335. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 187–190.
Hope End.
May 5th 1829.
My dear Mr Boyd,
I am far from considering you to be otherwise than perspicuous in your general style & manner of expressing yourself: but if you expressed yourself perspicuously in this particular instance, I can only say that I was particularly stupid in misunderstanding you. At any rate, I thank you (how often I have to thank you!) for a book which I do indeed truly value.
Lord Bacon says that “a little philosophy turns the mind to atheism”; (or,—he might have added,—to what is equivalent to atheism[)]; but that “depth in philosophy bringeth it back to religion”: [1] which observation discovers much “depth in philosophy”. For all possible misapprehensions respecting the nature of things, arise from partial views of things,—whether they be things in Heaven or things in earth. Therefore I am always inclined to hope sanguinely and to wait patiently, when a mind affected by scepticism, is acute & inquisitive & possessed of that degree of restlessness & energy which is obvious & remarkable in the mind of your philosopher. If he lives long enough, the very light of nature may be a means in the Divine Hands, of conducting him to the light of revelation: the very result of learning may prove to him the necessity of being taught of God. In the meantime there can be no ground for the apprehension you suggest. He & his family are about to leave the neighbourhood,—a circumstance which you must not mention, until you hear it from other authority than mine. He was here the day before yesterday, to hear Mr Curzon, [2] but arrived too late.
I return Heliodorus, [3] —& keep many pleasant recollections of him. The lamentation of Chariclia on the death of Calasiris, at page 171. book 7., appears to me the most eloquent passage in the work,—or it yields only to the close of the address of Hydaspes to his people, page 369, book 10,—beginning συ δε ῶ θυγατης. [4] In both these passages, perhaps particularly in the first,—the sentences rush on with a bold rapidity, striking fire from each other in their progress. Heliodorus has not, in general, this rapidity & vehemence. I should call him not an eloquent writer in general, tho’ a very graceful & brilliant & animated one, at all times. I think that in his surprising power of creating & combining incidents, & in his power of pathos, his excellency principally consists. There are pathetic passages innumerable which are exquisite in their kinds—passages in the first book,—the opening of the 2d book—the fourth chapter of the same book,—the lamentation of Charicles for loss of Chariclia in the 4th & very many others,—more particularly the description of the emotion of Hydaspes, in the 10th, beginning, ο δε Ὑδασπης ηλεει μεν γυναικα οδυρομενην ὁρων, [5] down to, πασχειν ὁσα πατηρ ηλεγχετο.” [6] than which I never read anything more beautiful & affecting. Most of these passages you have marked. Heliodorus is apt to repeat his figures, & is particularly fond of the following one. Chariclia says το παρον δε σοι τασδε επιφερω χοας και αμα ετιλλε τας τριχας——. και τασδε επιχεω τας σπονδας εκ των σοι φιλων οφθαλμων——. [7] At page 171. lib 7. she says,—lamenting for Calasiris,—αποσπενδω των εμαυτης δακρυων, και επιφερω χοας εκ των εμαυτης πλοκαμων. [8] And then in the tenth book, Hydaspes is described as, δακρυων επιῤῥοη πατρικα προς αυτην σπενδομενος. [9] Calasiris does the same thing somewhere, but I cannot find the place, at this moment. The αγκυρα [10] is a figure also introdaced [sic] more than once or twice; & there are several similar repetitions.
