317. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 163–164.
Hope End.
Saturday Night. [Docket: 2 August 1828]
My dear Sir,
It is late for me to be writing,—but I have this moment received your elegy, [1] —& I do not wish our servant to go tomorrow (which he will do early in the morning) without taking a few lines from me on the subject. I agree with you in your judgment of this elegy as exactly as I did, in your judgment of Wolfe’s poetry—for it has particularly pleased me. I should like the second stanza better, if the idea expressed in it, were not given more strikingly in the third,—the two last lines of which, have great beauty & truth: I much admire all the subsequent verses, down to
“He ne’er shall cull your nectared sweets again.”–
The image in the next stanza seems to me too commonplace to be worthy of you: but the stanza beginning “Yes—it was thine” &c, is tender & pathetic;—& that beginning “Oh thankful raise &c,” has much force & expression. I do not like your varying your imagery so much in the two concluding stanzas,—your illustrating your meaning by a reference to flowers, gems, & stars: and tho’ I perfectly understand the idea expressed in the last stanza, & like it when understood,—yet I do complain of some obscurity, & of some want of force in the expression. If you wanted “freedom & bluntness” from me, you must be quite satisfied with this letter. It would however be doing injustice to myself, not to say, that I have had difficulty in divesting myself of my general feeling & impression in order to please you critically,—and now that I have done so, I am half self-displeased! Your poem is addressed to the heart; and a calculating criticism from the head proves the latter’s bad judgment—I hope nothing worse! I will not however complain of my bad judgment, in venturing to criticise, since it is at least kept in countenance by yours, in determining to underrate.
Most probably I have been writing tonight, what critics generally write––i.e. positive nonsense; but what can a person be expected to do, in such a hurry? I am hoping to be able to visit you on Tuesday,—if not more than half of the usual obstacles, should come in the way.
With my kind regards to Mrs & Miss Boyd, I remain
Your ever faithful & sincere friend
E B Barrett.
I have not gone thro’ the Parriana yet. I have been extremely amused by your most characteristic letters, published by Mr Barker. [2]
Mama is going on tolerably well–
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Woodland Lodge / Great Malvern.
Docket, in unidentified hand: August 2.–1828.
Publication: EBB-HSB, p. 55 (in part).
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. If Boyd’s elegy was published, we have not been able to locate a copy.
2. Parriana; or, Notices of the Rev. Samuel Parr, collected by E.H. Barker. 2 vols. (1828–29). This work included letters from Boyd on campanology (I, 332–340). EBB’s copy sold as lot 969 in Browning Collections (Reconstruction, A1816).
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