ABSTRACT
In 1836, Henry Fothergill Chorley happened to read a poem in the New Monthly Magazine, ‘The Romaunt of Margret’. He was overwhelmed by it: he copied it over and over until he had memorized it. When the Spirit appeared in early 1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning continued friendly relations with Mary Russell Mitford and Chorley as well as Richard Hengist Home, with whom she sympathized on account of the mixed press reaction. Barrett’s interest in Chorley’s critical opinions was complemented by an interest in Chorley’s personal life. Barrett’s self-reproaches and self-analysis, seen in her letters to Mitford, show her articulation of a side of ‘female authorship’ which would later lessen some of the bonds of sympathetic understanding between her and Chorley. M. Mendelssohn was central to English musical life in the 1840s and to Chorley’s understanding of the nature of musical genius.
