1195. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 34–35.
[London]
March 31– 1843–
My very dear friend,
I feel guilty before you, since your last letter has remained too long unanswered—but I have had a great deal of necessary writing to do; & I thought it necessary also to read ‘Cuthullin’ [1] steadily through as a preliminary to replying to your remarks upon it. This has been achieved at last,—and of course I admit the great beauty of certain things in the poem, although the image which struck me first, still strikes me most,—& although I preserve my opinion upon the general monotony & defective individuality– To my ear, upon the whole, even the rhythm is monotonous. Detached passages have an exquisite rhythm—but as you go on, reading page after page you (nay, but I should rather say I) grow sensible of a sameness which is fatiguing. It is
“Those evening bells, those evening bells” [2]
ringing throughout the four & twenty hours– It is your melodious clocks striking the minutes. It is my doves cooing without interval. It is, in literal fact, melody, without the intricacies, the varieties, the light & shade of harmony .. & therefore, is it, in long continuousness, fatiguing to the ear & ungrateful to the sense of music–
Another defect I must allude to in your Ossian—he wants perspective– You see everything equally & on a level—through a mist indeed, but through a mist spread over everything alike & in a like degree– Is it not so? Are you not sensible of this yourself?– I speak as to a wise man– You once replied to me with a justice which I confessed at once, that Dr Johnson’s opinion against the authenticity of Ossian was of no weight whatever. I refer now to another authority which, whether in point of national attachments or familiarity with the antique in Scottish poetry, must be considered the highest & weightiest of all … Sir Walter Scott’s– Sir Walter Scott was decided in his opinion against the authenticity of Ossian: [3] and as far as any authority may influence the decision of any question, this authority seems to me to affect this question.
Well!—we shall never, I suppose, agree upon it! Remember however that we have noble poets in England, & that you should not give away all your admiration to these vague mist-bound glories–
Poor Southey is gone at last. For three years his great intellect was shrunken & mis[s]hapen,—and he stood an idiot with the laurel on his brow– A few weeks ago he had an apoplectic fit—& passed finally from the world by an attack of typhus fever– Never for a moment, did the light of his mind return– The transition was immediate, without twilight or dawn, from the thick darkness of moral insensibility, to the radiance before the Throne–
May God bless you, dearest Mr Boyd!–
I thank you for permitting me to see Miss Heard’s [4] letter which is here returned to you. No! it is’nt returned—it is mislaid. I will look for it & let you have it–
Ever affectionately yours
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 21 Downshire Hill / Hampstead.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 258–259.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See letter 1165.
2. Thomas Moore, “Those Evening Bells” (line 1), in National Airs (1818).
3. We have not been able to find this opinion in print.
4. Mary Eliza Heard (1816–81); see letter 580, note 3.
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