SD825.1. Printed Verse by Leigh Hunt
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 3.
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[ca. July 1837] [1]
BLUE-STOCKING REVELS;
or
the feast of the violets
by leigh hunt.
… A young lady then, whom to miss were a caret
In any verse-history, named, I think, Barrett, [2]
(I took her first for a sister of Tennyson)
Knelt, and receiv’d the god’s kindliest benison.
—“Truly,” said he, “dost thou share the blest power
Poetic, the fragrance, as well as the flower;
The gift of conveying impressions unseen,
And making the vaguest thoughts know what they mean.
Only pray have a care, nor let Alfred beguile
Admiration too far into manner and style;
Nor divide with the printer your claims to be read
By directing our faculties when to say èd.
Such anxieties do both your Geniuses wrong;
Tend to make things too verbal, the mind not so strong;
And besides, my dear, who has not read an old song?” …
Text: The Monthly Repository, July 1837, p. 39.
1. Dated by publication in The Monthly Repository.
2. See the New Monthly Magazines for last year; I forget which months; and I cannot, while writing this note, refer to them.
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