Correspondence

329.  Hugh Stuart Boyd to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 178.

[December 1828] [1]

My dear Porsonia [2]

If my head felt heavy when you were last here, I am pretty certain it was not caused by your reading quick. If it had been so, I should probably have told you of it without any ceremony. As the letter about Gregory, was written a good while ago, it may be necessary to remind you, that in the opening of it, you seemed to think that you had caused the heaviness in my head. I was much delighted with your remarks on Gregory’s Orations. But I am weary of writing and would rather talk than write about them. I wish that at your leisure, you would examine some of the passages in the unfinished book which I now send. Take good care of it, and don’t let it be mislaid or hurt. One sheet only was printed. I should like to know what you think of Gregory, as a Poet. In the first passage, you will find a description of a storm at sea, and a Prayer to Christ. Tell me what you think of them. Tell me what you think of the Poem beginning with Eethelon ece peleia. [3]

I have spent some time in reckoning up the number of lines of different Authors, which I know by heart; and I send you the result. It seems to me, that, considering my long-established habits, it is not much. From what I have said to you about my memory, you will probably be disappointed.

With Mrs Boyds kind regards

I remain

Your sincere friend

H S Boyd—

Address, on integral page: Miss Barrett.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. Dated by references in following letter.

2. Boyd’s pet name for EBB, presumably derived from that of the classical scholar, Richard Porson, whom Boyd greatly admired.

3. “I would I were a dove,” the opening words of Gregory’s poem “De Huius Vitæ Vanitate” (Billy, II, 75).

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