794. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 14–15.
[Torquay]
[late January 1841] [1]
I wrote to you on Saturday dear Mr Horne, under the delusion that you might be able to read such words as I cd write then,—& that if you might, they cd be worth your reading[.]
Is Medon a name for our ‘island monster’—& Œnone for the lady? [2] I doubt– I dont know! My Psyche is “perplexed in the extreme” [3] upon this important point of nomenclature– And important it is, in a measure. Blowsabella wdnt do for a heroine [4] —not for us at least.
I have just read your reply to the Monthly Critic—though not his attack, which lingers away, by an omission. [5] Yet I can discern his line of road by the dust of the chariot-wheels of your triumph, even to the sharpest turnings & fairly in to the goal– A triumph indeed! Done so excellently well too, as to candour & temperance & good humour!– The steel shines in the sunshine—& it must be a pleasure to everybody to see a little stabbing accomplished upon a “boiling bloody breast” [6] with such “great beauty” of instrument. I particularly liked the affront hurled back upon the pompous nothingness of “our tribunal” canopied & footstooled out by the critics; they mouthing their parts like any other stage Kings against the royalty of nature’s making, seen & crowned in such men as Leigh Hunt!
Talking of stage kings reminds me of stages– I am perfectly aware, believe me, of the great wrong, the base wrong, trampled into dramatic genius during this present injury & injuriousness of the theatres. My doubt is as to its being removed by any ‘yeas’ to your “petition”. [7]
In the meanwhile perhaps the dramatist has as open a door to the public imagination through the press as any other modification of poet has. I dont say an open door,—but ‘as open a door’. If the trade repudiates your tragedies, it does so, less perhaps because they are tragedies, than because they are poetry. The outcry among booksellers is “Bring us prose or stay at home”– None among them will read a poetical ms unless the ‘honor’ be ‘thrust upon them’. [8] And as to buying one, unless its author’s reputation be fixed among the stars, wd they do it?– Even in the starry case, wd’nt they cast down their eyes?– Murray has “up there” ‘an oath in heaven’ [9] never to print a line poetical! And a phrase reached me from certain bibliopolist-oracles, that “neither Shakespeare nor Milton wd be expected to sell at this present moment, without pictures”!!! Oh dead march of intellect!
Therefore you who are dramatists stand on the same ground, rather in the same ditch, with other poets—and in my mind (forgive me) you shd do so.
This people is wanting in eyes to see, in ears to hear withal—in a heart to understand. [10] Here is the evil root.
That the state of the theatres is infamous & unjust is very clear—but dig out the evil & feel if there be not below a deeper depth of it.
Dear Mr Horne, I have forgotten!– There is one paragraph of your ‘reply’, in which kindness says so much more than justice, that gratitude does’nt know what to say– You shall guess it for me.
Oh yes! You will settle all about the scenes. Your additional suggestions give a spring upwards to the whole scheme,—just what the encouragement of your approval & consent has given to me. Yet .. in spite of all .. I shall remain nervous to the last as to the temerity of working with you–
‘And you will be the best harper
That ever took harp in hand—
And I shD be the best singer
That ever sang in this land–[’] [11]
But as it is, oh King Estmere, where will be the symmetry?—— The fault at least (as far as volition goes) will be your majesty’s.
Yours in harp-fellowship & the minor key—
EBB—
I have read two, three times, your fine Cosmo scenes in the last M. Chronicle. [12] You did’nt quite forgive me, I suspect, for thinking & feeling more about Cosmo than Gregory,—the latter being allowed the highest place artistically. Well these newly published scenes have not righted my impressions– They are very fine–
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 74–76 (in part).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. Dated by the reference to The Monthly Chronicle.
2. In response to this letter, Horne submitted to EBB a sketch of the plot for act I; he retained Medon as the name for the male protagonist, but called Medon’s betrothed Evanthe.
3. Othello, V, 2, 346.
4. Cf. Blouzelinda, a rustic maid in Gay’s The Shepherd’s Week (1714).
5. Horne’s reply must have been shown to EBB in manuscript, as it was not published. Although EBB speaks of an “attack,” the review of Chaucer, Modernized in The Court, Lady’s Magazine, Monthly Critic, and Museum (January 1841, pp. 58–60) was largely favourable, although it did include some disparaging remarks about previous attempts to popularize Chaucer.
6. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, 1, 147.
8. Cf. Twelfth Night, II, 5, 146.
9. The Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 228.
10. Cf. Isaiah, 6:10.
11. Lines 159–162, slightly misquoted, of “King Estmere,” one of the poems included in Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
12. The Monthly Chronicle, January 1841, pp. 37–40, contained some “hitherto unpublished scenes” of Horne’s Cosmo de’ Medici.
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