368. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 238–239.
[Hope End]
Saturday Night. [6 February 1830] [1]
My dear friend,
It was certainly very stupid in me not to guess your riddle. You need not have excepted me from the rest of “Mr Barrett’s family”; for till I was eight years old, I never sinned in the way of egotism, but always said “Ba will do this”,—& rather too often “Ba wont do that.”
I compared your translation with the original, & found it not merely line for line, but word for word. I like it very much,—particularly the latter part. There are two things in it, which do not, however, like very much, or at all. I do not like the additional syllable in any blank verse, except the blank verse of a dramatic poem, in which licences of every kind are more admissable than in other kinds of composition. And I do not like the contraction I’ll. You cannot think how I dislike the whole family of such contractions, the I’ds & I’ms & he’s & she’s,—when they are used in any measure more dignified than the octosyllabic. Campbell uses them sometimes,—& he ought to know better. I am sure you would have done better in this respect, if you had not been composing after dinner—that very un-Aonian time!! You will receive my criticism after tea, & will be sure to admit its justice.
Mr Barker sent me the other day, a letter of enquiry: [2] an undeserved act of good-nature. In the letter was an extract which he says is “from one of the Greek Fathers,” & not among your translations. Tell me if you never translated it any where, for something about it, puts me in mind of you. “Who or what is my God? I asked the Earth, & it said I am not; I asked the Sea & the Deeps, & all living creatures, & they answered, We are not thy God; look above us, & enquire after Him; for here he is not. I asked the Air, & all its inhabitants, yea the Heavens, Sun & Moon, & Stars,—& they confessed, We are not He whom thy soul seeketh. In short, to an attentive inquirer, everything discovers its own emptiness, & its Maker’s fulness,—its own inability, & its Maker’s sufficiency”.
Here is a paragraph about Bells which I copy from the Times. “On Friday last, in honor of the King’s ascension to the throne, 8 of the Ipswich senior society of change ringers ascended St Mary Tower-Steeple in that place, & rang Holt’s complete peal of Grandsire triples of 5,040 changes, in six parts, the first time it was ever rung in the country,—& at the first attempt, bringing the bells round in a masterly style in 3 hours & 6 minutes: the peal was conducted by Mr Robert Birch.” [3]
Perhaps after all, there may be nothing worth your reading in this paragraph; but as it contained mystic words, “change-ringers”, “Grandsire triples” &c I thought I would run the chance of sending it to you.
Your ever sincere friend
E B Barrett
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Woodland Lodge / Great Malvern–
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 99–100 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to King George IV’s ascension to the throne, the tenth anniversary of which was Friday 29 January 1830.
2. Dated 1 February 1830 (MS with Harlan).
3. The paragraph quoted appeared in The Times of 4 February.
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