169. Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother) to EBB
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 167–168.
[London]
[Postmark: 2 November 1822]
My ever dearest Ba
I am very sorry that you should be uneasy about your “ars Poetica” [1] but you may set your maternal fears at rest for I have his word for not showing it to any one but himself I believe he is neither writing for his own amusement nor is he writing it as a lesson but is only translating it from the book and so there you need not be uneasy so my dear Miss Bazy you need not fret yourself into the Lumbago, nor keep your “well leg” in bed a bit the more for it nor need it prevent the other from following it a bit the more tardily. I am really both surprised & delighted at the comparative swiftness of your recovery to what it was a few months ago I must say that I anticipate happier holidays this Christmas that [sic] I have had for the last year by your total recovery at least so far so as to be able to join in all our cozy little fireside round games, or chats and birthday processions or gambols, I hope again to see you transformed from the delicate invalid living upon pills and draughts to the healthy & livley Mrs Pickle. [2] With respect to your new poem [3] you talk about blushing to own that you have not yet finished your second canto, in the first place this is the very first time I ever heard you could blush atall [sic] in the second place even supposing you were endowed with this newly acquired genius I think in this case it would indeed be misapplied, for instead of blushing I think may well boast of your rapid progress, particularly as you seem to have bestowed so much pains upon it to suit the taste of your “friend Tom.” [4] I have no news at all from Charter House this week except that I got off my examination capitally, Sam was not examined.
Ever believe me
your affectionately attached ——
Bro——.
Who do you think has just made his appearance, no less a person than Mr Mc Swiney he says he has come to attend the Radical dinner on Tuesday he is looking as well as ever I remember him.
Address, on integral page: Miss Barrett / H<ope> End / Ledbury / Herefordshire.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Eton College Library.
1. A translation of part of Horace’s Ars Poetica, beginning “If to a face of excellence divine,” twelve pages, signed and dated Hope End, 22 October 1822 (see Reconstruction, D1238).
2. In The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1768), by Tobias G. Smollet (1721–71).
3. Possibly an early draft of An Essay on Mind.
4. Probably Thomas Campbell.
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