233. EBB to Uvedale Price
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 245–247.
[Not all marks of stress and pronunciation have been reproduced in this transcript. They are all reproduced in the print volume.]
Hope End
June 1826.
My dear Sir,
Tho’ I recieved your sheet of observations [1] at Hastings more than a fortnight ago, travelling from thence & settling here after an eleven months absence have induced me to delay writing until this morng Giving your observations their due consideration occupies more time than feeling their kindness; and I was anxious to speak to you of my convictions as well as of my obligation. It hardly seems real to me that my unworthy little book should recieve Mr Price’s toleration much less his approval, and thus human frailty secures my exercise of a virtue—I am too proud not to be grateful.
Dare I rely on your indulgence, or will you think me very presumptuous if I intrude on you the few remarks which occured to me while reading your criticism?– You object to my Expression ‘Aonian rhyme’ (used in reference to Cowleys Pyramus & Thisbe) [2] on the ground of “Aonian leading one to suppose that in our native clime he first wrote in Greek or latin.” Why in latin? & if in latin, why not in English; since we apparently have as much right to call our verse Aonian as the Romans had? The inspirers of our national poetry are the Muses—the sacred Nine,—the veritable Aonides. Gray who seems positive as to their identity, says that they
“in Greece’s evil hour
Left their Parnassus for the Latian plains.”
&
[“]When Latium had the lofty Spirit lost,
They sought oh Albion! next, thy sea encircled coast.” [3]
Surely if the Aonides be the inspirers, Aonian is the inspiration—besides, as old Sir John Denham says
“as Courts make not kings but kings the court,
So where the Muses & their train resort–
Parnassus stands.” Cooper’s hill [4]
With respect to the word “illustrate” which I have made a dactyl “contrary to usage” [5] I must build my defence rather on analogy than on any precedent immediately in point. I think it may be observed that among our old Poets—Spenser especially—the established accent of a word is often changed with its position in a line. In the following line from the Faerie Queen “Envy” has its present trochaic accentuation—
“Ne wicked ēnvȳ, ne vile gealosy”—
directly afterwards it is a spondee—
“Each other does ēnvȳ with deadly hate”—
Here ‘courage’ is a trochee—
“One day when him high cōūrăge did emmove”
afterwards a spondee—
His stout cōurāḡe to stoupe & shew his inward paine.” [6]
Instances of this license are to be found in Milton, tho’ more rarely, as in “aspèct” &c You object to my conversion of illustrate also because “to make a vowel short before three consonants as str must be injurious to euphony & articulation.” We have however an instance of this in the recieved accentuation of the word circumspect among others.
To my expression “Science’ soaring sons” [7] you say in objection– “such an elision as this .. & afterwards ‘prejudice’ [8] .. I do not remember to have seen made use of, except in proper names, as the wrath of Peleus’ son.” I believe a similar elision may be found in the Dunciad—
“On Dulness’ lap the sacred head reposed” [9]
To your other instructive criticisms I thankfully accede; & if the remarks I have ventured to make in these instances, be thought by you presumptuous (& they almost seem so to myself) let me beseech you to forget them,—only remembering what I [10] must always remember with pleasure,—that I am,
dear Sir,
Most gratefully yours
EBB–
Address, on integral page: Uvedale Price Esqre
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Four pages of commentary by Uvedale Price on An Essay on Mind (ms at Scripps).
2. Line 137.
3. The Progress of Poesy (1757), lines 77–82.
4. Lines 5–7 of Sir John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, in the revised text of 1655.
5. Line 267: “And use the truth to illustrate a lie!”
6. These four lines from The Faerie Queene are, respectively, bk. I, canto 12, v. 41; bk. II, canto 2, v. 19; bk. II, canto 1, v. 50 and bk. II, canto 1, v. 42.
7. Line 510.
8. Line 571: “But, lest contracting prejudice mislead.”
9. Bk. III, line 2, slightly misquoted.
10. Underscored twice.
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