796. EBB to Richard Hengist Horne
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 16–19.
[Torquay]
Monday. [?8] [February 1841] [1]
Anthea, Evanthe—I dont remember either—elsewhere .. prominently elsewhere. You read Earine right—but being perfectly right besides in eschewing “the names of other people’s heroines,” [2] all its beauty wd not fit it for our purpose. Besides, I shd’nt be brave enough (although working with you dear Mr Horne) to touch a word hallowed by the atmosphere of that exquisite ‘Sad Shepherd’—which proves Ben Jonson a true poet & no mere scholar, to the critics’ faces.
Talking of critics .. oh .. the Athenæum!– Have you seen it?—& seen in it how tender-hearted people keep themselves warm this cold weather by tomahawking their neighbours?– Everybody belonging to Chaucer is executed,—& you hacked at, with the degree of malice extraordinar[il]y done to you as editor! Only Mr Wordsworth, is slunk round in a cowardly disingenuous manner [3] (oh I must say it!) just because in right of his high Eminence of reputation ‘among the nations’, [4] weapons of their sort could not hurt him. I must call the mode of the gliding round Mr Wordsworth very cowardly .. a sword in both hands & no prick of either for him—! Why, if the work be an evil design, his hands are as little clean as yours—or as mine, if I dared name such things avec! [5] –
And by the way, I am commended, with others for selecting an imaginative part of Chaucer—a commendation as little deserved you know, as the cruelty upon the collective body of your “Innocents”. [6]
Now I am quite sure, or next to quite sure that Mr George Darley, is the perpetrator of ‘the article’. I have no reason for it, except the crossness—which however is to myself unanswerable. This “Cynical poet” as some of his fellow citizens in the Rep. Lit. call him, achieves I rather believe most of the Athenæum bitternesses: & I who admire his powers when displayed lyrically & kept apart from tragedies, really wish he were a little better tempered!– Only when a poet works by profession as a critic, we shd scarcely wonder at the monstrosity of the centaur.
Aglae—wd Aglae do? or Ægle? After all, my inclination is something perhaps towards Medon for the man’s name—& to Evanthe (not adne) for the woman’s. You are perfectly right as to the poetical impertinence of a citizen chorus. Oh no!–nothing approaching to an embodiment of the conventionalities wd do—but we might hint at them notwithstanding—if the opportunity comes, & the graceful possibility—might’nt we?
Though perfectly right in abjuring German names you made me smile a little by protesting against them because “it wd be called German mysticism”. Do you really suppose it will be called anything else, in any case? You will see what Mr Darley (for one) will say to us, in the Athenæum.
Yet I have an interest in the Athenæum, for all its sins. They have been as kind to me, I do believe, on different occasions, as their consciences would let them—& the editor is liberal enough to send me a number every week on account of a few very occasional contributions of mine, deserving no such gratuity.
To extract a few words from Miss Mitford’s letter—“I knew something of Chaucer, & yet I rejoice to see him made quite clear & with so much taste & skill.—— Gloriously has Mr Horne executed his own portion. The introduction too is all that heart can wish. How thoroughly right is he in all that he says of Mr Darley, .. who is laughably in the wrong”.
Oh you will build up the preface excellently well—and do you know I am watching your ‘paces’ altogether very curiously, besides the deeper interest! I want to see how you manage your creations—the erection of your edifices—never having stood near any poetical scaffoldings before .. except my own. And it appears that you take it very regularly—first the title page, then the preface—κ.τ.λ. [7] When you begin building, who knows but what you will send me away?
Oh no! the headache is no excuse! I have not frequent headaches—& if just now I am rather more feverish & uncomfortable than usual, the cause is in the dreadful weather—the snow & east wind— & not in our Psyche. These external causes do however affect me as little,—even less, my physician says,—than might have been feared—& I think steadily, hope steadily, for London at the end of May .. so to attain a removal from this place which has been so eminently fatal to my happiness.
The only gladness associated with the banishment here has been your offered sympathy & friendship. Otherwise bitterness has dropped on bitterness like the snows—more than I can tell, .. & independent of that last most overwhelming affliction of my life, [8] —from the edge of the chasm of which, I may struggle, but <never can escape.
Ever yours,
EBB> [9]
I forgot the title. Wd not Psyche apocalypte (η you know) be more correct, as well perhaps as more pedantic? I dont mind if you dont. What is your thought of Psyche Agonistes? I lean to it a little, perhaps.
Publication: EBB-RHH, II, 92–96 (in part).
Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.
1. This letter falls between nos. 793 and 799.
2. Earine, one of the names proposed by EBB in letter 793, was used by Jonson in The Sad Shepherd. The name eventually chosen for Medon’s bride was Evanthe.
3. The Athenæum of 6 February 1841 (no. 693, pp. 107–108) reviewed The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer, Modernized. The reviewer equates Horne’s aim, expressed in the Introduction, of making Chaucer’s poems “intelligible to the general reader” as being merely “to dilute them down to the level of cockney comprehensions” and says that Chaucer “is reduced to sickly weakness and effeminacy.” He speaks of “gratuitous flourishes” and “wanton changes, which affect both the sense and the rhythm” and says “in every page, almost every line, Mr. Horne stumbles.” There is no direct criticism of Wordsworth’s contributions. (For the full text of the review, see pp. 389–391.)
4. Numbers, 23:9.
5. “Together with” [the critics].
6. The Feast of the Holy Innocents, on 28 December, commemorates Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem (Matthew, 2:16).
7. “Και τα λοιπα” (“and the rest”), the Greek equivalent of “etcetera.”
8. Bro’s death.
9. The Morgan manuscript concludes with the word “but,” except for the postscript, written at the top of the first page. The printed text, however, includes “never can escape” and the signature.
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