Correspondence

1165.  Hugh Stuart Boyd to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 6, 345–346.

[Postmark: 3 March 1843]

My very dear Friend,

I was pretty sure that you would not be offended, by my saying, that I did not like your late Poetry. But I hope that you will not be vexed with yourself, because you are told, that your Poetry is some times obscure. Remember that although your Poems are some times obscure, yet there is a greate [sic] deal in them which is not obscure. Remember also, that it is partly owing to the greate depth of your thoughts, and the superiority of your own mind, if you appear obscure to us. Since I last wrote to you expressly on the Poems of Ossian; I have read another, called, The death of Cuthullin. I found, that it contained the idea you admired so much, about the darkened half of the moon, behind its growing light. A little way farther on, he has another idea, which also is extremely fine. Harriet Holmes who read it to me, thought it finer than the other. I myself am doubtfull about it. I will transcribe, or rather dictate the whole passage. The idea which I mean, is at the end. “Terrible is the spear of Torlash. It is a meteor of Night. He lifts it, and the people fall. Death sits in the lightning of his sword.[”] [1]

A little after, there are a couple of very beautiful similes about the music of Carril’s harp. Farther on in the Poem, there is a description of the Spirit of Loda, [2] much finer than that in Carricthura, which I formerly mentioned to you. It is a short passage. I wish that you would read it.

Towards the end [of] the Poem, there is one of those passages, which go slap bang to the heart at once, as I told you Bland used to say. [3] A Child is asking, what is become of his Father, the Mother is too much affected to be able to speak. The Child casts his eyes upon the wall, and there in language too plain to be misunderstood, he reads his Father[’]s fate. [4] If these passages do not prove a Man, to be a great and consummate Poet; why then, I do’nt know nothing about no matter at all. I will tell you, how far I agree with you. I think that there is a great sameness in Ossian, with respect to the Warriors, and to the young Females. But I think that there is some variety, though not a great variety in the incidents. I maintain however, that there is a great variety both in the images and in the diction. If the same images often recur; either they are attended by circumstances which place them in a different light, or else the expressions are much diversified. I have been reading the Openings of all the Poems, with a view of seeing if I could recognize anything, which I had read, above forty years ago. I have been much struck both by the variety, and by the great beauty of almost all these Openings– With respect to confounding these Poems in the memory; I think I remember their differences, and keep them separate in my mind, about as well as I should other Poems of the same length.

Let me now take notice of your kind wishes, with regard to my visiting you. [5] If you had been residing in Hampstead for the last three months, or the last three years, and if you had been living on Downshire Hill; I think there is no doubt that I should have often gone to see you. If you had been living anywhere, not more than a quarter of a mile from my house; I believe, that I should have been in the habit of going to see you, though not so often. If we like, and all is well, I have still the hope, that you may come an<d> see me here. When I was speaki<n>g <of> the Warriors being very like each other<,> I ought to have said, that Fingal seemed an exception. He seems a most noble, and exalted carritor. [6] If I should read the two long Poems called Fingal, and Femora; I dear say, that this idea would be greately confirmed. Give my kind love to Arabel, and believe me,

ever yours affect[i]on[ate]ly

H.S. Boyd.

Address, on integral page: Miss Barrett, / 50, Wimpole Street / London.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Pierpont Morgan Library.

1. These passages from “The Death of Cuchullin” appear on p. 129 of The Poems of Ossian, Translated by James Macpherson (1762). Cuchullin (Cuthullin in later editions) was the guardian of Cormac, the young King of Ireland; Torlath one of the chiefs of the Belgæ, occupying southern Ireland.

2. Op. cit., pp. 129 and 132. Carril was Cuchullin’s bard; Loda, a place of worship in Scandinavia, and a note to the poem suggests that the spirit of Loda was that of Odin.

3. Probably Robert Bland (1779?–1852) who, as a classical scholar, would doubtless have been known to Boyd.

4. Op. cit., p. 133.

5. See the suggestion made by EBB in letter 1157.

6. Sic; possibly Boyd dictated “character” and the amanuensis misheard or misspelled.

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