281. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 99–100.
Hope End.
December 15th 1827.
Sir,
I feel unwilling to communicate with you until I can send my reply to your letter, & my more particular thanks for your works; but a sudden opportunity allows me to send the accompanying work, without giving me time to write a letter. You can hear from me by the post at any time,—& parcels do not find a ready conveyance always.
You must be well acquainted with the first publication of the distinguished author, whose Essay on ancient pronunciation I now send you: [1] His essay “on the Picturesque” exacted from Dr Parr a remark—that it was “in point of style, the correctest production of the present time.” [2]
Mr Price has directed the powers of his highly poetical & gifted mind, for several years, to the subject upon which he has written; & has now just printed this dissertation,—with the idea of being thus able to collect the opinions & criticisms of learned individuals prior to publication.
I have the happiness & advantage of his acquaintance & correspondence,—& being a most faithful disciple of his, am extremely solicitous to have your opinion of his theory.
If you should have the book read to you, may I be permitted to request the attention of the reader to the various marks which the author was obliged to introduce: as, without such attention, the whole must be unintelligible.
I shall write very soon if I possibly can—but have been much engaged. It is impossible for me, however, even to send this hurried scrawl, without expressing how much I admire your Agamemnon. [3] I will not forget your poetry—& I must by the way observe that I had some elementary instruction both in Greek & Latin, from the gentleman who instructed my brother before he went to the Charter House. [4] Since that time I have been an unassisted student—“slovenly” enough, I dare say!
Believe me, very sincerely yours
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 14–16.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Uvedale Price’s just-published book, An Essay on the Modern Pronunciation of the Greek and Latin Languages.
2. Price’s earlier work, A Dialogue on the Distinct Characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful (Hereford, 1801). Samuel Parr (1747–1825) was a pedagogue and classical scholar. In Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Opinions of the Rev. Samuel Parr, LL.D. by the Rev. William Field (1828), Parr is recorded as praising Price “not only as a correct and elegant scholar, but as an English writer, not surpassed by any of his contemporaries in purity of style” (II, 305).
3. Boyd’s translation of The Agamemnon of Æschylus was published in 1823.
4. i.e., Daniel McSwiney.
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