Correspondence

177.  Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother) & Mary Trepsack to EBB

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 175–176.

April 5th 1823.

Some young ladies have a great deal too much impudence, and some young gentlemen a great deal too complaisant in putting up with their impudence, I must certainly place you at the very head of this class of young ladies, the idea of your impudence in writing such a letter as this Miss Bazy. In your letter which I got on Thursday you allowed that you entirely forgot yesterday was thursday, & consequently (which (as you say) is uncommon occurrence) forgot me altogether, these are your own words, now in your letter today, you begin with your airs and graces again and talk about young ladies, and young gentleman Carthusian scholars, and the Haymarket (by the bye you ought to learn the Geography of London before you talk about it) and then you say that the fault was that of the Guard and not of your memory, now how to account for this contradiction, all I can say is that it is what Russell would call a downright shuffle. We are going to have the school room made double the size it is now as it is now too much crowded, there was a regular consultation of masters and Architects with maps and plans of buildings in the flogging room. There has been another boy flogged most severly this week a fourteen cutter for stealing a sovereign, he screamed and bellowed most dreadfully and now fellows have all cut him, and now the poor wretch goes moping about by himself and nobody speaks to him. [1] One of the poor old Pensioners [2] was found with his throat cut in bed and pen knife in his hand, he had got drunk the day before and was going to be expelled so he thought he would put an end <…> [3] by ending his life, many of th<e …> I had no such curiosity. I <…> surprised at any thing <…> or any thing else I shall <…> marks either your fancy <…> or your impudence. Well <…> my rage as much as I can I shall finish with; my dearest Bazy believe me

your affectionately attached

Brozy. ——

[Continued in Mary Trepsack’s hand] What say you to Mrs Orm[e] going to live with Mrs Murray in Bryanston Sqre [4] 150 pr year & a regular Establishment of Servants at her command she is to go to Italy with them, she fixed her own salary–

Address, on integral page: <Miss Barre>tt / H<o>pe End / Ledbury / Herefordshire.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Eton College Library.

1. “It was considered poor-spirited to squeal over a flogging” (Charterhouse Old and New, by E. P. Eardley Wilmot and E. C. Streatfield, 1895).

2. Charterhouse was constituted in 1610, by Letters Patent of King James I, to afford a home for eighty male pensioners (“gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queen’s Majesty”), and to educate forty scholars.

3. Large tear in seal area.

4. A William Murray and his wife lived at 40 Bryanston Square, according to an 1823 Directory.

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