SD2048. Algernon Charles Swinburne to John Nichol
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 24, 254 (in part).
Balliol College,
February 11 [1857]
My dear Nichol
I am sorry to hear that we are not to have you back this term, which I had rather counted upon. …
Your quotation shows me what you have been reading; I hope you had as much pleasure from it as I had. To me it seems that Aurora Leigh is her great work, and that we have had very few such poems for a long time. I never suspected the authoress of much dramatic power; every character down to the slightest (for instance, the painter Carrington and the Howes) are so original and natural, so distinct and clearly defined, that it rivals the male Browning’s character-drawing. And the three women, Aurora, Marian, and Lady Waldemar, seem to me so perfect in idea and execution, that I hardly yet know which to prefer.
Having thus inflicted my raptures upon you (which is taking an advantage, as one cannot be interrupted in a letter) I must ask you to ‘row’ Dicey when you next write for his heterodoxy in the Browning question. My diatribes make not the slightest impression on him and I lament to say he goes about retailing “unwisdom” from the Saturday Review.
Apropos of Aurora—some wretched man having counted (so at least he declares) the number of lines in the poem, and making it out three times as long as the Odyssey!! Human wickedness has no limits.
Have you seen the additional poems in the last edition of Mrs. Browning? Some, I think, are very beautiful. I have scandalised Grenfell, I am afraid, by asserting that she is the greatest woman that ever lived, except Sappho and Deborah! I know no fourth poetess like them, certainly. …
Text: The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Y. Lang (New Haven, Conn., 1959–62), 1, 8–10.
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