282. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 100–101.
Hope End–
Decr 24th 1827.
Sir,
I recieved your parcel on Saturday; and feel extremely obliged to you for so readily giving an opinion I was so much interested in recieving. The opinion you give, really delights me,—it makes a strong point of sympathy between us,—and I could not help extracting one or two passages from your letter, without waiting for your permission, in order to send them to Sir Uvedale Price. [1] He has just recieved a Baronetcy.
It is an odd coincidence,—that I made the same remark, with regard to your Greek epigram, as that which, you tell me, occurred to yourself. The epigram lost none of its harmony by being read according to the absurdly misapplied rules of accent,—for the author of the book I sent you, did me the honor of communicating his M.S. to me, some time previously to its appearance in a printed form. The subject to which he directed my mind, struck me from the first: I gave first my attention, & then my conviction & practice, to his arguments,—and the subsequent attack of a very acute & ingenious opponent, [2] failed to shake that conviction, or change that practice! I have therefore indulged in the delight which you yourself express,—and have been so zealous & eager about the business, that I only wonder I should so long have delayed mentioning it to you. But I have heard the question, & subject, called a “vexata quœstio”—a “threadbare subject”,—& I knew by some experience of my own, that an argument upon it, would be interminable. Now I like an argument too well to object to its being interminable—but, I believe, this is not a very usual case.
I observe that all your MS. & printed Greek is without accents,—& am rather curious to know whether you omit them <upon Sir> Uvedale Price’s view—with regard to their application,—or upon Dr Gally’s, [3] —with regard to their authenticity. Perhaps, some time, you will satisfy me upon this point.
It is certainly very hard upon me, that you should tell me what I might have lost, by my want of personal intercourse with you. What I have lost, is quite enough to regret—and too much—! therefore, for lost, read deferred.
Pray believe me, in the mean while,
Very sincerely yours
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 16–17.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Boyd enthusiastically endorsed Price’s system of pronunciation, and a long letter calling attention to it was published in The Classical Journal, LXXIV, June, 1828, pp. 325–327. At the conclusion of the letter, Boyd said: “As the earnestness of my recommendation might be ascribed by some to the partiality of friendship, I think it right to state that I have no acquaintance whatever with Sir U. Price. This work was sent to me by Miss Barrett, a highly-favored child of the Muses; whose beautiful poem, entitled An Essay on Mind, written at the age of eighteen, would be generally admired, if generally known. She was anxious to learn my opinion of the book; and I was gratified, of course, on finding that it espoused a system, which had yielded me so much delight for so long a period. … I should wish it to be here recorded, that in the early part of the nineteenth century there lived at least three persons, who were its firm supporters and strenuous partizans.”
2. i.e., James Commeline, Jr.
3. Henry Gally (1696–1769), classical scholar and divine, who had published two dissertations on Greek pronunciation in 1754 and 1763.
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