303. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 135–141.
Hope End.
May 1st [–3] 1828.
My dear Sir,
My Father did not take the parcel on Saturday. It was too late after all, & did not leave this place till Sunday morning. A Catholic servant of ours (you will think we have a great deal to do with Catholics!) who attends Mrs Wakeman’s Chapel, [1] & afterwards invariably goes on to Spring Cottage, took it with him. Mrs Trant happened to be from home. On Monday she was here, & told me that she had sent the parcel to you that morning. Therefore I am inclined to lay the blame on her servant’s negligence,—tho’ I am not the less sorry that any cause should have prevented your receiving your books immediately.
Does not Catullus, somewhere, in the character of the “pessimus omnium poetarum”, address his “optimus omnium patronorum”? [2] If I were half as good a poet as Catullus, I might afford to be quite as much modest,—but,—that, unfortunately, not being the case,—the “optimus patronorum” is reduced to receive my thanks without an antithesis. For I wont commit suicide by applying the pessimus to myself. Better judges may do so, if they like,—tho’ I am tempted to observe that they could not so apply it, without bad grammar,—or render it grammatical, without bad manners! Really the adjective in question should have no feminine: should it? I believe I am writing nonsense merely for one reason,—namely, that if I were to write seriously & feelingly, & assure you how deeply I am sensible to all the interest & kindness expressed & proved in different ways by your letter, I should make sad work of it!– I will certainly “do my lesson” according to your desire, & will go to say it, not when I can “conveniently” but when I can possibly do so. We are now expecting some relatives, who have agreed upon staying here a few days. You must never think that I calculate coldly my own conveniences when there is a possibility of satisfying my inclinations by visiting you: you must lay it down as a canon as infallible as any of Porson’s,—that whenever our personal intercourse has been long interrupted, the interruption has annoyed me. You do not often do me justice; on this subject, it is my interest to exact bare justice from you! To go back to the lesson, pray be as little awful as you can help being—make as many allowances as you can,—& do not give me over to the secular arm to be “caned.”! There is no new copy of my poem in the house—but I send enclosed, a note to Mr Duncan containing the direction you advised me to give. Why should I annoy you, by repeated thanks? You know how much obliged to you, I must necessarily feel.
I have been for some time desirous of noticing the one or two points of your valued criticisms, upon which I venture to entertain doubts. I may as well do so now. In page 26, prejudice & eyes do make an imperfect rhyme, [3] —but I think that imperfect rhymes relieve the ear from a monotonous impression. They are sanctioned by the practice of the most uniformly correct poets—by the frequent practice of Pope himself.
In page 30, there are two opinions against me. The masterless steeds could not be expected to do otherwise than “kick”,—but the passionless brow should certainly have been smoother,—& the physical dress had no business to stick in anybody’s throat! [4] Upon the whole I will confess to you that tho’ this structure was once very pleasing to my ear, what you have said at different times respecting it, has diminished the pleasure by changing the course of my associations. And yet my ear (like every person’s ear) having a right divine of its own, & being unwilling to submit to authority, asserts its independance by modifying its concession. I think that the structure is occasionally admissable for the sake of expression. I think that I have used it much too frequently, & not in general for the sake of expression.
Page 54. My “ideas” have been abused by most of my critics. Placing the accent on the last syllable of “nothing”, would certainly be a thing not to be endured! [5] Sir U Price said, that, to scan the line, the word must be read “idee”—but I have no idea of doing this, either! I am not going to be disingenuous enough to attempt a defence of what I am convinced is indefensible, upon any just metrical principle. When, however, I wrote the objectionable lines, I meant the last syllable of the word in question to be pronounced exactly as ‘dear’ is pronounced in
“Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart” [6]
or
“Oh Name, for ever sad, for ever dear![”] [7]
where the separate sound of the two vowels is distinguishable, while the metre continues uninjured.
Saturday morning.
In page 71, “But Nature’s glorious masterpiece is here”, [8] —here refers to the “crowded cities”. I dislike a noise & confusion very much: but the sight of a great multitude, always appears to my mind, calculated to excite the most affecting & sublime contemplations.
