Beyond the Brownings–Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Posted on October 5, 2014 by melindacreech

© National Portrait Gallery, London

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Michael Faraday, an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry, was one of the most influential scientists in history, leading to the practical use for electricity in technology. The Armstrong Browning Library owns one rare edition book.

In a letter of 23 August [1853] to Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning makes this comment about Faraday:

For as to Faraday, … I dont know what you conclude upon Faraday .. but for me, I am sorry not to be able to do more reverence to the name & authority of a man of science such as he. His letter meets none of the important phenomena, .. ignores facts altogether .. & has a tone of insolence & arrogance which sets the blood burning in me—what do you think: how do you feel? It seems to me from what you say that you have witnessed or had testimony upon only the inferior phenomena, and I have been long aware that these may be simulated involuntarily by the muscular hypothesis, & that many of the amateur operators have exercised their muscles simply. Therefore you may be convinced by the Faraday letter as some other persons have been. But if you were in the possession of certain facts, which, as I know them, Faraday ought to have known, before he gave an opinion on the subject .. such facts for instance as the movement of tables without a touch from finger or foot .. you would feel, as I cant help doing, considerable indignation at the treatment of the subject in this famous letter.

This letter, part of Wellesley College Special Collections, and also in The Browning Letters digital collection through the Baylor-Wellesley collaboration, refers to Michael Faraday’s letter on table-moving, published in The Athenaeum, 2 July 1853.

Michael Faraday, “Professor Faraday on Table-Moving,” The Athenaeum, 2 July 1853.

Michael Faraday. Chemical Manipulation; Being Instructions to Students in Chemistry, on the Methods of Performing Experiments of Demonstration or of Research, with Accuracy and Success. London: W. Phillips, 1827.

This is a rare first edition of Faraday’s only monograph, a work on experimental method.

Beyond the Brownings–Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Posted on September 30, 2014 by melindacreech

© National Portrait Gallery, London

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Charles Babbage is credited with originating the concept of a programmable computer. He was a visitor at John Kenyon’s parties and probably acquainted with the Brownings. There are several references to him in Elizabeth’s letters, including this passage from a letter from EBB to Robert Browning, 17 February 1845. This letter, part of Wellesley College Special Collections, is also in The Browning Letters digital collection at Baylor University through the Baylor-Wellesley collaboration:

Do you know Tennyson? that is, with a face to face knowledge? I have great admiration for him. In execution, he is exquisite,-and, in music, a most subtle weigher out to the ear, of fine airs. That such a poet shd submit blindly to the suggestions of his critics, (I do not say that suggestions from without may not be accepted with discrimination sometimes, to the benefit of the acceptor) blindly & implicitly to the suggestions of his critics, .. is much as if Babbage were to take my opinion & undo his calculating machine by it. Napoleon called poetry ‘science creuse’-which, although he was not scientific in poetry himself, is true enough. But anybody is qualified, according to everybody, for giving opinions upon poetry. It is not so in chymistry and mathematics. Nor is it so, I believe, in whist and the polka.

The Armstrong Browning Library has three of Babbage’s letters in its collection.

Letter from Charles Babbage to [James] Booth.
20 December 1856.

Babbage thanks Booth, the executor of Kenyon’s will, for the gift of a telescope, which had belonged to their valued friend, John Kenyon.

Many thanks to you and Miss Bayley for the kind thought of giving me a memorial of our valued friend Kenyon. I shall gladly accept the telescope which you propose for that purpose…

Beyond the Brownings–Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Posted on September 25, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library

By Michael Milburn, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a first-generation Romantic best known for his poetry and literary criticism, also wrote widely on the subjects of theology, philosophy, science, and politics, in spite of his in part self-made reputation as an opium addict who failed to live up to his potential. He is renowned for such classics as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Christabel,” and “Kubla Khan.”

The ABL has ten letters by Coleridge, eight of which are addressed to his brother George, several first editions, two annotated volumes, and over ninety other books which belonged to members of his family, primarily his descendants.

