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Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Her Brother Alfred: Some Unpublished Letters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Ronald Hudson
Ronald Hudson
Affiliation:
New York, N.Y.
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Extract

Alfred Price Barrett Moulton-Barrett, known to his family as “Daisy,” was born at Hope End, Herefordshire, on 20 May 1820, the sixth son and tenth child of Edward and Mary Moulton-Barrett.

He was fourteen years younger than his eldest sister Elizabeth, whose essay, “Glimpses into My Own Life and Literary Character,” reprinted in pp. 121–33 of this volume, shows that she already “read Homer in the original with delight inexpressible, together with Virgil.” She had also completed in 1817–18 her first major work in verse, The Battle of Marathon, which appeared in print, through her father's indulgence, in the year of Alfred's birth. Thus she was already established as a scholar and a poetess, already somewhat set apart from her brothers, except the beloved “Bro” with whom she shared the study of the classics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 2 , Spring 1974 , pp. 135 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

NOTES

1. Diary by E.B.B.: The Unpublished Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, 1831–1832, ed. Kelley, Philip and Hudson, Ronald (Athens: Ohio Univ. Press, 1969), p. 206.Google Scholar

I wish to record my gratitude to Dr. Jack W. Herring, Director of the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., for permitting me to publish Letter 3, which is in the ABL collection. For permission to print all the remaining letters and to draw on other material in his possession, I express my deep appreciation to Edward R. Moulton-Barrett, Esq. (The envelope belonging to Letter 8 is in the Houghton Library at Harvard.) Finally, I need to thank my colleague, Philip Kelley, for considerable assistance in locating material and supplying facts.

2. Throughout this article, direct quotations not otherwise attributed are drawn from family papers in the possession of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett, Esq., Col. R. A. Moulton-Barrett, Miss Myrtle Moulton-Barrett, and Mrs. V. M. Altham, to all of whom my thanks for allowing me to draw on their material.

3. Elizabeth Barrett to Miss Mitford, ed. Miller, Betty (London: John Murray, 1954), p. 246.Google Scholar

4. The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 1845–1846, ed. Kintner, Elvan (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), I, 326.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., II, 727.

6. Miller, p. 250.

7. Kintner, II, 1050.

8. The eight letters printed here are given in their entirety. Repeated periods represent EBB's punctuation, not editorial excisions. Elision points are used in some of the shorter extracts appearing in the linking text.

9. Henrietta's boy. In a letter to Mrs. Martin of 20 Apr. 1855, in the collection at Wellesley College, EBB wrote: “Dear little Altham has been very ill at Plymouth with gastric fever.”

10. Henrietta's husband was serving as an officer with the 1st Somerset Militia. Men and officers had been asked to volunteer for service in the Mediterranean, and in an effort to secure promotion to Major, Surtees Cook had offered to take command of the contingent. There was doubt about Henrietta's accompanying him if the posting came through; however, there were insufficient volunteers to form a company and Captain Cook remained in England.

11. Maria Trepsack, one of the family servants who had been with EBB's paternal grandmother, was suffering delusions of being poisoned, and had moved from her lodgings at 26 Welbeck Street. She died on 9 Mar. 1857.

12. Sir Robert Price (1786–1857), Member of Parliament, was the son of Sir Uvedale Price, who had repeatedly sought EBB's comments and advice on his writings about the classics when she lived at Hope End. The estate was Foxley, in Herefordshire. Mrs. Julia Martin, with her husband and family, lived at Old Colwall, adjoining the Hope End estate, and EBB maintained a correspondence with her after leaving Hope End.

