1236. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 115.
[London]
[Postmark: 9 May 1843]
My very dear friend,
I thank you much for the copies of your anti-Puseyistic Pugilism– The papers reached my hands quite safely & so missed setting the world on fire––and I shall be as wary of them evermore (be sure) as if they were gunpowder– Pray send them to Mary Hunter– Why not? Why should you think that I was likely to “object” to your doing so? She will laugh– I [1] laughed .. albeit in no smiling mood—for I have been transmigrating from one room to another, & your packet found me half tired & half excited, & whole grave– But I could not choose but laugh at your Oxford charge: and when I had counted your great guns & javelin-points & other military appurtenances of the Pun-ic war, [2] I said to myself .. or to Flush, .. “Well, Mr Boyd will soon be back again with the dissenters–” Upon which I think Flush said .. “That’s a comfort.”
Mary’s direction is, 111 London Road, Brighton– You ought to send the verses to her yourself, if you mean to please her entirely: and I cannot agree with you that there is the slightest danger in sending them by the post– Letters are never opened, unless you tempt the flesh by putting sovereigns or shillings or other metallic substances inside the envelope—and if the devil entered into me causing me to write a libel against the queen, I wd send it by the post fearlessly, from Johny Groat’s to Land’s End inclusive–
One of your best puns, if not the best,
“Hatching succession apostolical
With other falsehoods diabolical”
lies in an octosyllabic couplet—& what business has that in your heroic libel?
The “pearl” of maidens [3] sends her love to you–
Your very affectionate
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 21 Downshire Hill / Hampstead.
Publication: LEBB, I, 138–139.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Underscored twice.
2. Boyd’s punning diatribe against Puseyism is unfortunately lost to us.
3. i.e., Arabella Moulton-Barrett.
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