Draft or Copy of a Letter from George Coleridge to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. [10 March 1798].

Coleridge and his brother George disagreed over Britain’s military actions against the revolutionary government in France. George, who was in favor of the British, wrote this letter in order to extend his hospitality to Coleridge despite their political differences.

We may forget that we are not political Brothers, and call to our Mind, that to philosophize on Government and to legislate are the Duty of a few, to cultivate domestic affections of all.

The lack of signature, however, indicates that unless the document was a transcript, this version of the text, at least, remained an unsent draft.

Autograph draft manuscript of Hints respecting Beauty

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to [Mary Russell Mitford]. [8 July 1811].

In this draft of a letter to Mary Russell Mitford, Coleridge developed some of the aesthetic ideas that would become famous in his “Essays on the Principles of Genial Criticism” and Biographia Literaria. After noting the errors that can arise from using words merely to express degree, he defines beauty in kind as “the reconciliation of ‘the many’ with ‘the one,’” offering the simple example of a triangle, in which three sides are reconciled into a single shape, and the ideal example of a circle, in which radii of many angles are brought together by the one center on which they converge.

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to George Coleridge. 2 October 1803.

Coleridge experienced night terrors all his adult life, probably worsened by his addiction to opium and the periods of withdrawal when he would try to quit. In this letter, he tells his brother that when he tries to sleep, “such a Host of Horrors rush in—that three nights out of four I fall asleep struggling to lie awake, and start up & bless my own loud screams, that have awakened me.” He had described the experience poetically in “The Pains of Sleep,” written during the previous month, though not published until 1816.

Coleridge’s first volume of poetry

Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Poems on Various Subjects. London, Bristol: G. G. and J. Robinsons; J. Cottle, 1796.

Note the contemporary full tree calf binding, a technique in which the leather was stained to create a pattern resembling a tree.

Percy Bysshe Shelley. Queen Mab. London: Printed and published by W. Clark, 1821.

In a note on his own poem, Percy Bysshe Shelley, a second-generation Romantic writer, advocates for a vegetarian diet as the most expedient solution to the problems facing humanity, whether medical or moral, decrying in particular “the brutal pleasures of the chase.” Coleridge could not resist the opportunity to let the wind out of Shelley’s sails by writing in the margin, “Mr. Shelley’s favourite diversion at present (1822) is hunting.”

The comment is not in Coleridge’s collected marginalia.

Jeremy Taylor. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living …: Together With Prayers Containing the Whole Duty of a Christian. The eleventh ed. London: Printed by Roger Norton for Richard Royston, 1676.

This volume by the seventeenth-century divine Bishop Jeremy Taylor belonged to Coleridge and contains a brief marginal note by him. Coleridge’s son Hartley, a poet in his own right, inscribed the copy in order to remind himself of his father’s legacy: “Hartley Coleridge / a small but precious / portion / of his promised inheritance.”

Letter from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to T. G. Street.
2 October 1813.

Coleridge wrote to Street, the editor of the Courier, to complain of the Morning Chronicle’s coverage of the Napoleonic Wars. On this page, Coleridge refers to “the volcanic” Horrors of the French Revolution. The letter has yet to be published.

Beyond the Brownings–William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Posted on September 23, 2014 by melindacreech

Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning Library

By Michael Milburn, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

William Wordsworth was the foremost of the early Romantic poets in England, known on the one hand for his use of familiar imagery and language; on the other, for his complex and contemplative blank verse; and in either case, for his devotion to nature. Notable works include Lyrical Ballads (1798 and 1800) and The Prelude, which was not published until after his death in 1850.

The ABL has several rare editions of Wordsworth’s poetry, including three inscribed copies, in addition to five unpublished or partially published letters.

William Wordsworth. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. New ed. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1832.

