483. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
Belle Vue Sidmouth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 88–91.
November 15th 1833.
My dear Lady Margaret,
May I venture to flatter myself that you have thought me a long time in answering your last long kind letter? When I read it, I little thought of being so apparently neglectful of it—but in the first place I waited for your return from the Welsh tour; and then, for some certain information about our own plans & prospects, which I did not like to write without giving you—and then, I was obliged to think of nothing but pain in parting with three of my dear brothers. But all this history must be put into chronological order. We have been twice on the very verge of leaving Sidmouth, from the di°culty of getting a house. In our first dilemma of this kind, we moved to one in a preparatory state to being a ruin. The walls are leaning backwards & forwards in very languid health; and we received particular instructions from our landlord’s agent, not to lean, ourselves, out of the front windows. Altogether, to brave the winter there was out of the question. We should have been out of our senses to have thought of it—and Papa was so puzzled as to what other house would fit us, that he had all but resolved to carry us off to the Bristol Hot Wells. Now, without considering all my good reasons for wishing to stay at Sidmouth, I was rather in hot water about going to the Hot Wells. Yet if we had gone, I dare say I should have contrived to be happy; seeing that happiness lies more within than without—and the “depth saith, it is not in me” [1] – A “moralitie”, by the way, which did not lessen my pleasure at Papa’s finding out at Sidmouth a pretty villa or rather cottage, with thatch and a viranda and a garden, and the viranda’s due proportion of ivy & rose trees—about a quarter of a mile from the sea. The view of the sea is rather too indistinct to please me—we look at it over trees & the little town & the church steeple—but I am consoled by hearing it roaring, & by a genuine Devonshire lane with “hedgerow elms,” bounding our garden. So here we are settled for at least six months! The only objection to the house was its being rather too small for such a multitudinous family: But that has alas! I cant help saying alas! been removed by the removal of dear Stormie & Georgie to the Glasgow University, and of my dear eldest brother, for whom a voyage to the West Indies has been considered a necessary evil. [2] Papa took him to London about a fortnight ago on supply business,—and we thought of seeing them both again in a few days. But it was otherwise willed by God,—and dearest Bro sailed from Gravesend two days ago. We hope to see him again next June—yet if you knew him & felt his affection & kindness as his sisters did,—and you do know the affection & kindness of a dear brother!—you would understand what a shade over our hearts & hearth this absence has cast. Stormie & Georgie are under the care of Dr Wardlow, an Independent Minister of known ability of whose controversial work against the Socinians, [3] you have probably heard; and they will attend the university lectures. Notwithstanding the manifest advantage of such a plan, I cannot help missing my pupils. But you shall be troubled with no more mournfulness!—— Our dear aunt Miss Clarke, desires us to take a house for her near us; & there is no mournfulness in that. Indeed when I count (can I count them?) all our enjoyments and blessings, I thank with a thrilling heart, yet with one far too cold, that gracious Lord who never forgets to be gracious. How very very gracious & kind he has been to me! And how deeply should I feel in my own soul, upon which the light of his mercy is thrown, the apostolic adjuration—“I beseech you by the mercies of God—” [4] Mercy is one of the expressions of love, as beheld in the divine countenance; and I have been taught much lately,—it has been brought home to my spirit—that all religion is love even as God is love,—that we cannot know love without knowing God, or know God without knowing love. It is not “by this we perceive the love of God” as in the English version—but “by this we know love, that He laid down His life for us”. [5] What a history of love it is, when we look backward on the eternal counsels of the Father who so loved the world—& backward on the mortal face of the Son who was dumb & opened not his mouth, [6] because love had tied his tongue! Do we not feel an unending love encompassing us about, & clinging to us more closely than our joy or our sorrow? Oh that the God of Love himself would give us love! even as the Lord of peace himself, giveth peace!——
We have many religious priveleges here—altho’ perhaps dear Lady Margaret would shake her head at them on some accounts. Mr Hunter—did I not mention him to you? is to me both a valued minister & a dear friend. He has a strong sensibility to poetry & literature & philosophy; and when I do not hear his eloquence from the pulpit, I enjoy his companionship in conversation. His manner of life here is very retired, & would be solitary but for his little girl,—who is seven years old, & inherits her father’s temperament, and is a great favorite of mine. She passes several days every week with us, which is a bribe to Mr Hunter to pass some of his evenings with us too. Do you know Herbert’s poems? [7] He lent them to me a week ago, and I wish I could lend them to you. They are full of the quaintnesses, and more than the quaint[n]esses, of his age: and when quaintness does not freeze into conceit, I do not object to it. His does so sometimes: but he is a true poet, and if he hitches in his flight, it is against the stars. And his poetry has a more spiritually devotional character than any which I ever read. Do justify my opinion to yourself, by reading the book.
