Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Born March 4, 1809. Died June 29, 1861.
here has lately been considerable controversy as to the date, and place of birth of Mrs. Browning.
Mrs. Richmond-Ritchie, in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” states that Mrs. Browning “was born at Burn Hall, Durham, on March 6, 1809,” whilst Mr. J. H. Ingram in a brief memoir prefixed to the “Poetical Works of E. B. Browning” (Ward, Lock and Co., London) asserts that Elizabeth Barrett Barrett was the eldest daughter of Edward Moulton Barrett, and was born in London on Saturday, March 4, 1809, as shown by an announcement in a contemporary newspaper.
Mr. Robert Browning contradicts both these statements, in a prefatory note to a small volume of his late wife’s poems, published by Smith Elder and Co. in 1887. He contends that she was born on March 6, 1806, at Carlton Hall, Durham, the residence of her father’s brother, and that she had an elder sister, who died in childhood. This statement is the more peculiar as Mr. Browning had previously written to Mr. Ingram (in 1886) “I engaged to verify any dates Mrs. Ritchie furnished, and I did so. Only those are to be depended upon.” Yet it is clearly impossible that both Mrs. Ritchie and Mr. Browning can be correct, and it seems very probable that both are mistaken. The Athenæum, February 4, 1888, published a letter from Mr. Ingram in answer to Mr. Browning’s Note, showing, firstly, that there is no such place as Carlton Hall, Durham, nor any record of Mrs. E. B. Browning’s birth in that city; secondly, that the newspaper announcement of the birth stated “London, March 4, 1809, the wife of Edward M. Barrett, Esq., of a daughter,” so that it was obviously impossible for that lady also to have given birth to a daughter at Burn Hall, Durham, on March 6, 1809, as stated by Mrs. Ritchie; and thirdly, that as in 1806 Mr. Barrett was a student in Cambridge, and only about twenty years of age, it was unlikely that he would then be the father of two children, (as Mr. Browning asserts), although it is admitted he married early. To this letter Mr. Browning briefly replied, disclaiming any “certitude in the matter from knowledge of his own,” which reads like a tacit admission of the accuracy of Mr. J. H. Ingram’s statements.
That there should be some doubt about an event which occurred eighty years ago can be readily understood, but it is difficult to explain the discrepancies which exist in several descriptions of Mrs. Browning’s personal appearance, thus Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote:—
“It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. There is not such another figure in the world; and her black ringlets cluster down on her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion.”
Two other observers give very different details:—
“But it was Mrs. Browning’s face upon which one loved to gaze—that face and head which almost lost themselves in the thick curls of her dark brown hair.... Her large, brown eyes were beautiful, and were, in truth, the windows of her soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the poet-passion of heart and intellect; and in gazing into them it was easy to read why Mrs. Browning wrote.” Kate Field, 1861, “Letter from Florence.”—Atlantic Monthly, September.