The author’s inscription reads as follows: “To Lady Townshend Farquhar / in token of affectionate Regard / from her / Sincere Friend / W^m Wordsworth / Rydal Mount / 14th Novbr 1832.” Lady Maria Frances Geslip (née de Latour) was the widow of Sir Robert Townsend Farquhar, a Member of Parliament.

William Wordsworth. Grace Darling. Carlisle: Printed at the office of Charles Thurnam, 1843.

Privately printed and inscribed by the author.

In his poem, Wordsworth celebrates the heroics of Grace Darling, who became a Victorian icon for her role in rescuing the survivors of the Forfarshire after it was shipwrecked near her father’s lighthouse in 1838. This extremely rare edition once belonged to the American musical theater composer Jerome Kern.

Letter from William Wordsworth to Francis Merewether. 7 August [1829].

Francis Merewether was a High-Church priest and pamphleteer who had asked Wordsworth to speak on his behalf to Professor John Wilson, best known for his contributions to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine under the pseudonym of Christopher North. Wordsworth obliged with this reply, reporting that “Professor Wilson” would be “willing to look over” Merewether’s “papers . . . and to admit them if suitable.”

William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems. London: J. & A. Arch, 1798.

First edition, second issue. Possibly the first printing to be sold instead of privately distributed.

The anonymous publication of the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 was one of the most important events in British literary history. Wordsworth’s collection, with several contributions by Coleridge, ushered in a new era in which imagination and emotion mattered more than formal poetic diction.

Letter from William Wordsworth to Allan Cunningham 8 January 1827.

The “Mr. Kenyon” to whom Wordsworth refers in this letter is probably John Kenyon, fellow poet and friend to Wordsworth and Coleridge, as well as to the Brownings, whom he introduced to each other. Wordsworth wants Cunningham to vote in favor of Kenyon’s acceptance to the Athenaeum club, whose members would eventually include Michael Faraday, Matthew Arnold, and William Makepeace Thackeray.

Letter from William Wordsworth to John Abraham Heraud. 10 June [1834].

Wordsworth had recently been instructed to rest his eyes, so he had been unable to read Heraud’s Judgment of the Flood on his own. His excuse for not having the entire work read aloud suggests how he might have hoped his own philosophical poetry would be read, at least when he was not reciting it himself:

You are a thinking writer–& I said “I must not go on with this, till I can have my eyes upon the page” & this I beg you would take as expressing of real admiration.

Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Joshua Watson and Archdeacon Watson. [2 June 1820].

Dorothy Wordsworth was William Wordsworth’s sister, close friend, and longtime collaborator. Her journals reveal many details about life in the household she shared with her brother and his family. Here, she comments on the health of her youngest brother, Christopher.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns several other Wordsworth letters:

Letter from William Wordsworth to Unidentified Correspondent. 15 September 1818.

Letter from William Wordsworth the Unidentified Correspondent. 27 November 1835.

Letter from Christopher Wordsworth to Mr. Smith. 1 October 1844.

Beyond the Brownings: The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection

Posted on September 10, 2014 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech, Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

Scholars know the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University as a world-class research library devoted to the lives and works of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In addition to housing the world’s largest collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia related to the Brownings, the library houses a substantial collection of primary and secondary materials related to nineteenth-century literature and culture. The Victorian Letter and Manuscript Collection includes almost 2,500 items from literary, political, ecclesiastical, scientific, and cultural figures in the nineteenth century. Letters, manuscripts, and books from Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Matthew Arnold, Charles Babbage, J. M. Barrie, William Cullen Bryant, Thomas Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Michael Faraday, W. E. Gladstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Victor Hugo, Thomas Henry Huxley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, George MacDonald, John-Henry Newman, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Wordsworth will be featured in the exhibit. In future blogs about the exhibit you can find out how Elizabeth Barrett Browning was related to Charles Babbage, where Victor Hugo spent his summer vacation, who was b__k b__ll__ed, and what happened to Miss Brodie’s cow.