Perhaps you will indulge me some day, & gratify my curiosity, by saying a great deal “about craniology”. If you ever had a leaning to the science, you must have been confirmed by hearing that Thurtel had the organ of benevolence very strongly developped. [9] A Craniologist once told me that a young man whose head & forehead were naturally & smoothly formed, suddenly devoted himself to hard study, and that after a short lapse of time, he appeared before his friends with the most satisfactory development of organs, signified by the most deforming protuberances. The story was told to me, with a grave face, as an unquestionable fact,—& I, in my candour, am willing to acknowledge it to be a “knock ’em down argument”: for I am quite sure that the gentleman’s studies must have been chiefly directed to the noble science of boxing!! You say “there is an art still more wonderful” than craniology, which you “know to be true”. This is very mysterious! What can you mean? Do you mean the black art?——
Two of the lines on Jeffrey (the second couplet.) I would wish omitted. [10] Otherwise, I do not believe, I have said too much. His style is not chaste: it is forced & ambitious, but it is striking & brilliant.
Two of the lines on Locke, I would wish omitted. [11] He is neither “first in my heart nor noblest in my song”,—& I cannot conceive why I should have said so. Sometimes people are led by the heat of composition, to say more than they are willing to assent to, afterwards. I may however observe in my own defence that this is not a common fault with me—that it can be justly attributed to only four lines out of my whole volume! With respect to Irving, I would not recall a single word of what is written. [12] As a Preacher, he affected me more than any one I ever heard; and as a writer, he seems to me to abound with passages highly oratorical & splendid. Nevertheless I quite agree with you, about the account of the dietings at Albury Park [13] in the book which you would not read, & ought to have read! I wish you had!
Page 73. You tell me I am “unquestionable positively decidedly wrong” in what I have said about artists! Dugald Stewart reverses the motto of Sir U Price’s book,—& (I continue to think so!) with great justice & feeling. [14] Surely poets do see more in nature than artists do! Surely you cannot disagree with me in this! I do not mean to shut artists from the Eden of ideal beauty, where the voice of God is speaking to the soul of Man! The great artist does see more than the actual light & shade before him—more than the hills & valleys around him—more than the clouds & sunshine above him: but still he sees only light & shade, only hill & valley, only cloud & sunshine! He only deals with matter, under whatever beautiful combination, his genius may enable him to view it. With the poet, on the other hand, matter is not an object but a medium. He looks thro’ nature that he may look beyond nature! He binds together the moral & the natural with golden bands,—rendering what is beautiful in nature, more hallowed, by associating it with what is elevated in intellect,—& rendering intellectual conceptions more distinct & definite by a reference to material objects. How the artist particularizes! How he dwells upon coloring & grouping & foregrounds & distances! How the Poet generalizes! How he delights in abstractions—in depth & height & silence & space!! I suppose I should make an honorable exception in favor of Mr Bowles, [15] whose censure of Pope would have been just, if Pope had been a painter,—or if the world were likely to gain by Pope’s poetry resembling Mr Bowles’s!
Ought I to have added a note explaining & qualifying what I said of Lord Byron? [16] Then if I ever have an opportunity, I will do so. At the time I wrote the passages relating to him, I could not find it in my heart to leave a word upon paper, calculated to reflect upon his memory. Were not his errors of faith & his errors of conduct sufficiently known? By the allusions of my book, I thought I had guarded myself from any possible suspicion of extending my admiration to that faith & conduct. I thought I might please my feelings by keeping silent upon those points, above his grave. Whenever there is anything in character or conduct, to condemn, it will never want condemners: Justice will do her part,—&, afterwards, Calumny & Malice & Insult will do theirs! Poor Lord Byron was cruelly used, in life & death, by unfeeling relatives, false friends, & open enemies—by a world which can never understand what is not cold & heartless as itself! He was not by nature cold & heartless—but his affections were turned into bitterness. You know how his wife introduced a medical spy into his room, when he was writing the Siege of Corinth, in order to obtain proofs of his insanity!!! I saw her once!
I think that, humanly speaking, Lord Byron’s extraordinary sensibility of heart & mind was his bane. He could not stand unhurt in that burning fiery furnace—for “the likeness of the Son of God” was not in the fire! Religious knowledge he had none; but every real poet must have natural devotion—& he was a real poet! I think he had more devotional feeling than Sir Walter Scott has! A relative of mine was in St Peters at Rome as Lord Byron entered it, [17] —& saw him throw himself, in a transport of enthusiasm, on the earth before a cross, & kiss the feet of the Crucified. You see—the knowledge was not there—but the feeling was there! In his last moments, he said “Not my will—not my will!” Perhaps it may have pleased Him who remembers that we are but dust, to have touched & turned the evil heart of unbelief,—to have had mercy, & not sacrificed!– I like to dwell upon this consoling possibility.
The subject makes me think of the circumstance you mentioned in your letter. It is the madness & folly of man to disregard his immortal part, even while it is entering its eternal state, for the sake of his perishable part, even while it is perishing. I have prayed, & will pray for the poor sufferer!
Saturday, eight o’clock.
