[Footnote 14: _The New Monthly Magazine_, at this time edited by
Bulwer, afterwards the first Lord Lytton.]


The letter just printed contains the first allusion in Miss Barrett's
letters to any of her own writings. The translation of the 'Prometheus
Bound' of Aeschylus was the first-fruits of the removal to Sidmouth.
It was written, as she told Horne eleven years afterwards, 'in twelve
days, and should have been thrown into the fire afterwards--the only
means of giving it a little warmth.'[15] Indeed, so dissatisfied
did she subsequently become with it, that she did what she could to
suppress it, and in the collected edition of 1850 substituted another
version, written in 1845, which she hoped would secure the final
oblivion of her earlier attempt.[16] The letter given above shows that
the composition of the earlier version took place at the end of 1832;
and in the following year it was published by Mr. Valpy, along with
some shorter poems, of which Miss Barrett subsequently wrote that 'a
few of the fugitive poems may be worth a little, perhaps; but they
have not so much goodness as to overcome the badness of the blasphemy
of Aeschylus.' The volume, which was published anonymously, received
two sentences of contemptuous notice from the 'Athenaeum,' in which
the reviewer advised 'those who adventure in the hazardous lists of
poetic translation to touch anyone rather than Aeschylus, and they may
take warning by the author before us.'[17]

[Footnote 15: _Letters to R.H. Home_, i. 162.]

[Footnote 16: It need hardly be said that the literary resurrectionist
has been too much for her, and the version of 1833 has recently