Correspondence

487.  EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 97–99.

Sidmouth.

September 14th 1834.

My dear Mr Boyd,

I wont ask you to forgive me for not writing before, because I know very well that you would rather have not heard from me immediately. I was glad once again to see your signature, and to hear from yourself where you were. Your being at Margate surprised me; and it pleased me besides, because I knew how much gladness of heart Miss Boyd must feel in having you with her. Will you give my love to her, and say so? And when you write next, will you say whether you mean to reside at Margate—and how your health is—and how you like the old associations around you? You do not mention what interests me most.

You did Mr Harvey injustice in imagining that he would not show us your letter. He sent it to us on the very evening of its arrival. He was wrong and injudicious to bring forward his application for the £10, as a claim,—when his own part of the engagement was not strictly and literally fulfilled. No one acquainted with you as I am, dear Mr Boyd, could attribute to you the sins of meanness and illiberality. At the same time, will you permit me to say that I was & am very sorry at your not giving the £10–? The engagement was almost fulfilled on Harvey’s side,—and would certainly have been so completely, had not your removal occasioned some delay, and the accident about the types, more. An attention to different wishes of yours has also appeared to increase the expense to him: and after all this heavy expense, a remuneration can scarcely be among his prospects, as the book does not seem to sell here at all. As you mentioned the subject to me, you will forgive me for venturing to say so much.

Mr Hunter returned a fortnight ago from London where he has been passing several weeks. There, he saw Mr Arthur Wallis. Do you at any time hear from him? I fear that he is more zealous in the pursuit of the vulgar honors of that society which is at once above him and below him—above him in station, and below him in intellect—than of the classic honors of Oxford. Learning, like “Art”, is a “jealous god”.

And so, you and Mrs Mathew [1] have been tearing to pieces, to the very rags, all my elaborate theology! And when Mr Young is ‘strong enough,’ he is to help you at your cruel work!! “The points upon which you and I differed”, are so numerous, that if I really am wrong upon every one of them; Mrs Mathew has indeed reason to “punish me with hard thoughts.” Well! she cant help my feeling for her, much esteem, altho’ I never saw her. And if I were to see her, I would not argue with her,—I would only ask her to let me love her. I am weary of controversy in religion,—and should be so, were I stronger & more successful in it, than I am or care to be. The command is—not, “argue with one another.”—but, “love one another.” [2] It is better to love than to convince. They who lie on the bosom of Jesus, must lie there together!

Not a word about your book!! Dont you mean to tell me anything of it? I saw a review of it—rather a satisfactory one—I think in an August number of the Athenæum. [3] If you will look into Fraser’s Magazine for August, at an article entitled “Rogueries of Tom Moore”, you will be amused with a notice of the Edinburgh Review’s criticism, in the text,—and of yourself, in a note. [4]

We have had a crowded Bible meeting; and a Church missionary and London missionary meeting besides; and I went last Tuesday to the Exmouth Bible meeting with Mrs Maling, [5] Miss Taylor and Mr Hunter. We did not return until half past one in the morning.– Your beloved friend Mr Cox, has received his dismissal from the curacy; and it is supposed that Mr Bradney will be the new curate. From what I understand & believe however, Mr B. is not likely to remain long in the Church of England.– The Bishop of Barbadoes and the Dean of Winchester [6] were walking together on the beach yesterday, making Sidmouth look quite episcopal. You would not have despised it half so much, had you been here.

Do you know any person who would like to send his or her son to Sidmouth, for the sake of the climate, & private instruction: and if you do, will you mention it to me?

I am very sorry to hear of Mrs Boyd being so unwell. Arabel had a letter two days ago from Annie; and as it mentions Mrs Boyd’s having gone to Dover, I trust that she is well again. Should she be returned, give my love to her.

The black edged paper may make you wonder at its cause. Our dear aunt Mrs Butler, died last month at Dieppe—and died in Jesus. Miss Clarke is going, if she is not gone, to Italy for the winter.

You ought to try to be sorry for poor Mr Cox. Besides the dismissal, which he takes much to heart,—the lady to whom he is engaged, is dying!

Believe me

affectely yours

E B Barrett.

Write to me whenever you dislike it least—and tell me what your plans are. I hear nothing about our leaving Sidmouth.

Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Howley Square / Margate / Kent.

Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 205–207.

Manuscript: Wellesley College.

1. The dedication of A Malvern Tale (1827) was addressed by Boyd “To her who is pre-eminently the child of religion and virtue; to my esteemed friend, Mrs. Mathew, of Stanwell, Middlesex.”

2. John, 13:34.

3. The issue of 9 August (no. 354, pp. 593–594). The reviewer considered that the discourses chosen by Boyd had “a high value,” but thought that “as a work of controversy” the book had “a very small portion of merit.”

4. Fraser’s Magazine, vol. X, no. 61, pp. 194–210. The writer of the article, Oliver Yorke, cites a “most abusive, scurrilous, and profane article” (a review by Moore of Boyd’s Select Passages in The Edinburgh Review, no. XLVII, November 1814, pp. 58–72). In a note, Yorke speaks of “the Rev. Stuart Boyd: whose enthusiastic and chivalrous brother, shot at Malaga by Moreno, is now the object of much sympathy in the newspapers.”

Moore’s review speaks of the “mischievous absurdity of some of the moral doctrines of the Fathers … the profane frivolity of Tertullian,” and of “the gas of holiness with which they are inflated,” their “puerile conceits … flaunting metaphors, and all that false finery of rhetorical declamation.”

5. Mrs. Maling, with whom the family became acquainted during the stay in Sidmouth, remained in touch after the Moulton-Barretts moved to London. Letters from Henrietta to her brother Sam in 1837 and 1838 (SD835 and 943) speak of Mrs. Maling’s son Charles seeking a loan from Henrietta or her father, of his later departure for India, and Mrs. Maling’s financial distress owing to the debts he left behind him.

6. William Hart Coleridge (1789–1849), consecrated Bishop of Barbados and the Leeward Islands in 1824, and Thomas Rennell (1754–1840), appointed Dean of Winchester in 1805.

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