112. EBB to Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother)

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 101–102.

[Hope End]

[August 1820] [1]

My own beloved Bro,

I must compliment you on the excellence of your birthday effusion– It possesses a depth of feeling and an elegance of diction which none of your former productions have betrayed in so eminent a degree– The last four lines are so very good that I might almost imagine the didactic spirit of Pope guided your pen– The great fault “for all have faults” [2] is the too frequent repetition of the word “D<A>Y” [3] for which you might easily substitute “year” or “hour”–

Yours my dearest Friend

with the fondest affection

EBB—

Address, on integral page: Master Barrett—

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Berg Collection.

1. This letter probably refers to a twelve-line birthday ode (MS copy in “Poems by EBB”; SD350) written by Bro to his brother Henry and dated August 1820. He used the word “day” three times. The last four lines read as follows: “Sweet Henry! may this day be spent / In joy and Mirth, and Merry play / In happiness and in Content / Which last must make a happy day!”

2. Cf. Goldsmith’s The Goodnatur’d Man (1768), act II, sc. 1.

3. Ink blot.

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