421. EBB to Hugh Stuart Boyd
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 2, 311–312.
Hope End.
Wednesday. June 1st 1831.
My dearest friend,
Papa has read both your letters, & is of opinion that Mr Seager is quite ignorant on the subject; & that if Mr Spowers was ever a democrat, a more complete revolution has lately befallen him than we have to anticipate. He says that this is proved not only by Mr Spowers’s opposition to the bill,—tho’ no democrat could oppose that bill,—but by the undemocratical arguments by which he opposes it. Papa exclaimed “How is it possible that any even moderately constitutional friend of the people & liberty, could think it of little importance how or by whom the representatives of the people are chosen! Why Mr Spowers according to his own principle, would think it of little importance, if the king were to nominate them all,—& then we should be living under a despotic government.”!!
Papa thinks you wrong for having said that “we have nothing to do with consequences & have only to consider whether the thing be just & right in itself.” He says that we have to do with both the consequence & the justice of the measure. In our government, the King is actually represented, the aristocracy is actually represented, & the people is only virtually represented. Now is this just? or should the people too be actually represented? And if they should, is not the “cry of the people” a cry to be attended to? At any rate, must not the cry of the people be attended to, when all power emanates & ought to emanate from the people? I recollect many years ago when I read one whole volume of Blackstone [1] through, I also read a little treatise by a Mr Hawkins an infinite Tory, entitled “Reform in Parliament, the ruin of Parliament”; [2] and I distinctly recollect that the very argument made use of by your democratical friend Mr Spowers, was the Tory Mr Hawkins’s leading argument. You know I know little or nothing about it; but this is a fact indicative of no liberality in Mr Spowers,—& you ought not to find fault with any one for finding fault with him on account of this. If he wears the enemy’s colours, he must expect to be taken for an enemy.
You know I know little or nothing about it; but I do like a nation to be free,—& I do like to belong to a free nation. And if the meaning of freedom is not, that the majority of the nation, called the people, should have a proportionate weight & influence in the government of the nation, I confess I do not understand what freedom means.
Papa said a great deal with regard to the consequences of the measure; but to tell you the truth, he spoke so very technically & deeply that I did not understand him clearly enough to be able to report him. He finds fault with you for expressing to Mr Spowers, or feeling in your own mind, any fear about any “venerable institutions”; and I had to rescue you from the obloquy of being a “half & half reformer”. Papa thinks that the universities may be “learned” without being “wise”; & that they have not been wise in their present decision.
Mr Seager abuses the Times Newspaper. Is he aware that it is the very ablest & cleverest newspaper, of all the are or ever-have-been newspapers?
We got home in very good time yesterday,—in better time than I shall be in today, if I do not finish this letter. Did I tell you yesterday—no I did not! that Bro dined at Ledbury politically, to celebrate the victory of our Hereford reform hero Mr Hoskins? [3] He did not come home until one,—when I, by a miracle, was asleep; but he told us this morning of his having met a select party of a hundred people,—& that your unpatriotic avaricious friends the bell-ringers would not ring, because Mr Hoskins would not give them two guineas. Wont you send them a malison instead of a benison—that their bells may be “out of tune & harsh” in secula seculorum? [4]
Ever affectionately yours
E B Barrett.
When Mr Curzon goes to see you, I hope you will take care not to repeat to him a word of my knowing or not knowing anything. And let me hear when Annie’s time for going away, is fixed. My best love to her & Mrs Boyd.
Address, on integral page: H. S. Boyd Esqr / Ruby Cottage / Malvern Wells.
Publication: EBB-HSB, pp. 139–141.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. Sir William Blackstone (1723–80), author of Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69).
2. “Reform of Parliament the Ruin of Parliament” (1813), by Henry Hawkins.
3. Hereford Journal, 8 June 1831: “On Tuesday the 31st ult. Mr. Hoskins … attended a Public Dinner … to celebrate his triumphant return to Parliament. Mr. Hoskins experienced a most flattering reception on his entrance into Ledbury, and a most numerous and respectable company, comprising upwards of 95 gentlemen, sat down to a splendid dinner. … The healths of the Chairman, Colonel Money, Captain Johnstone, Captain Adams, … E. Barrett, jun. Esq., … called forth able and eloquent addresses from those gentlemen, which were received with manifestations of approbation and pleasure from all present. …” Mr. Hoskins was a supporter of the Reform Bill.
4. “Unto the ages of ages.”
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