Our dinner hour was rather later than usual today, & I am ashamed to say, we have only just left the table. I find your parcel waiting for me in my room, & hear that your messenger is in eminent danger of being bénighted. Therefore my quick way of reading, which you are so severe upon, has done me some service, in looking over the magazine & your letter,—& my quick way of writing must also be in request. Thank you again & again for everything for which I am indebted to you—for the Review, & your astonishing references to Gregory. I wish you had sent me your memory at the same time. The Review is a very satisfactory one to my vanity,—& I am going to take it down to Papa, to please his, too.
I hope I shall see you very soon, tho’ I am sure not quite as soon as I could wish—but then I am unreasonable!
Believe me
Your grateful & sincere friend
E B Barrett.
My best compliments to Mrs & Miss Boyd.
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 35–41.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Mrs. Wakeman, a Catholic, held prayer services in her home, adjacent to Little Malvern Church.
2. The two phrases translate as “the worst of all poets” and “the best of all patrons” (Carmina, XLIX).
3. The imperfect rhyme occurs in lines 332–333 of An Essay on Mind: “But, when the sun of blinding prejudice / Glares in our faces, it deceives our eyes.”
4. These comments refer to lines 404, 608 and 636. Presumably Boyd’s criticisms related to the rhythmical disturbance caused by the introduction of an added syllable to the lines.
5. “All is idea! and nothing real springs” (line 723).
6. Thomas Gray, The Bard (1757), line 41.
7. Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard,” line 31.
8. An Essay on Mind, line 991.
9. John Thurtell (1794–1824), an amateur boxer, murdered a solicitor whom Thurtell thought had cheated him at cards. He was hanged on 9 January 1824. According to DNB, his skull is preserved at the Royal College of Surgeons.
10. The couplet EBB wished omitted was “Who justly judges, rightfully discerns, / With wisdom teaches, and with candour learns” (lines 115–116).
11. “Oh! ever thus, immortal Locke, belong / First to my heart, as noblest in my song” (lines 892–893).
12. She wrote “Thus Reason oft the aid of fancy seeks / And strikes Pierian chords—when Irving speaks!” (lines 914–915). Note (i) to Bk. II (p. 102) says, in relation to Irving, “It gratifies me to be enabled to express in this place my admiration of his talents, and my respect for their direction.”
13. A reference to the Albury Circle, 25 ministers interested in prophecy, who attended a week’s conference at Albury Park, the home of Henry Drummond. “These Conferences (‘retreats’ they would be called to-day) were held annually. The host was the historian and published the proceedings (three octavo volumes entitled Dialogues on Prophecy). The movement also produced an ambitious quarterly entitled The Morning Watch.” (Edward Irving and His Circle, by Andrew Landale Drummond, [1937], p. 133.)
14. Price’s book, A Dialogue on … the Picturesque and the Beautiful (1801) had on its title page a quotation from Cicero’s Academica (II, 20): “Quam multa vident pictores in umbris, et in eminentia, quæ nos non videmus!” (“How many things painters see in the shadows, and in the highlights, that we do not see!”). Stewart, in his essay “On the Beautiful,” suggested that the taste of a painter of limited mind might become as circumscribed as his canvas, and proposed reversing Price’s motto to read “Quam multa videmus nos quæ pictores non vident!” (“How many things we see which painters do not see!”). (Philosophical Essays, 1811, p. 295.)
EBB expressed her views on this matter of poet versus artist in lines 1020–31 of An Essay on Mind.
EBB’s copy of Stewart’s Essays, bearing her signature dated December 1824, is at ABL (Reconstruction, A2211). An undated 25-page composition of hers, entitled “D Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Human mind,” is in the Berg Collection (Reconstruction, D1286).
15. William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) was editor of a 10-volume edition of Pope’s works published in 1806. His comments on both the moral and poetical aspects of Pope’s life and works were “written in a severe, if not a hostile spirit” (DNB) and gave rise to a spirited controversy in which Byron and others defended Pope. (See Bowles, Byron and the Pope-Controversy, by Jacob Johann Rennes, 1927.)
16. It is not immediately clear what EBB meant by this comment. Perhaps she was referring to the passage at lines 1185ff., which included “So be it! at his cold unconscious bier, / We fondly sate, and dropp’d the natural tear— / Yet wept not wisely.”
17. In a letter to John Murray on 5 May 1817, Byron wrote: “I have this morning seen a live Pope and a dead Cardinal; Pius VII has been burying Cardinal Bracchi.” The relative of whom EBB speaks is thought to have been her uncle Sam, the only member of the family to travel extensively in Europe at that time.
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