SD2941. Robert Bulwer Lytton to Frederic William Farrar
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 32, 377–378 (in part).
Cintra.
23 Novr. 1867
… I agree, heart & soul, in all you say about Swinburne. To everything in me he is indescribably odious: but during my last visit to England I found it impossible to say this anywhere without being supposed to be jealous of his superior genius. Browning, who never disguises his unmitigated disgust of, & contempt for Mr. Swinburne as a poet, is universally set down by all London, as a man devoured by pitiable envy of Swinburne’s laurels. Only fancy Browning envious of Swinburne! The sad thing is that any man who has so thoroughly revealed himself as Browning, shd be so thoroughly misunderstood. One night I dined at the Proctor’s, with M. Arnold. We were challenged to admire Swinburne, & cd not do so. When Arnold went away, Mrs. P. said to me ‘What a pity that Mr. Arnold, like Mr. Browning, shd be so unjust to Mr. Swinburne’s genius.’! and I suppose she said the same thing of me to Arnold when she next saw him. Ever since then I have held my peace, & let my heart burn within me.
[seven lines excised]
exceedingly loose as a paraphrase, since the Latin is somewhat coarse as an original.
The ambitious Princess strains to stand a top
O’ the Muses’ mount. The Muses in disdain,
Of Hippocrene dash on him one cold drop,
And sudden, the chill’d lechor droops again.
’Tis lungo intervallo, & does not pitchfork Pimplæum but only throws cold water on him.
What disgusts me in Swinburne is—not the virile passion of a man—but the prurient & impuissant dirtiness of a boy—
[seven lines excised]
that a careful selection of words, & a minute modulation of metrè, suffices to turn any kind of filthy & degraded imagination into something admirable as poetry, is to all my own notions about poetry insulting and detestable. These poems, and the success of them, are to me the most significant illustration of the immense difference which exists between what is commonly called culture & what deserves to be called education. I have a greater respect for, and a greater envy of, the man who breaks stones on the high roads, than the player of such a pipe as this. For the stone-breaker at least does some good in the world.
I not only share your appreciation of Browning: but perhaps I go beyond it. In my own mind I have long valued him far above Tennyson:—and I do so in conformity with this principle which I should like to see adopted as a canon of discrimination in criticism. That the quality of a work of art, is in relation to the genius it reveals, rather than to the art it displays. Of course if the art is so imperfect that it cannot reveal the genius at all, the work is not worth attention. There is probably no genius in it. But as a general rule I should say that if you clearly detect in a work of art the presence of the highest order of Genius no number of imperfections in the art which bears the impress of that genius, can place the production in the second class: whereas on the other hand, if the genius which the art reveals to you is second rate, no amount of perfection in the art it employs can make the artist’s work first rate. Altho’ in judging of poetry—and indeed of literature generally—this rule is never regarded, yet in painting it is now commonly accepted. …
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Lord Cobbold.
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