316. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 161–162.
Hope End.
Monday Morning. [21 July 1828] [1]
My dear friend,
Henrietta is going to ride to Malvern Wells,—but she cannot go farther, on account of the convenience of the lady who accompanies her. I shall however be able to send this as far as Mrs Trant’s,—and to write to you till the horses are ready. It will be impossible in so short a time to speak to you as I feel, of some parts of your last letter—and yet, why should I complain? With any allowance of time, the difficulty would be equal. At last, after waiting my patience fairly to an end, I am able to send you the little volume which, I said so long ago, I would send, [2] —towards which, you have shewn so much indulgence & patience,—& with regard to which, you have so forcibly exemplified the sentence from Gregory Nazianzen, quoted on the first page. Then let it be a memorial, not of my friendship,—I hope that requires none,—but of your own disinterested kindness,—which is the only thing you are capable of forgetting.
The accompanying pamphlet was sent to me two days ago. I have not read it yet, & know nothing more of it, than its subject. This may interest you,—but if you are not curious about the opinions & arguments of Dr Adam Clarke’s Antagonist, pray do not let the circumstance of my enclosing the book to you, induce you to annoy yourself even with the third part of three pages. [3]
I do not at all agree with you in what you say of the Elegy on Sir John Moore—(nobody should call it an ode!) unless it be, in your general dislike to that kind of metre. I do not like it generally: but the whole effect of Wolfe’s poem is so grand & striking that I cannot feel a criticism. I would rather have written that elegy, & the pathetic little poem, a passage of which I quoted to you, than almost all Moore’s lyrics. [4] I am surprised that you should not very much admire the passage I quoted, & that you should find fault with its grammatical construction. Such an ellipsis appears to me by no means uncommon in poetry.
In great haste, believe me
Your always sincere friend
E B Barrett.
Pray give our kind remembrances to Mrs & Miss Boyd. Nothing satisfactory from London.
I must open my letter again, to ask you whether you will be indulgent enough to let me see your elegy. If you feel any objection, forget the request.
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr
Docket, in unidentified hand: July 27, 1828. [5]
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 53–54.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to the docket (see note 5 below).
2. This may have been Thomas May’s Supplementum Lucani, which EBB had thought of sending in letter 279, and which she is glad to find Boyd enjoyed when she wrote on 10 January 1829 (letter 331).
3. Adam Clarke (1762?–1832), a theologian, was a friend and distant relative of Boyd, his grandmother having been a Boyd. We have not been able to trace the pamphlet here mentioned.
4. See note 3 to previous letter.
5. This docket is confusing; EBB headed her letter “Monday Morning” but the 27th was a Sunday, and the letter couldn’t have taken all week to reach Boyd; we have, however, used the docket for the purpose of conjecturing a date. It is, of course, quite possible that the docket denotes the date of Boyd’s reply.
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