431. EBB to Ann Lowry Boyd & Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 328–329.
Hope End.
Saturday. [22 October 1831] [1]
My dearest friend,
I got home very well, & had no trouble in being absolved from all my sins of the last few days. So, you see, I stole “the sheep” without “being hanged”!!—— I sent away the letter with a seal large enough to be taken for the Lord Chancellor’s,—& do not doubt about its striking the Editor with sufficient awe & admiration, for you to have every chance of being prosecuted for libel. [2] I have just heard from Sam, who has seen an evening paper, that Parliament is prorogued, & by the King in person, & until the 22d of November. [3] This is quite satisfactory,—is it not? & calculated to make the anti-reformers almost as uncomfortable as if they were in the neighbourhood of rope & lamp post, & out of sight of the police!——
Such an account as I have heard of Mr Knowles! He is branded for ever in my opinion,—& will be in yours, when what has reached me reaches you. Can you believe that the whole weight of the Shaftesbury expenses falls upon poor Dominic,—& that it should fall entirely upon him, was the evident & only cause of Mr Knowles’ forcing him into the business? Mr Knowles will not, or cannot, pay his own part of those expenses!! Dominic acknowledges that Mr Knowles completely deceived & cheated him,—but does not wish people to know, to what extent. Well! not satisfied with being sleight of hand, & slight of conscience with respect to Dominic, he went down to Poole a short time ago & offered himself as a reform candidate: when finding that the interests of the place were in the power of two anti-reformers, in order to get in, he prefixed anti to his old political disignation [sic], & had the assurance to write to Dominic to tell him that he had become a moderate reformer. The newspapers wondered what could be the politics of Mr Knowles who stood now on one side, & now on another,—& the people of Poole had good sense enough to turn him out. But is not this even more intolerable in the eyes of Heaven & Earth, than could be dreamt of from his philosophy?– [4]
I was very happy in being with you last Monday & Tuesday & Wednesday,—& the more so, as it was a happiness which my Fancy had half resigned for ever!– There has been no letter from Papa since I left home. It is supposed here, that the next will be final! Whatever it may be, & whatever may be its consequences, <…> [5] neither it nor they nor any other thing can make me less than I have been & am,
Your attached friend
E B Barrett.
I forgot to ask you to speak to Miss Boyd about my Battle of Marathon. If she is kind enough to think it worth her acceptance, I certainly will not receive it back again.
Do my dear Mrs Boyd let me hear everything about everybody, & when I may hope to see you. As the boy is going I cant write a word more. Have you heard?——
Yrs affectely
EBB
Address, on integral page: H. S. Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.
Publication: Diary, pp. 287–288.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by Diary, p. 164, entry for 22 October.
2. EBB identified this letter as a sheet of epigrams sent to The Times (Diary, p. 164). Her description of them (p. 163) as “treasonable” may explain why they were not printed.
3. Parliament was prorogued on 20 October. This followed the defeat in the House of Lords, by 41 votes, on 7 October, of a modified reform bill passed by the Commons on 21 September by a majority of 109.
4. Cf. Hamlet, I, 5, 166–167.
5. About half a line obliterated, apparently by EBB.
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