520. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 164–165.
74 Gloucester Place.
Thursday morning. [7 January 1836] [1]
My dear Mr Boyd,
As certainly as that Arabel cannot draw the teacup, I had intended to go to see you today. And I am quite aware that I shall drink a very large overflowing teacup of your wrath, in not going. It is at my lips. I must drink, for I cannot walk. I have such a cough again! that I should hasten it to a wrong conclusion, by going out today, particularly to a place so far off as your house. Will you be generous, & forgive me for having a cough?– When it goes, I shall be very happy indeed to go too.
In the meantime I am going to tell you that dear Georgie has entered at the Inner Temple, after passing triumphantly a classical examination. A classical examination!—not in the Olynthiacs of Demosthenes—not in the school of Hackney—not by a Scotchman—not [2] —proh pudor! [3] by a dissenter; but––in the choruses of the Greek tragedies––by a native of England (“angeli sunt Angli”!) [4] —by a member of England’s infallible church, & a first class man from the omniscient university of Oxford.
ακουετε λαοι! [5] ——
The examiner said “very well”. What will you say?– For my part, I am so vain of my brother, that I shall soon begin to think my sister capable of drawing a teacup.
Mr Newdick [6] paid us a visit yesterday for half an hour; and I had the satisfaction of hearing that while we were frozen to the fender, in Christmas week, they at Sidmouth only had “a little frost every day.” What would you give to be there?–
Have you heard from Annie, & when?—and when do you expect to have her with you again?–
Your affectionate friend
E B Barrett.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 216–217.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to George’s examination.
2. Underscored four times.
3. “For shame!”
4. “The angels are English” (a play on Pope Gregory I’s “non Angli sed angeli”—“not Angles but angels”).
5. “Hear, ye people!” (cf. Iliad, XV, 506.)
6. Secondary material makes clear that the Moulton-Barretts met Mr. Newdick and his family in Sidmouth and that social contact continued after the former moved to London. One letter (SD926) mentions a gift of tea, brought back from China by Mr. Newdick, and a later letter (SD1058) speaks of his being in prison for debt.
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