377. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 248–250.
Hope End.
Tuesday. August 2d [sic for 3d, 1830] [1]
My dear Mr Boyd,
Your letter was marked “too late”, & I did not receive it until yesterday. It is a long time since I have been as annoyed & irritated as I was the other day by .. not being able to go & see you. I was up at twenty minutes after four, & finished the lessons by eight, when unfortunately Papa’s presentiments sank lower than the thermometer,—& just as he was setting out for Gloucester, & I for Malvern, he sentenced me to stay at home for fear of being wet thro’. I suppose he thought of the scriptural account of the cloud as large as a man’s hand overspreading the whole Heaven, [2] —for nothing else could have alarmed him on Saturday. I am very anxious about going to see you & will do it as soon as I possibly can,—as that is one of the subjects on which I [3] cannot “bear delay”.
The very moment you spoke of having been “irritated & annoyed” I guessed the cause of it. Was not I very penetrating? If I am right in my guess, do not attribute more blame than is attributable, until you hear the other side of the question.
I was surprised (& pleased of course) by your liking the verses which I sent you. You appear to me quite correct in your criticism on the second line,—but I dont understand your objection to the line about the consumption of breath. [4] How should I, when you do not mention it? But you will, when we meet next, &, in the meantime, I kiss the shadow of the rod. [5]
Miss Cliffe [6] arrived here on Saturday & is likely to remain a fortnight I suppose—or at least, as long as Mrs Cliffe thinks it necessary to be at Cheltenham. Her being here shall not be allowed to prevent my going to Malvern,—but you know, when visitors are in the house, the poney cannot be quite as disengaged as usual—nor I, quite as much at liberty. I shall use my liberty, when I get it, better than the French people are likely to do theirs. Are you interested in the canonading which has been going on in Paris,—& does Napoleon’s son inherit your sympathies as well as his father’s crown? [7] – I hope that the king will not pay for his madness, the price which poor Louis the 16th paid for his weakness! Any price less than life, he certainly deserves to pay. The French nation is not an interesting nation,—and yet no English ear ought to like hearing its chain clanking over our sea.
I am anxious to see the additions & omissions,—& offer up my orisons to any Fate who will spin silk instead of worsted, that you may be made Poet Laureat in the next reign. Perhaps this prospect prevents your wishing my poem [8] to be published. You think it better that a person, with whom you have unfortunately had something to do, should not be known as so very disloyal a scribe. You are quite right,—& I would not for the world, that my sackbut should interfere with your sack. Besides, it would be ungracious & ungrateful in Malvern—ungracious & ungrateful in the extreme! to attack the Princess’s longevity,—& no compliment to her own air & water! All your ruptures & interruptions & pauses à la Sterne, produced their proper effect. But tho’ I have, of course, a womanly proportion of curiosity, yet I believe there is a stronger motive even than that, for my wishing to go to see you. I am more anxious to see you than to know why my verses should not be published,—or what Mr Spowers [9] did, said, wrote, or thought,—or even what was the occult cause of my feeling less comfortable than usual when I was in the act of being scorched.
I do know what annoyed & irritated you, on——was it on Thursday?
I was told yesterday that my handwriting is easier to read than any handwriting extant or upon record,—so there certainly can be no difficulty about reading this letter, tho, it seems to me rather more scribbled than usual. Give my love to Mrs Boyd & Annie—& tell them that I would write to them, if I did not hear our wheelbarrow [10] (which is to storm the post today,) rolling round to the door. So I must conclude & seal now, or I shall have no other opportunity of sending, in time.
Your ever sincere friend
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: H S Boyd Esqr / Great Malvern.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 103–105.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The reference to events in France clearly identifies the year as 1830, in which 2 August fell on Monday. EBB probably wrote the letter on Tuesday, 3 August, and misdated it.
2. Cf. I Kings, 18:44–45.
3. Underscored twice.
4. The line in question, “And names were worth the breath their sound consumes,” appears in “The Reply of Malvern to the address of H.S. Boyd” (see note 8 below).
5. Cf. Two Gentlemen of Verona, I, 2, 59.
6. Eliza Wilhelmina (1810–48), the daughter of Elizabeth (née Deane), the widow of the Rev. Allen Cliffe. The Cliffes lived at Mathon House, 3½ miles from Hope End.
7. In July 1830 there was a three-day upheaval (“Les Trois Glorieuses”) in Paris, leading to the overthrow of Charles X. At this time, the thoughts of some Frenchmen turned to Napoleon II, Duke of Reichstadt, but the throne went to the Duke of Orléans, as Louis-Philippe I.
8. “The Reply of Malvern to the address of H.S. Boyd Esqr on the occasion of the arrival of the Princess Victoria.” A draft and an incomplete fair copy of this unpublished poem are at ABL (Reconstruction, D768 and D769). Boyd’s “Address to Malvern,” dated 2 August, was printed in The Worcester Herald, 7 August 1830.
The Princess Victoria was spending the summer in Malvern with the Duchess of Kent.
9. G. Spowers (1764?–1841) was acknowledged by Boyd on p. x of his translation of Agamemnon as “the instructor of my youth, and my initiator in those studies which have been the amusement of my riper years.”
10. A light, three-wheeled, open carriage, accommodating three passengers.
___________________
