Your affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.
It is from the middle of this year that Miss Barrett’s active appearance as an author may be dated. Hitherto her publications had been confined to a few small anonymous volumes, printed rather to please herself and her friends than with any idea of appealing to a wider public. She was now anxious to take this farther step, and, with that object, to obtain admission to some of the literary magazines. This was obtained through the instrumentality of Mr. R.H. Home, subsequently best known as the author of ‘Orion.’ He was at this time personally unknown to Miss Barrett, but an application through a common friend led both to the opening to the poetess of the pages of the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ then edited by Bulwer, and also to the commencement of a friendship which has left its mark in the two volumes of published letters to Mr. Home. The following is Mr. Home’s account of the opening of the acquaintance (’Letters,’ i. 7, 8):
’My first introduction to Miss Barrett was by a note from Mrs. Orme, inclosing one from the young lady containing a short poem with the modest request to be frankly told whether it might be ranked as poetry or merely verse. As there could be no doubt in the recipient’s mind on that point, the poem was forwarded to Colburn’s “New Monthly,” edited at that time by Mr. Bulwer (afterwards the late [first] Lord Lytton), where it duly appeared in the current number. The next manuscript sent to me was “The Dead Pan,” and the poetess at once started on her bright and noble career.’
The poem with which Miss Barrett thus made her bow to the world of letters was ’The Romaunt of Margret,’[20] which appeared in the July number of the magazine. Mr. Home must, however, have been in error in speaking of ‘The Dead Pan’ as its successor, since that was not written till some years later. More probably it was ’The Poet’s Vow,[21] which was printed in the October number of the ‘New Monthly.’