1242. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 7, 122–123.
[London]
May 14th 1843.
My very dear friend,
I hear with wonder from Arabel, of your repudiation of my word ‘octosyllabic’ for the two lines in your controversial poem– Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of that I am perfectly aware: but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic. Do you not observe, my dearest Mr Boyd, that the final accent & rhyme falls on the eighth syllable instead of the tenth; & that that single circumstance determines the class of verse? that they are in fact octosyllabic verses with triple rhymes?
“Hatching Succession apostōlical,
With other falsehoods diabōlical.’[’] [1]
Pope has double rhymes in his heroic verses—but how does he manage them? Why he admits eleven syllables—throwing the final accent & rhyme on the tenth—thus ..
“Worth makes the man, & want of it the fēllow—
The rest is nought but leather & prunēlla.” [2]
Again, .. if there is a double rhyme to an octosyllabic verse, there are always nine syllables in that verse,—the final accent & rhyme falling on the eighth syllable—thus ..
“Compound for sins that we’re inclīned to,
By damning those we have no mīnd to.”
Hudibras.
Again … if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable—thus .. from Hudibras again.
“Then in their robes the penetēntials
Are straight presented with credēntials”–
or
“Remember how in arms and pōlitics,
We still have worsted all your hōly tricks.” [3]
You will admit that these last couplets are precisely of the same structure as yours: and certainly they are octosyllabics, & made use of by Butler in an octosyllabic poem,—whereas your’s, to be rendered of the heroic structure, shd run thus ..
“Hatching at ease succession apostolical,
With many other falsehoods diabolical.”
I have written a good deal about an oversight on your part of little consequence: but as you charged me with a mistake made in cold-blood & under corrupt influences from Lake-mists, [4] why I was determined to make the matter clear to you. And as to the influences ... if I were guilty of this mistake, or of a thousand mistakes, Wordsworth wd not be guilty in me. I think of him now, exactly as I thought of him during the first years of my friendship for you .. only with an equal admiration– He was a great poet to me always—and always, while I have a soul for poetry, will be so: yet I said & say in an under-voice, but stedfastly, that Coleridge was the grander genius– There is scarcely anything newer in my estimation of Wordsworth than in the colour of my eyes!–
Perhaps I was wrong in saying “a pun”– [5] But I thought I apprehended a double sense in your application of the term ‘Apostolical succession’ to Oxford’s ‘breeding’ & ‘hatching,’ .. words which imply succession in a way unecclesiastical–
After all which quarrelling, I am delighted to have to talk of your coming nearer to me … within reach .. almost within my reach– Now if I am able to go in a carriage at all this summer, it will be hard but that I manage to get across the park & serenade you in Greek under your window!–
Your ever affectionate
Elizabeth B Barrett.
Address: H S Boyd Esqr / 21. Downshire Hill / Hampstead.
Publication: LEBB, I, 139–141.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. See letter 1236 for EBB’s earlier comments on Boyd’s “anti-Puseyistic Pugilism.”
2. Pope, Essay on Man (1732–34), IV, 203–204, slightly misquoted.
3. These quotations are, respectively, I, i, 213–214, slightly misquoted, II, i, 819–820 and II, ii, 519–520 of Butler’s Hudibras (1662–63).
4. i.e., being swayed by Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets.
5. In describing Boyd’s couplet, quoted above (see letter 1236).
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