…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents–Moncure Daniel Conway (1832–1907)

Posted on May 6, 2014 by melindacreech

Moncure Daniel Conway was an American abolitionist, Unitarian clergyman, and author. His life took many turns. He moved from being the son of a wealthy slaveholder in Virginia, to a Methodist minister, and to an outspoken abolitionist with transcendental tendancies. He traveled to England to become an advocate for abolition and to Venice, spending most of the remainder of his life in England as minister of the South Place Chapel, occasionally traveling back to the United States. In England, having become a journalist and a literary agent, he admired the poetry of Robert Browning and became a close acquaintance. After his wife died, he moved to France, devoting his life to the peace movement and to writing. He died alone in Paris.

Letter from Robert Browning to Moncure Daniel Conway. 20 December 1881.

In this letter Browning explains the origin of a story he had recounted in the epilogue to his book, The Two Poets of Croisic, about a cricket and a singer, explaining that the story came from a Greek myth.

Robert Browning. La Saisiaz: The Two Poets of Croisic. London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1878.

The story that Browning was explaining to Conway in the letter appears in the “Epilogue” to The Two Poets of Croisic.

Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricket

Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt

Sweet and low, when strength usurped

Softness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?

The Armstrong Browning Library’s holdings related to Conway include three books and four letters.

…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents–Cornelius Mathews (1817–1881)

Posted on May 5, 2014 by melindacreech

Cornelius Mathews was an American writer, best known for his crucial role in the formation of a literary group known as Young America in the late 1830s. He called for a new literary style that would express a distinctly American identity. He corresponded with Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Dickens. He was the first to publish Barrett Browning’s works in America.

Letter from Cornelius Mathews to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 30 January 1844.

In this letter Cornelius Mathews thanks Elizabeth Barrett Browning for her letter and reports about the publication of her work in America.

A collection of ‘English Poetry’ is to be made in this country [by Mr R. W. Griswold] & that to a friend of mine is deputed, at my request, the charge of your writings, Mr. Horne’s & Mr. Browning’s & I hope you will live to be pleased when you see what is done & said in your & their behalf.

Letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Cornelius Mathews. [26] March 1844.

In this letter Elizabeth Barret Browning thanks Mathews for his interest and help in publishing her poems in America.

I am at the end of my paper & have yet to thank you warmly & gratefully for your kind interest about the American edition of my poems.

Elizabeth went on to make an acknowledgment of Mathews contribution to the publication of her work in America in the preface to the first edition of her poems published in America.

The Armstrong Browning Library’s holdings related to Mathews include eight Browning letters and three manuscripts.

…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents–James Thomas Fields (1817–1881)

Posted on May 4, 2014 by melindacreech

James Thomas Fields was an American publisher, editor, and poet. He joined with William Tichnor in creating a publishing and bookselling firm, first known as Ticknor and Fields, and later known as Fields, Osgood & Company. Fields became the publisher of leading contemporary American writers, with many of whom he developed a personal relationship. In addition to being a publisher, Fields also wrote poetry, and after his retirement, he was a popular lecturer. Fields published Robert Browning’s poetry.

Letter from Robert Browning to James Thomas Fields. 12 July 1868.

In this letter Robert Browning discusses with Fields the procedure of getting the proofs to him for the American publication of his poetry.

Letter from James Thomas Fields to Robert Browning. 12 November 1868.

In this letter Fields assures Robert Browning that his revisions have been made and expresses his pride in being allowed to publish Browning’s poems:

I cannot tell you what a satisfaction it is to me personally, to have the opportunity of putting my name on the title page with yours in this new venture.

This book of James T. Fields’ own poetry was inscribed by the author as a gift to his friend, Judge Richard Fletcher of Boston.

James Thomas Fields. Poems. Boston: William D. Tichnor and Company, 1849.

The Armstrong Browning Library’s holdings related to Fields include more than fifteen books and three letters.

