Elizabeth Barrett to Richard Hengist Horne, letter postmarked 21 February 1844: '[italics]Have[end italics] I read "Festus"? Certainly I have [...] Oh yes! I was much struck by "Festus" [...] Both the "Festus" & the supplement apologetic to it, which appeared in the Monthly Repository (I think) filled me with admiration [...] Its [italics]fault[end italics] is an extraordinary inequality -- so really one falls down precipices continually; & from pinnacles of grandeur, into profundities of badness. Parts of the poem are as bad, & as weak as is well possible to be conceived of: and moreover [...] there is an occasional coarseness & gratuitous indelicacy [...] Also, I will not say that there is not some over-daring in relation to divine things [...] But when all is said, what poet-stuff remains!'