CHARLES BROWN TO MARIANNE HUNT¹

Laira Green.
     19 Nov^r 1840.

My dear M^rs Hunt,

Last night I received your pretty note, and by the enclosed P.S. you will perceive that, after all, you forgot to give me your address. I send this to Carlino to be forwarded. By another enclosure you will also perceive that I have obeyed your request, in a few lines of the original composition of "Lamia."

Does Hunt still write for the "Monthly Chronicle?"² I am about to send to that Magazine the "Life of Keats". I am anxious to know, if convenient by return of post, Hunt’s influence there, and his advice.

Remember me most kindly to him, and hoping you will keep out of bed, except duly at night-tide.

I am ever,
     Your’s most truly,
           Cha^s Brown.

Notes

¹ MS: Berg Collection, New York Public Library. Brown enclosed a six-line fragment of the draft of Lamia, I.324-29. Fragmentary parts of the draft were also owned by Severn, who inscribed and gave them away over the years (see John Keats: Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard, ed. Jack Stillinger [Cambridge, MA: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 1990] 265). Marianne Kent Hunt (1788-1857), an accomplished seamstress and amateur sculptor who also excelled in the art of cutting silhouettes. She married Leigh Hunt on 3 July 1809 and together they had ten children. Address: M^rs Hunt, / 32 Edwarde’s Square / Kensington / London. Postmarks: One penny postage stamp; NO 23 1840; D 23NO23 1840. [Return to the letter]

² In November 1838 Hunt had published "Jenny kissed me," and in 1840 a series of congratulatory poems to Queen Victoria. On 8 February 1842, he also published "Three Visions on the Birth and Christening of the Prince of Wales" (Anthony Holden, The Wit in the Dungeon: A Life of Leigh Hunt [London: Little, Brown, 2005] 362-63). [Return to the letter]