…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents–Daniel Sargent Curtis (1825–1908)

Posted on May 2, 2014 by melindacreech

Daniel Sargent Curtis was among the Brownings’ cohort of American friends living in Italy. In 1881 Daniel Sargent Curtis rented the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice and purchased it in 1885. Curtis and his wife Ariana repaired and restored the Palazzo Barbaro and hosted many artists, musicians, and writers. The palace became the hub of American life in Venice with visits from Henry James, James Whistler, Robert Browning, and Claude Monet. Palazzo Barbaro was used as a location in the 1981 Brideshead Revisited TV series.

Letter from Daniel Sargent Curtis to Robert Browning. 27 March 1886.

In this letter Curtis discusses his purchase of the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice.

Letter from Robert Browning to Daniel Sargent Curtis. 4 June 1886.

In this letter Browning presents further discussion of the Palazzo Barbaro. He also discusses meeting and being favorably impressed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932, and as Acting Chief Justice of the United States January–February 1930.

Photograph of the Palazzo Barbaroon the Grand Canal in Venice.

The Armstrong Browning Library’s holdings related to Curtis include six letters and a diary of his conversations with Browning from 1879 to 1885.

…from America: The Brownings’ American Correspondents–William Wetmore Story (1819-1895)

Posted on May 1, 2014 by melindacreech

William Wetmore Story (1819-1895) was an American sculptor, art critic, poet, and editor. He was the son of Joseph Story (1779-1845), who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811-1845. Story initially practiced law but abandoned his legal career in 1847 to pursue training in Europe as a sculptor. Story, along with his wife Emelyn (née Eldredge, 1820-1894), daughter Edith “Edie” (1844-1917), and son Joseph “Joe” (1847-1853), met Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Florence, Italy, in late 1848 or early 1849. The two families became close friends and spent a great deal of time together whenever the Storys were in Italy. Browning and his son Robert Weideman Barrett Browning, called Pen, remained intimate friends of the Storys following Elizabeth’s death in 1861. Story sculpted busts of Robert and Elizabeth, reproductions of which can be viewed in the Martin Entrance Foyer of the Armstrong Browning Library.

Letter from William Wetmore Story to Robert Weideman Barrett Browning. 13 December 1889.

In this letter to Robert Browning’s son, Story reflects on his long friendship with Robert Browning following the poet’s death on 12 December 1889:

He was one of my oldest & dearest & most valued friends—& the world seems poor now that he has gone. … The last words he said to us when we said Goodbye to him at Asolo were ‘We have been friends for forty years—ay—more than forty years—& with never a break’– How true it was—there was never a break—never a cloud on our friendship for a moment—& the more I knew him the more I loved him. … He was one of the best & noblest of men. … I do not think that a small or mean thought ever knocked at the door of his spirit—much less ever was allowed to enter– Ever large hearted as large minded, grand in all his impulses—generous in all his feelings—vivid in his enthusiasms and the most loving man I ever knew.

William Wetmore Story. “Robert Browning.” Autograph manuscript. Undated.

This poem of thirty-eight lines was signed by Story and presented to Browning’s son and daughter-in-law Fannie Coddington Browning. The inscription reads:

To my dear friends—Pen & Fanny—with the warmest love of their, & their Father’s & Mother’s old friend.

Story’s poem about RB begins:

It scarcely seems, dear Friend you can be gone—

Your voice still lingers in my ear—that tone

So clear & quiet it scarce could wait to say

Your eager thought in our prosaic way,

But leaped our critic rules, assured that we

Could follow where you leaped so easily

Still pressing on in thought, stopped by no gaps

Of broken phrasing—careless of all lapse—

William Wetmore Story. Fiammetta: A Summer Idyl. Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1886.

A member of the Browning family owned a copy of this edition of Story’s novel.

William Wetmore Story. Graffiti d’Italia. Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1868.

The poem “Praxiteles and Phryne” is dedicated to Robert Browning.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns one manuscript, eight letters, and eight books by Mr. Story.

Armstrong Browning Library & Museum

A blog that explores the work of Robert & Elizabeth Browning and 19th-century Victorian literature and culture

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