309. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 149–152.
Hope End
June 21st 1828. Saturday.
My dear Sir,
I thought I should have been able to talk to you today, instead of writing to you; & I submit to reverse this arrangement with feelings of great disappointment. I received your letter on Sunday, & must assure you that if I had not calculated upon seeing you on the Monday following, & indeed on every day since, I would have written instantly. Now I am forced to write briefly & hurriedly,—but it is better to do so, than to leave your letter unnoticed for an uncertain period.
To say that I was in every way gratified by your enclosure, is only saying that I have a common share of natural feelings. Will you express for me & from me, to Mr Barker, how much I was pleased,—& how much, in a proportionate degree, I am obliged to him for the attention he has condescended to give to my book, & for the flattering manner in which he mentions its writer. She will be very proud to receive the valuable & interesting present he designs to send her. His criticisms appear very just—but I am inclined to except one,—the one relating to Lord Bacon,—& to be obstinate about it, in my usual way. Do tell me whether you think I am right or not. I think that the question should be, not whether what Lord Bacon says of James the 1st is conformable to the spirit of his times,—but whether it is conformable to the dignity of his philosophy. Lord Bacon’s mind was not like clay, impressible: it was like granite, which is impressive: it was not calculated to be formed by an age, but to form an age. He went before his age in philosophical research: why should he be only equal with his age, in the moral scale? He shook off the chains of false opinions & prejudices: why should he keep chains of a yet baser metal? Why should the knees which were stiff to Aristotle, become so supple & obedient before James the first? I do not understand how the law of moral rectitude—the law impressed on the soul of man when man was created in the similitude of his Maker—can be called properly, an ex-post-facto law.
I think besides, that Lord Bacon does not merely conform to the spirit of his times: he is not, in an ordinary degree, adulatory & subservient. It was not necessary for him to have incorporated the basest & most disgusting of dedicatory prefaces with the noblest & most elevating of philosophic works. [1] The volume containing that preface & that work, should hold the place of a Death’s head, in the chambers of contemplative men,—as a memento of what is more humbling than death!–
If Bacon is “not to be less respected” on account of his subserviency,—it follows that, without the subserviency he would not have been more respectable,—the moral of which is at least questionable. It appears to me that if Mr Barker’s plea,—the plea of humanity,—is admitted,—an amnesty of all evil in act & will, must be the result. That plea swallows up all condemnation; & is disarming to the moralist & satirist. Juvenal must not stab—nor Persius scoff [2] —nor Horace rally! For there is no tendency to corruption, & no consummation of corruption, which is not human,—& the stronger the humanity, the deeper the corruption! Lucan was human, in his adulation of Nero,—& Nero was human, when he put Lucan to death. [3] You know, your craniological bulwark Thurtell’s, organ of benevolence, did not interfere with his humanity; [4] and neither judge nor jury considered his being human, any just & legal obstacle to his being hanged. I think that they were about as right, with regard to Thurtell, as Mr Barker is wrong, with regard to Bacon.
I have begged you to thank Mr Barker for me; but whom can I employ to thank you? I wish you could know by intuition, how very deeply I feel all your kindness—for if your knowledge of my real feelings be dependant upon my describing them faithfully, you will certainly think me ungrateful & unfeeling, all your life. Cannot your powder of projection [5] help you to this knowledge—enabling you to collect the real feeling from the imperfect expression? And yet, not by transmutation!——
Your letter about the occult sciences amused me extremely. My guesses were not so far wide of the mark after all—which encourages me to hazard another– Are you Gregory Nazianzen, with the aurum potabile [6] at your elbow? That would account for the coincidence you mentioned to me,—& would relieve me from the labour of wondering so much, at the familiarity of your memory, with his works. Gregory himself might have mistaken page 37 for 38, in his invectives against Julian, if he had not looked at the book for 17 years: so that solitary mistake of yours, does not interfere with my speculation.
I am obliged to come abruptly to a close,—or I shall not be able to send this, tonight. Whoever your “second Daniel” is, he can know nothing of his profession, if he ever should look at my handwriting, [7] & not judge from it, that its writer is, & must continue to be
Your grateful & sincere friend,
E B Barrett–
The weather really appears settled now. Will you give my kind remembrances to Mrs Boyd, & say that we are pleased at the continued sunshine, on every account. The party in London is as uncertain as ever.
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Woodland Lodge / Malvern.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 48–50.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. In the dedicatory paragraphs of The Advancement of Learning (1605), Bacon wrote of the King in fulsome terms, praising “The deep and broad capacity of your mind, the grasp of your memory, the quickness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment … God has endowed your Majesty with a mind capable of grasping the largest subjects … your Majesty’s eloquence is indeed royal, streaming and branching out in nature’s fashion as from a fountain, copious and elegant, original and inimitable.”
Barker’s comments doubtless sprang from EBB’s note (h) to Bk. II of An Essay on Mind (p. 102), in which she spoke of Bacon’s dedication as “passages so servile” polluting “pages so glorious.” The note ended with the comment “Lord Bacon first teaches us how high Philosophy can soar, and then how low a philosopher can stoop.”
2. Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis) and Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus) were both satirists of the 1st century A.D.
3. Lucan (Marcus Annæus Lucanus), author of the Pharsalia, was ordered to commit suicide, together with Seneca, his uncle, for joining a conspiracy againstd Nero in 65 A.D.
4. See letter 303, note 9.
5. The alchemist’s elusive elixir, a small quantity of which would transform any amount of base metal into gold.
6. “Potable gold,” the universal medicine. Paracelsus, in his Chirurgia Magna, said of it “there is no other equal medicine found in this age.”
7. A reference to Daniel’s interpretation of the mysterious writing on the wall that troubled Belshazzar (Daniel, 5:5–28). EBB’s “second Daniel” is from The Merchant of Venice, IV, 1, 333.
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