You are always kind enough to ask about my occupations. I have gone regularly through the Hebrew Bible—and just at this moment I am busy with Plato, trying to find out from the Parmenides what one is & what it is not. After all, it is enough to puzzle one. This winter I mean to write as well as read—that is, if I can. Ought I really to go on to say anything more of myself? Yes! I ought to thank dear Lady Margaret for her indulgence to my book. I was glad to hear of its being so kindly received where indeed its writer never met with anything else but kindness. What was said about the translation being unstiff, particularly pleased me—for on that particular point, my conscience was in a misgiving humour.
Mr Boyd is quite well & well pleased with Sidmouth. The Bishop of London [8] spent two or three days here a few weeks ago, and delighted him, by calling upon him & sitting with him a whole hour. So Greek met Greek! He left his autograph in one of Mr Boyd’s books to authenticate an autograph of Porson’s on the same page. Mr Boyd must have left his autograph on his guest’s memory, by a characteristic exclamation—“I cannot help wishing that your Lordship had never been made a Bishop! I suppose we shall have no more Æschylus.”
If my dear Lady Margaret can forgive either my long silence or my long letter—and I beg her forgiveness for both—she will write me a long letter without any silence at all. Is Lord Somers quite well? And might I send my compliments to him? How are you yourself? I want to hear that you are strong & happy—and that all those who are dear to you are strong & happy, for your sake. Are you able to ride? Do you ever see the Miss Commelines—and when you do, will you convey my love to them. I dare say they have forgotten me, or almost, by this time. Is Mr James Commeline doing anything, writing anything? The conjunction of so much talent & so much indolence always appears to me a minor miracle. I had some time ago a long letter from dear Mrs Martin. Do when you see her, give my kind love to her, & tell her my good intentions about answering it soon.
Everything mortal must have an end—even this letter of mine: notwithstanding what might under any other circumstances, be prognosticated of it.
Ever, my dear Lady Margaret’s affectionate & obliged
E B Barrett.
Address, on integral page: The Lady Margaret Cocks.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: James Hervey-Bathurst.
1. Job, 28:14.
2. EBB was, of course, very close to Bro, and cannot have welcomed the idea of his going to Jamaica. In a letter to Samuel Moulton-Barrett, EBB’s father wrote: “Our beloved Ba upon the color I put upon the project, namely as being profitable to Bro’s interest, has consented in a spirit that has if possible raised her still higher in my estimation” (SD768).
3. Ralph Wardlaw (1779–1853), professor of systematic theology and author of Discourses on the Socinian Controversy (1814). The Socinians, followers of the sixteenth century Italian theologians Lælius and Faustus Socinus, denied the divinity of Christ.
4. Romans, 12:1.
5. I John, 3:16.
6. Cf. Psalms, 39:9.
7. George Herbert (1593–1633), whose fame rests mainly on The Temple (1633).
8. Charles James Blomfield (1786–1857) became Bishop of London in 1828, on translation from the see of Chester. His editions of Æschylus formed lots 312, 313 and 314 of Browning Collections (see Reconstruction, A17, 21 and 23).
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