232.5. EBB to Uvedale Price
This late entry would have appeared in The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 1.
Hope End.
June 1826
My dear Sir,
Your letter has given me as much pleasure as any letter could give; and in warmth and earnestness my gratitude at least equals my pleasure. Feeling as I do, it would be impossible for me to avoid replying to this most indulgent letter, were it only by thanks; but I am inclined to believe that the indulgence which exacts thanks will permit something more. From an expression which you kindly make use of, I am encouraged to explain here whatever difficulty still exists in my mind as to the entire reception of the three criticisms sur le tapis. It is to your own kindness that you owe another intrusion upon it.
I cannot quite acknowledge that the epithet Aonian was introduced by me for the mere sake of an harmonious remplissage. An odd story, relating to Dr Watts, tells us that in his boyhood, having, by his propensity to rhyming on all occasions, provoked a very un-Aonian flogging, he cried out in a kind of Pythian phrenzy—
Father! on me pray pity take,
And I will no more verses make!
Now this is certainly ‘rhyme’; but, with due deference to Dr Watts, I would not couple it with my epithet ‘Aonian’—not even for the sake of harmony. I should only couple this epithet, which seems to me highly expressive of practical inspiration, with the productions of those, whom, like Cowley,
“Phœbusque … Pieridesque favent–”
Tibullus Elegia 4
I make use of it as Lucretius does of “Pierian” in the following passage,
— — “volvi tibi suaveloquenti
Carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram”
Is the epithet superfluous here? And if it be not, may not Cowley’s ‘Aonian rhyme’ be tolerated together with the ‘Pierian song’ of Lucretius? In Milton’s line, respecting the
“Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,”
I should certainly be sorry to see Aonian play the epithet before the last word. It would be entirely superfluous & out of place, because (as you observe) Milton “simply distinguishes the two modes of writing”. Now the passage in question, from my book, does not mean to draw any distinction between the departments of prose & poetry, but to show at what various times, & by what various causes, Genius asserts her being in the soul. Cowley’s precocious Aonian inspiration is named as an instance of this variety.
Tho’ we have instances of a syllable being short before three consonants as circumscribes &c I am ready to confess that īllŭstrăte, as I have dactylevied it, sounds very untuneable. I am unwilling however, for the sake of future privileges, to give up my belief—i.e. that in the ancient poetical charter there exists a license of changing the accentuation of words according to their position! To my quotations from Spenser on this subject you reply by stating ‘that the accents on the last syllables of the words quoted—envý coràge—were mere restorations of the ancient accentuation which lasted from the Conquest to Chaucer’s time, and thence to that of Henry 8th that in the middle of his reign it only begān to give way to the new—& that it was adopted by Spenser out of deference to his Master Chaucer! I believe this is the substance of your statement.
Now I find in Chaucer the very same variety of accent tho’ of course prevailing to a less degree than with Spenser. We have “perfect” accented as a trochee & as a spondee, with only a few intermediate lines. Thus—
“For he was Epicurès owen son
That held opinion that plein delit
Was veraily felicitè pārfīte—[”]
“Living in pees & pārfĭte charitie”–
I believe that ‘complaining’ had at that time its present accent, and yet Lydgate says
“Full many a tere she wept in cōmplăynīng.”
To trace this caprice or licence still farther back, I will refer to an anonymous satire on the monastic profession, written, Warton conjectures, soon after the conquest. Here we find the word “abbey” variously accented—
“Ther is a wel fair abbée”–
afterwards—
“Flie to that ābbăi, God nit wot.”
There is an example of the elision prejudice in Nash—
“My life is my true happiness’ disease”
but I admit that it is rarely to be met with. Nevertheless I am inclined to recommend Science to your mercy, since you extend it to Pope’s Dulness! Science is personified throughout my Poem. If Dulness have a capital initial, & “a lap on which a head reposes,” Science has a large S, besides “soaring sons”, “rushing wings” & “a brow sublime”.
The interest of these subjects has been so enchaining to me that I have said more than I intended—more perhaps than you will like to hear. I do hope you will not think me too tenacious of my humble opinions, & that you will forgive my encroaching so long on your valuable time. <***>
Publication: None traced.
Source: Author’s draft at Armstrong Browning Library.
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