Præraphaelite diaries and letters

Dante Alighieri · en
Brown and his first wife (his cousin, Elizabeth Bromley) married at a
very early age, and lived for a while in Paris. They left Paris and
settled in England in the summer of 1844. The state of her health
was such as to require her to live out of London, and she went to
Hastings; he occupied a studio in the Regent’s Park or Camden Town
district, in the same house with the painter Charles Lucy and his
family. Another inmate was Frank Howard, an artist of rapid facility
and some cleverness, who engaged in the cartoon-competitions for
the Houses of Parliament. “My coloured sketch” was (I take it) the
same design as Brown’s cartoon, _The Spirit of Justice_, sent to the
second of these competitions. The name of the painter, William Etty,
explains itself. Martin must be the celebrated John Martin.

                              35 Arlington Street, Camden Town.
                                                  [? December 1844.]

  My Blessed Lizzy,

  You can’t think how I was pleased to receive your long letter....
  I am in no mood to write a long letter. I am bothered and
  anxious. This is a horrid place: that study is a regular castle
  of indolence, and it is catching--indeed, nothing is more so.
  The study is continually full of all of them, gabbling, and it
  distracts me. That infernal Howard is a pest, and yet he is so
  good-natured one can’t feel offended at him. It is a curse to be
  in such a place. Nothing would surprise me less than to want time
  just at the last. I have got more work than I can get through. I
  ought to have done it all before the new year. I have showed my
  coloured sketch to Etty and Martin; they were both pleased with
  it, which is a rare feeling for Etty to express. God bless you.
  I have no time or humour to write more, but believe me, your
  husband loves you as the first day. God bless you.--F. M. BROWN.


                              LETTER II.

The letter from which I here extract appears to be incomplete--there
is no signature to it. The oil-picture of _Parisina_ represents
the jealous rage of the husband consequent upon the words of
love murmured by Parisina in her sleep--a dramatically treated
subject, painted in a dark continental style, not at all hinting
of “Præraphaelitism.” It now belongs to Mr. Henry Boddington, of
Manchester. The last thing on the sheet of letter-paper is the sketch
(a slight affair) of _The Banks and Braes of Bonny Doune_. I am
satisfied that Brown did not ever paint this intended subject. We
see here that he “modelled” a little boy; but I think the process
of modelling was still almost a novelty to him when, after Dante
Rossetti’s death in 1882, he undertook the bas-relief subjects for
his grave-cross, and afterwards the bust-monument in Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea.

                              35 Arlington Street, Camden Town.
                                                  [? February 1845.]

  My dearest Lizz,