I forgot to mention one other point of similitude between the author of the Arabian Nights, & Heliodorus; I mean the disregard to truth which is common to each of them,—& perhaps equally manifest in the Arabic unbeliever & the bishop of Tricca. [11] The extreme readiness & complacency with which every personage,—from the virtuous Calasiris to the admirable Chariclia,—lies, not in white but black, is really amusing. Poor Sisimithres, indeed, is obliged by the law of his profession, to speak the truth!– It must have been a great inconvenience to him,—& Hydaspes ought to have annulled the law, in consideration of his many & useful services. Do observe Chariclia’s theory, expressed in the 1st book, at the close of the 26th chapter,—& acted up to, most consistently, throughout her career—καλον γαρ ποτε το ψευδος, ὁταν ωφελοῦν τους λεγοντας, μηδεν καταβλαπτη τους ακουοντας. [12] You referred me to the account of the birthplace of Homer. If anybody but Calasiris had given it, I don’t know what I might have thought,—but as his veracity is particularly impeachable, I really cannot believe that Homer was either an Ægyptian or the son of Mercury—tho’ I dare say he was equally likely to be either. [13]
You desire to know whether “there is anything in your essay or postscript, with which I do not agree.” You desire to know whether there is any additional or superabundant presumption in my composition, with which you were not acquainted. I will satisfy you,—or try to do so. I never learnt anything about the rule in question, of the Greek Article,—except what I learnt from you: first, from your notes to the Agamemnon, & Select Passages; & secondly, & more fully & clearly, from your essays in Dr Clarkes commentary. [14] And therefore notwithstanding my intimate & profound knowledge of Greek syntax, & my singular exactness in the grammatical construction of sentences,—which has not escaped your observation,—it is not very probable or very possible that I should be able to find fault with you in ipso articulo; [15] even if you were not as immaculate as I believe you to be. But I am going to make one remark, about the short essay at the end of the 1st chapter of Hebrews. To the rule which you state & apply there, is there not an exception which you have not stated—namely that when the predicate is a proper name, it may have the article prefixed,—if the subject of the sentence be a noun substantive. As in this example from Lucian, where a noun substantive is the subject,—τουτι το κρανιον η Ελενη εστιν? [16]
You cannot think how much you amused me & made me laugh, with your campanalogy [sic]. When you spoke of the variance & discord at Malvern, & of your efforts to restore harmony, I could not think what was coming. I am glad it was only the man to improve the bells! To tell you the truth I don’t quite understand this very strong taste of yours,—and yet I assure you I like to hear you discourse upon it,—having no kind of antipathy to any kind of bell, except Bel & the Dragon. [17] Gray’s idea of Paradise was, “to lie upon a sofa & read eternal new romances by Crebillon”. [18] Yours would probably be, “to sit in the belfry during an eternal succession of new year’s days”. Therefore I congratulate you upon the tenor, [19] —& heartily hope for your sake, that there may be marriages enough at Malvern this summer, to enable you to hear it every hour every day. But by the time this long letter is dinged into your ears, you will be tired of it & me. Bro, who went today to dine with the Trants, behaved very shabbily in not waiting for it—& I dont mean to speak to him when he comes home,
Believe me dear Mr Boyd,
Your ever sincere friend
E B Barrett.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 68–70 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. “Of Atheism,” (1625). EBB used this quotation in note (p) to Bk. I of An Essay on Mind (p. 96).
2. The Hon. and Rev. George Henry Roper-Curzon (1798–1889), later (1842) 16th Baron Teynham. In 1828 he was ordained as a Baptist minister and was appointed to Ledbury. The party who hoped to hear him preach has not been identified.
3. The references that follow are to the Æthiopica of Heliodorus. The characters cited are Chariclea, the heroine, daughter of Persinna, Queen of Ethiopia; Calasiris, an Egytian priest; Hydaspes, an Ethiopian general, the true father of Chariclea; Charicles, High Priest of Delphi; and Sisimithres, an Ethiopian senator, the reputed father of Chariclea.
4. “And you, o daughter” (Bk. X, cap. xvi).
5. “Hydaspes, looking upon the suffering woman, pitied her” (loc. cit.).
6. “I suffer such accusations as the father made” (loc. cit.).
7. “I just now bring this drink offering, and pluck out my hair—and this libation I pour out for you from my own eyes” (Bk. VI, cap. viii).
8. “I pour offerings of my own tears, and bring libations from my own locks” (Bk. VII, cap. xiv).
9. “Offering paternal tears for her” (Bk. X, cap. xvi).
10. ”Anchor; support.”
11. i.e., Heliodorus.
12. “Falsehood is sometimes good when it benefits those who speak it without harming those who hear it” (Bk. I, cap. xxvi).
13. In Bk. III, cap. xiv, Calasiris says “I am quite willing that other countries should claim the honour of being the birthplace of Homer; the wise man’s country is the world; but he was in fact an Egyptian, born at ‘hundred-gated Thebes,’ as he himself calls it; his father was Mercury.”
14. Boyd’s “Essay on the Greek Article,” later published separately, was originally printed by Adam Clarke in The Holy Bible, With a Commentary and Critical Notes (1810–26), as part of the commentary on Ephesians, 6. Other comments derived from Boyd’s arguments appeared as part of the notes to Titus, 3, Hebrews, 1, and at the end of Colossians.
15. “On this point.” A pun on articulus/article.
16. “That skull is Helen” (Dialogi Mortuorum, XVIII).
17. Apocrypha, Daniel 14:27.
18. “Now as the paradisaical pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon” (Letter to Richard West, Correspondence of Thomas Gray, 1935, II, 192). The two novelists thus favoured were Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688–1763) and Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707–77).
19. According to Boyd’s friend, Dr. Henry Card, the most musical of the Malvern bells.
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