13. In the collection of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.

14. Letter to Arabel, [14 June 1855].

15. Letter to Arabel, 25 June [1855], in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of The New York Public Library. (No further printed quotations from this correspondence will be permitted without prior written permission from The New York Public Library.) In allowing me to use brief quotations from this and other letters in the Berg Collection, I am indebted to The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

16. This is the only one of the eight letters reproduced here that has been published before. It appeared in Ward's, MaisieThe Tragi-Comedy of Pen Browning (New York: Sheed and Ward and The Browning Institute, 1972), p. 155.Google Scholar

17. Both letters in the Berg Collection.

18. The exact nature of his illness is not known. A later reference to a second attack suggests some repetitive ailment, perhaps malaria, contracted in the West Indies.

19. Lizzie's first cousin, Samuel Goodin Barrett (1812–76), who was also a distant cousin of EBB and Alfred.

20. John and Jane Hedley and family. Mrs. Hedley was EBB's maternal aunt, as was “Bummy,” Arabella Sarah Graham-Clarke.

21. Angela Bayford Owen and her husband. EBB referred to her as a cousin, but the blood relationship was certainly not a close one. The bankruptcy was that of Sir John Paul (1802–68) and his partners, bankers who suspended payment in 1855. They were subsequently sentenced to penal servitude for fraudulently disposing of clients' securities; the Fraudulent Trustees Act of 1857 was passed in consequence of their delinquency.

22. The Industrial Exhibition opened on 15 May 1855.

23. Letters to Arabel of [8 July 1855] and [10 July 1855] in the Berg Collection.

24. Letter of 25 June [1855] in the Berg Collection.

25. Letter in the collection at Wellesley. This reference was not included in the version published in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ed. Kenyon, Frederic G., (London and New York: Macmillan, 1897), II, 206–08.Google Scholar

26. Men and Women, published in November 1855.

27. Kenyon, II, 207, gives an edited version of her words.

28. Letter of [17 Aug. 1855] in the collection of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr.

29. Henrietta's second son and third child, Altham, Edward, was born on 13 Apr. 1856.Google Scholar

30. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton was both politician and novelist, author of The Last Days of Pompeii and other historical novels. His son Robert (1831–91), who published poetry under the nom de plume of Owen Meredith, was a member of the Brownings' Florentine circle of friends.

EBB recorded the visit in a letter to Arabel: “I like Sir Edward much better than I thought I should, though the whole tone of the man is less deep less sweet, less pure, than his son's …” (31 Oct. [1855]; Berg Collection).

31. A portrait of Alfred, made at about this time, is shown as figure 3. The artist is unknown. It is reproduced here by kind permission of Edward R. Moulton-Barrett, Esq.

32. Letter to Arabel, 3 Apr. [ 1857], in the Berg Collection.

33. The marriage of Prince Napoleon (1822–91), second son of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, to his cousin Princess Marie Clotilde of Savoy, daughter of Emmanuel, King Victor II, on 30 Jan. 1859.Google Scholar

34. Their brother Henry (1818–96).

35. Charles John Moulton-Barrett (1814–1905) was known to the family as “Storm.” It was he who, as the eldest surviving brother, voiced objection to Pen's decision to publish his parents' love letters. A critical letter from him, dated 30 Mar. 1899, appeared in the London Standard.

36. In a letter to Arabel dated [22? Jan. 1859] EBB wrote: “Gordigiani made a portrait of me at Florence,—a large buxom, radiant matron, with a torrent of black ringlets at each cheek. Here, has Miss Fox made a portrait of me at Rome, a dimpled rosy ‘pretty woman of five & twenty,’ with a stream of brown ringlets at each cheek. Both equally unlike me in the opinion of the best critics.… Now Field Talfourd (… said to be unfailing in his likenesses) is coming on monday to try his hand.” Talfourd completed his drawing in February, and EBB was pleased enough with his representation of her to send photographs of it to her brothers and sisters. A letter in the Berg Collection dated [1? Mar. 1859] tells how Robert Browning gave Miss Fox in marriage to Mr. Bridell and says that Miss Fox's portrait “began by being young & coarse like a milkmaid—& will end by being old & coarse like a cook.”

37. Reproduced in Ward, Maisie, p. 102.Google Scholar