me—­I would not thank him for praising me against his conscience; and if he praised me to the measure of his conscience only, I should have little (as far as the praise went) to thank him for.  Therefore I do not thank you for the praise in your article, but for the kind cordial spirit which pervades both praise and blame, for the willingness in praising, and for the gentleness in finding fault; for the encouragement without unseemly exaggeration, and for the criticisms without critical scorn.  Allow me to thank you for these things and for the pleasure I have received by their means.  I am bold to do it, because I hear that you confess the reviewership; and am the bolder, because I recognised your hand in an act of somewhat similar kindness in the ‘Athenaeum’ at the first appearance of the poems.

While I am writing of the ‘New Quarterly,’ I take the liberty of making a remark, not of course in relation to myself—­I know too well my duty to my judges—­but to your view of the Vantage ground of the poetesses of England.  It is a strong impression with me that previous to Joanna Baillie there was no such thing in England as a poetess; and that so far from triumphing over the rest of the world in that particular product, we lay until then under the feet of the world.  We hear of a Marie in Brittany who sang songs worthy to be mixed with Chaucer’s for true poetic sweetness, and in Italy a Vittoria Colonna sang her noble sonnets.  But in England, where is our poetess before Joanna Baillie—­poetess in the true sense?  Lady Winchilsea had an eye, as Wordsworth found out; but the Duchess of Newcastle had more poetry in her—­the comparative praise proving the negative position—­than Lady Winchilsea.  And when you say of the French, that they have only epistolary women and wits, while we have our Lady Mary, why what would Lady Mary be to us but for her letters and her wit?  Not a poetess, surely! unless we accept for poetry her graceful vers de societe.

Do forgive me if an impulse has carried me too far.  It has been long ‘a fact,’ to my view of the matter, that Joanna Baillie is the first female poet in all senses in England; and I fell with the whole weight of fact and theory against the edge of your article.

I recall myself now to my first intention of being simply, but not silently, grateful to you; and entreating you to pardon this letter too quickly to think it necessary-to answer it....

I remain, very truly yours,
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

To Mr. Chorley 50 Wimpole Street:  January 7, 1845.

Dear Mr. Chorley,—­You are very good to deign to answer my impertinences, and not to be disgusted by my defamations of ’the grandmothers,’ and (to diminish my perversity in your eyes) I am ready to admit at once that we are generally too apt to run into premature classification—­the error of all imperfect knowledge; and into unreasonable exclusiveness—­the vice of it.  We spoil