.
15. Zenobia Septimia, Princess of Palmyra, assumed the title Queen of the East and ruled as regent for her children. When Aurelianus became Emperor of Rome in A.D. 270, he led an expedition to punish Zenobia for her ambition. She herself led her army of 700,000 against him and fought with great courage, though eventually defeated.
16. Geraldine; a Tale of Conscience, by E.C.A. [Emily C. Agnew] had been reviewed in The Athenæum of 1 June 1839 (no. 605, p. 410): “The success of the two former volumes of ‘Geraldine’ has led their authoress to a bolder exposition of the doctrines of Catholicism, in this third volume, which, like its predecessors, is carefully and (better still) charitably written.”
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