BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT. Autograph manuscript excerpts from early English poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, John Fletcher, William Browne and popular balladry, apparently prepared for a watercolor painter, Mr. Weale, consisting of some 258 lines, n.p. [probably Torquay, 1839]. Together 12 pages, 8vo, 178 x 114 mm. (7 x 4 3/8 in.), on rectos and versos, the first page a bit soiled along old folds, bound with the letter noted below and typed transcripts in brown morocco gilt, g.e., by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.; Autograph letter signed ("Elizabeth B. Barrett") to "Dear Mr. Weale," Torquay, 11 June 1839, 4 pages, 16mo, 111 x 83mm. (4 3/8 x 3 1/2 in.), "...the water colour drawing is extremely beautiful & suggestive... You have done what is said to be impossible -- 'painted a thought' -- And I am satisfied to hear in the silence of your picture, Spenser's very own voice... I have written out some suggestions for paintings, as you asked me to do. Should you like any of them & wish for more, I shall be very glad to purvey for you again. These passages are all from the old poets & you will not I think on that account, care less for them..." CONTENTS 1) "Chaucer's walk for the 'good luck' of hearing the nightengale sing before the cuckoo" ("And anon as I the day espied..."), from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1 1/2 pages, 32 lines, titled at head 2) "The Nutbrowne Maid (undiluted by Prior)" ("Yet take good heed, for ever I dread..."), 1 page, 18 lines, titled at head, cast in the form of a dialogue between "He" and "She" 3) A section from Spenser's Faerie Queen, headed "Fairy Queen 4th Canto - towards the end," ("Till towards night they came onto a plain..."), 1 page, 14 lines 4) A section from Spenser, headed "Fairy Queen X Canto - near the Beginning Mount Acidale" ("It was a hill placed in an open plain..."), 1 page, 13 lines of verse plus a two-line note, the note reading: "but I am afraid the table land spoils Mount Acidale for a picture)" 5) A section from "Browne's Pastorals" (He took his way unto the nearest wood...") 1 page, 14 lines 6) A section from "Browne's Pastorals Another Scene" ("Between two hills, he highest Phebus sees..."), 2 pages, 40 lines 7) A section from "Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess -- The Grave of Clorin's Love" ("Clorin has buried her love in an arbour..."), 2 pages, 56 lines, interlocutors' names indicated in margin 8) A section from Fletcher's "Faithfull Shepherdess The fairy well" ("To that holy wood is consecrate A virtuous well..."), 2 pages, 50 lines, interlocutors' names indicated in margins Provenance: John L. Clawson, bookplate (sale, -------------) -- W.T.H. Howe, bookplate -- Edith Barbara Tranter, bookplate.