366. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 233–235.
Hope End.
Friday. [29 January 1830] [1]
My dear friend,
Do you think that I did not remember the appendix to your Select Passages? I have re-read it attentively according to your recommendation; & after all, I cannot feel convinced that the extracts from Chrysostom contain any doctrine clearly & decidedly opposed to that of transubstantiation—rather on the contrary. The extracts from Irenæus [2] are very satisfactory, & I dare say you will say something that will satisfy me with regard even to Chrysostom; when I see you, if this obstinate weather should ever fall into a “melting mood” & let me see you again. Perhaps Chrysostom held something like consubstantiation; but, as you observe, it will be better to talk over the pros & cons of this question.
So you think I have been wasting time in reading Rhesus, & would not be “condemned” to do such a thing yourself? No one could condemn you to do it,––but I wonder you never submitted to it as to a voluntary penance. It would not be worse than moderate castigation, or saying fifty Ave Marias in a white sheet—at least, not to an Athenian, like you, who has not occasion to wander up & down a lexicon, like me & other Barbarians. After all, it wont do me much harm to have been exercised in this way, even over Rhesus, which I would certainly rather have read than not. As soon as I had read what you wrote about my poem, I began to write. I will have it done for the spring; but we need not trouble Mr Barker respecting it—and indeed, when I found that your kindness had induced you to write to him, the motive pleased me far more than the act. A parcel has been lying in this room, three months, containing his collection of Hall’s works, & Berger, [3] & my answer to the curious & memorable application on the subject of Sir Uvedale Price’s letters,—& waiting for some opportunity of private conveyance to Mr Barker, who must have strong doubts either as to my honesty or vitality. I might pay the carriage, & send it immediately,—but then the books might not go safely.
Thank you for both the epigrams—the “last not least”—& the “dux fæmina facti”. [4] Be an Œdipus, & tell me why your nature is very analogous to caper sauce. You can,—if you think a little,—& know yourself at all. As you like epigrams, & are not likely to have met with one which I met with yesterday in the Times newspaper, & thought ingenious, I will write it down. The subject is Mr Shee’s election to the office of President, in the room of Sir Thomas Lawrence,—a circumstance unexpected by any person,—Mr Shee being better known by his “Rhymes on Art” than by his practice in art.
“Pictoribus atque poëtis,
Quidlibet audendi”——
Lo! Painting crowns her sister Poesy—
The world is all astonished! So is She. [5]
I am glad to hear that the other sister art is doing well in the Ledbury belfry,—that the ringing of the Ledbury bells has produced no “bella, horrida bella” [6] among the inhabitants,—that the bells themselves are not “bella detestata matribus”—or patribus, or filiis! [7] I wish the wonderful wind would set in, which, according to Bro, is to make these bells audible to our ears, that I might be among the admirers of Mr Roberry’s skill, & less ignorant of his art; but I would rather have such a wind to set in between us & Malvern that I might hear .. not the bells.. but something better worth attending to. Nay—fond as I am of your hills which bound our horizon, I would cheerfully sign a warrant for their annihilation, & that of a good deal more ground, in order to bring Woodland Lodge & Hope End a good deal nearer together. Now I am so conscious of having written libels against your Muse of the belfry, & our spirit of scenic beauty, that in the case of your taste being very much shocked, I do beg you to refer what I have said to a lapsus linguæ [8] —not extraordinary in this slippery weather. We have all been tumbling about in a corresponding manner, on the ice & off it,—& my pen, wishing to be in the fashion, “cadit in silentium.” [9]
Your ever sincere friend
E B Barrett
Address, on integral page: Hugh Stuart Boyd Esqr / Woodland Lodge / Gt. Malvern–
Docket, in unidentified hand: Jany 1830.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 95–97.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Dated by reference to the epigram in The Times.
2. On p. 271 of Boyd’s book. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons at the end of the 2nd century, author of Against the Heresies, was one of the most distinguished ante-Nicene theologians.
3. Positive identification of this writer, also mentioned in the following letter, is not possible as there were several classical scholars and editors with this surname. The work may have been Franz Xavier Berger’s Anthologia Græca (1816).
4. “A woman the leader of their exploits” (Æneid, I, 364).
5. Martin Archer Shee (1769–1850), portrait painter and author of Rhymes on Art (1805), was elected president of the Royal Academy following the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence on 7 January. The epigram appeared in The Times of 28 January, under the heading “Impromptu on a Late Election.” EBB has slightly misquoted the translation.
6. “War, terrible war” (Æneid, VI, 86).
7. “Wars detested by mothers, or fathers, or sons” (cf. Horace, Odes, I, i, 24–25).
8. “A slip of the tongue.”
9. “Falls into silence.”
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