Correspondence

1000.  EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 65–67.

[London]

Wednesday– [?31 August] [1842] [1]

My very dear friend,

You have been so much more in my thoughts for not having been on my paper—but the intense heat in which most of my good resolutions have evaporated lately, has even up to half an hour, persuaded me that I had far better put off writing to you until “day after day”. In the meantime I have received from you at least two notes, both very kind, & beg you to believe how sensibly I felt this kindness through all the burning of the sun, however I might have acknowledged it more quickly & comfortably ‘sub tegmine fagi’ [2]  .... you & I sitting in an hypothetical coolness like poetical shepherds. [3]

But something is on my conscience & must be written off. Ever since I read your note—the note about the parentage of my printed criticism on Milton with the reference to Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer night’s dream’ [4] —where you tell me that it consists of your own opinion & comparison, communicated by yourself to me in conversation, .. I have been pondering & wondering how it was. I quite remember the conversation—the last or almost the last I ever had with you!—but still my impression resolutely remains that I addressed both opinion & comparison to you, & that you agreed with me. Consider it again!– Certainly if you hold fast the claim, I yield mine—for I do not dare to contend with you on a point of memory.

The reason why I say so much about it, is not that I am jealous of my vanity of authorship—not at all– If I learnt this from you, it wd not be strange, still less unpleasant to confess .. considering how much I have learnt, frankly confessing my obligations, to the same source. But to learn anything from you & then print it out staringly to the world as the result of my own reflections & without a word of acknowledgement to its originator … of such an act I shd be ashamed, & beg you to believe that I never consciously could commit it.

Saturday.

My dear friend (very dear!—so do not fancy me unkind again!) these three pages were written several days ago—and now I have to thank you for another note & also to retort against it with another article. Mr Dilke proposed to send me any work I pleased for the pleasure of the dissection—but I sent in my resignation as critical journalist, & am going to write poetry all the rest of my life! I retire to play at ‘chuck farthing’ [5] —& whenever I drink with an ostler, I shall do it, be sure, to your good health– Yet the “sub tegmine fagi” plan wd suit me better; & I wd willingly sit there with thee, O Menalcas!

As for your blasphemies against such of the gods as dwell near Helvellyn, [6] it wd certainly be prudent not to sit near you under any sort of tree while you utter them .. for fear of a thunderbolt. My controversial answer to them all, is here in my ‘article’—which you are not obliged to read because I send it. And to claim a like liberty for myself, I am not obliged to believe that you believe what you say or intimate of the great poet of our times!– Pope—Goldsmith!– Measure out broad praises to either!—but for genius, for philosophy, for various & expressive language & cadence, .. for poetry, in brief .. you cannot seriously place Wordsworth below them. Oh surely, surely not!

They have been praising me at length (with some critical blame) in the North American Review [7] —the chief Review in America: and this is the second time that I have been ‘taken up’ in America—once before by ‘Arcturus’ [8] a critical work published at Boston. The North American review (if it were my book I wd send it to you—& yet you might not care to see it) mentions the ‘Greek Christian poet’ series in the Athenæum, as mine,—& says that my prose wears “the peculiar characteristics of my poetry”. It praises too, extravagantly my ‘House of Clouds’ .. the very poem which made you think I was losing the use of my faculties—; (did’nt you tell Arabel so?) makes quite a wonder of it, & ranks it as the best poem I ever wrote! [9] What do you think of the ‘art of criticism’ in America? You will forgive me for being unkind to Pope & kind to Wordsworth, after that.

I have written too much today to overburden you with the extract from Shakespeare.

Arabel has just gone out to walk with Flushie. She said to him in the other room, the door being open– “Go & kiss Miss Barrett first”!—and in he came, galloping & prancing, kissed me on my lips, & ran out again. Is’nt that sense? Could’nt he write a review if he tried? Yes, you will say—& not dispraise Pope!

May God bless you! Thank you for being glad that I am better, & for wishing that we may meet. I have hope that we may.

Ever your affectionate

EBB–

Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 249–251 (as [1842]).

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. The reference to The North American Review suggests that this letter follows immediately after that to Miss Mitford, commenting on the same article.

2. “In the shade of the beech” (Vergil, Eclogues, I, 1).

3. Vergil’s two shepherds were Tityrus and Menalcas.

4. In the fourth paper on The Book of the Poets, EBB said “our creed is, that the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ displays more of the fairyhood of fairies, than the ‘Paradise Lost’ does of the angelhood of angels” (The Athenæum, 6 August 1842, p. 707).

5. A game of the pitch-and-toss variety, similar to chuckstones.

6. A reference to the Lake Poets. Helvellyn, between Keswick and Ambleside, is the highest of the local peaks (3,118ʹ).

7. See letter 999, note 19.

8. See letter 911.

9. The North American Review said “The House of Clouds” was “a lavish and luxurious display of poetical wealth” (p. 215). For the full text of the review, see pp. 373–379.

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