THE
BIRTHPLACE
OF MRS.
Elizabeth Browning
With respect to the "semi-tropical taste" of Mr.
Barrett, so
characterised in the "Memoir," it may be mentioned that, on the early
death of his father, he was brought from Jamaica to England when a very
young child, as a ward of the late Chief Baron Lord Abinger, then Mr.
Scarlett, whom he frequently accompanied in his post-chaise when on
Circuit. He was sent to Harrow, but received there so savage a
punishment for a supposed offence ("burning the toast") by the youth
whose "fag" he had become, that he was withdrawn from the school by his
mother, and the delinquent was expelled. At the age of sixteen he was
sent by Mr. Scarlett to Cambridge, and thence, for an early marriage,
went to Northumberland. After purchasing the estate in Herefordshire, he
gave himself up assiduously to the usual duties and occupations of a
country gentleman,--farmed largely, was an active magistrate, became for
a year High Sheriff, and in all county contests busied himself as a
Liberal. He had a fine taste for landscape-gardening, planted
considerably, loved trees--almost as much as his friend, the early
correspondent of his daughter, Sir Uvedale Price--and for their sake
discontinued keeping deer in the park.
Many other particulars concerning other people, in other "Biographical
Memoirs which have appeared in England or elsewhere" for some years
past, are similarly "mistaken and misstated:" but they seem better left
without notice by anybody.
R. B.
29 DE VERE GARDENS, W.
_December 10, 1887. _
FOOTNOTE:
[A] The entry in the Parish Register of Kelloe Church is as follows:--
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett, daughter and first child of Edward
Barrett Moulton Barrett, of Coxhoe Hall, native of St James's, Jamaica,
by Mary, late Clarke, native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was born, March
6th, 1806, and baptized 10th of February, 1808.
[Illustration: COXHOE HALL, COUNTY OF DURHAM.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF MRS. BROWNING. ]
Dedication
_TO MY FATHER_
_When your eyes fall upon this page of dedication, and you start to see
to whom it is inscribed, your first thought will be of the time far off
when I was a child and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to you
who were my public and my critic. Of all that such a recollection
implies of saddest and sweetest to both of us, it would become neither
of us to speak before the world, nor would it be possible for us to
speak of it to one another, with voices that did not falter. Enough,
that what is in my heart when I write thus, will be fully known to
yours. _
_And my desire is that you, who are a witness how if this art of poetry
had been a less earnest object to me, it must have fallen from exhausted
hands before this day,--that you, who have shared with me in things
bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every day,--that you, who
hold with me, over all sense of loss and transiency, one hope by one
Name,--may accept from me the inscription of these volumes, the
exponents of a few years of an existence which has been sustained and
comforted by you as well as given. Somewhat more faint-hearted than I
used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a visible personal
dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again; to conjure your
beloved image between myself and the public, so as to be sure of one
smile,--and to satisfy my heart while I sanctify my ambition, by
associating with the great pursuit of my life, its tenderest and holiest
affection. _
_Your_
_E. B. B. _
LONDON: 50 WIMPOLE STREET,
1844.
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF MRS. BROWNING'S POEMS.
The collection here offered to the public consists of Poems which have
been written in the interim between the period of the publication of my
"Seraphim" and the present; variously coloured, or perhaps shadowed, by
the life of which they are the natural expression,--and, with the
exception of a few contributions to English or American periodicals, are
printed now for the first time.
As the first poem of this collection, the "Drama of Exile," is the
longest and most important work (to _me_! ) which I ever trusted into the
current of publication, I may be pardoned for entreating the reader's
attention to the fact, that I decided on publishing it after
considerable hesitation and doubt.
characterised in the "Memoir," it may be mentioned that, on the early
death of his father, he was brought from Jamaica to England when a very
young child, as a ward of the late Chief Baron Lord Abinger, then Mr.
Scarlett, whom he frequently accompanied in his post-chaise when on
Circuit. He was sent to Harrow, but received there so savage a
punishment for a supposed offence ("burning the toast") by the youth
whose "fag" he had become, that he was withdrawn from the school by his
mother, and the delinquent was expelled. At the age of sixteen he was
sent by Mr. Scarlett to Cambridge, and thence, for an early marriage,
went to Northumberland. After purchasing the estate in Herefordshire, he
gave himself up assiduously to the usual duties and occupations of a
country gentleman,--farmed largely, was an active magistrate, became for
a year High Sheriff, and in all county contests busied himself as a
Liberal. He had a fine taste for landscape-gardening, planted
considerably, loved trees--almost as much as his friend, the early
correspondent of his daughter, Sir Uvedale Price--and for their sake
discontinued keeping deer in the park.
Many other particulars concerning other people, in other "Biographical
Memoirs which have appeared in England or elsewhere" for some years
past, are similarly "mistaken and misstated:" but they seem better left
without notice by anybody.
R. B.
29 DE VERE GARDENS, W.
_December 10, 1887. _
FOOTNOTE:
[A] The entry in the Parish Register of Kelloe Church is as follows:--
Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett, daughter and first child of Edward
Barrett Moulton Barrett, of Coxhoe Hall, native of St James's, Jamaica,
by Mary, late Clarke, native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was born, March
6th, 1806, and baptized 10th of February, 1808.
[Illustration: COXHOE HALL, COUNTY OF DURHAM.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF MRS. BROWNING. ]
Dedication
_TO MY FATHER_
_When your eyes fall upon this page of dedication, and you start to see
to whom it is inscribed, your first thought will be of the time far off
when I was a child and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to you
who were my public and my critic. Of all that such a recollection
implies of saddest and sweetest to both of us, it would become neither
of us to speak before the world, nor would it be possible for us to
speak of it to one another, with voices that did not falter. Enough,
that what is in my heart when I write thus, will be fully known to
yours. _
_And my desire is that you, who are a witness how if this art of poetry
had been a less earnest object to me, it must have fallen from exhausted
hands before this day,--that you, who have shared with me in things
bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every day,--that you, who
hold with me, over all sense of loss and transiency, one hope by one
Name,--may accept from me the inscription of these volumes, the
exponents of a few years of an existence which has been sustained and
comforted by you as well as given. Somewhat more faint-hearted than I
used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a visible personal
dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again; to conjure your
beloved image between myself and the public, so as to be sure of one
smile,--and to satisfy my heart while I sanctify my ambition, by
associating with the great pursuit of my life, its tenderest and holiest
affection. _
_Your_
_E. B. B. _
LONDON: 50 WIMPOLE STREET,
1844.
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF MRS. BROWNING'S POEMS.
The collection here offered to the public consists of Poems which have
been written in the interim between the period of the publication of my
"Seraphim" and the present; variously coloured, or perhaps shadowed, by
the life of which they are the natural expression,--and, with the
exception of a few contributions to English or American periodicals, are
printed now for the first time.
As the first poem of this collection, the "Drama of Exile," is the
longest and most important work (to _me_! ) which I ever trusted into the
current of publication, I may be pardoned for entreating the reader's
attention to the fact, that I decided on publishing it after
considerable hesitation and doubt.
