488. EBB to Lady Margaret Cocks
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 3, 100–102.
Sidmouth.
Sept. 14th [1834] [1]
This is the second time of my beginning to write to my dear Lady Margaret; and I do hope that she has not measured my remembrance of her by my silence towards her. Least of all, let my regard for her and sympathy with her, be so measured. Her last kind letter was read with the sincerest sympathy. Yet of the subject which excited it, I scarcely knew how to speak to her—knowing all the feeling of my dear friends heart, both from what she said and what she did not say. May God bless you and all yours, my dear friend,—and enable you to look on the path by which He is conducting them and you, if not “with strong immortal eyes” [2] yet with humble and trusting ones! for so, you must see the goodwill of Him who is good and doeth good. In a change which was necessarily painful to you, there was much of comfort even for you, <…> [3] inasmuch as the comfort of one most dear to you was believed by himself to be increased by it. And altho’ you have sorrow in seeing vacant places filled [4] —yet you must feel and know, (& that feeling & knowledge contribute to consolation) that one place, the vacancy of the heart is not filled, & never can be, until we have followed those who can come to us no more!——
I was much interested in all you said of your readings. May I ask for some more news of them? Have you seen a poetical translation of Klopstock’s messiah, the performance of a lady residing close to Honiton. [5] I have read and been much pleased with it. It has fire and verve: only I could not help bewailing the expulsion of a number of passages of which the poet and the translator had not an equally good opinion. [6] One passage especially, relating to the divine Meta! How could she leave it out? Klopstock’s Meta is a part of Klopstock’s poetry! [7] Do you recollect her two letters to Richardson? [8] I could sooner forget the most glorious glories of “The Messiah” than those two letters! Surely there were two original female creations—Eve—and Meta! And Meta was the most lovely one!——
But I have no right—have I? to talk about Klopstock’s Messiah—and to you. The only other translation which I ever read, of it, was a very very bad prose profanity. [9] How does the German go on? I must learn German before I arrive at the age which is ‘but labour & sorrow’. [10] Lately I have not been doing much either in the way of writing or reading—nothing out of my ordinary path; but I am thinking of writing or trying to write this winter. Where it will be spent, I do not know. My own opinion is, that we shall not leave Sidmouth,—but when the time comes, Papa’s may be different. You know I like Sidmouth,—and I like our cottage,— and we have no ties to draw us or to bind us elsewhere. Papa has been away from us in London, six weeks this summer. I was glad of it, as it seemed to bring him a pleasant variety to what I fear he sometimes feels as monotony, in a seaside, Devonshire life. The place is very full: but our cottage stands away from everybody almost,—and so do we. It has pleased God to send us sorrowful news from Dieppe which has been the scene of the departure from this sorrowful world, of our dear aunt Mrs Butler. She had “hope in her death”, [11] and in her last hours received from the Spirit of strength, strength to put away all the pains of the body & troubles of the heart,—& looking on the face of her Lord, to change, so, “from glory to glory”. [12] Our dear kind aunt Bell was with her at the latest,—and has since, I believe, proceeded to rejoin Mrs Hedley in Italy. I know that dear Lady Margaret’s kindness will make her listen to whatever I tell her about my own family. We have continued gratifying accounts of & from my two brothers at Glasgow: & my dear Bro, tho’ still, in despite of the most earnest wishes of my heart, an exile in Jamaica, writes cheeringly of his health & his occupation– But there is no use in dreaming it—he cannot be happy there—among the white savages. I would rather see him in England, employed in the very humblest of honest employments. But there is no use in grumbling, either! We have not had a Jamaica letter since the 1st of August.
If you know any one dear Lady Margaret, to whom the knowledge of there being at Sidmouth a gentleman of very high attainments & intellect, ready to receive into his house, a limited number of pupils, would be useful—will you remember a dear & esteemed friend of ours? [13] He is of the Independent denomination; but his pupils are likely to be, without exception, of the church of England, and are secure from every interference direct or indirect, as to their attendance at the church. I do not hesitate in saying that the rarest advantages are involved in his society & instructions,—and you know, the Devonshire air is included!!
My sisters are quite well, indefatigable, as usual, in drawing. Henrietta begs me to offer her kind regards to you. And will you remember us all to such of our Herefordshire friends whose kindness keeps us in their remembrance?– And may I ask you to write to me before long? If you do not, dear Lady Margaret, I shall dream fearful dreams of your displeasure, seeing that my silence may seem to deserve it. Perhaps I am among those whom “conscience makes cowards” [14] .. yet believe me
Your obliged & affectionate
E B Barrett
I venture to ask you to give the inclosed to Miss Commeline when next you see or send to her. It is in no hurry to be delivered!
Our best compliments to Lord Somers.
Address, on integral page: The Lady Margaret Cocks.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: James Hervey-Bathurst.
1. Dated by reference to Mrs. Butler’s death.
2. Cf. Byron’s “Prometheus,” line 1.
3. About half a line has been obliterated here, apparently by EBB.
4. Taken to be a reference to the re-marriage in June of Lady Margaret’s father, Earl Somers.
5. Catherine Head’s 1826 translation of The Messiah: A Poem, by Gottlieb Friedrich Klopstock (1724–1803).
6. The preface explains that “the Translator has not scrupled to make such abridgments as have appeared indispensably requisite, in order to make a poem of such length acceptable to the tastes and habits of the English reader.”
7. Klopstock married Margareta (“Meta”) Moller in 1754. She died in 1758, aged 30, and canto XV of Der Messias expresses Klopstock’s grief at her death (using the pseudonym Cidli for her).
8. These letters were dated 29 November 1757 (Meta’s first in English) and 26 August 1758. The text can be found in Meta Klopstock geborene Moller: Briefwechsel mit … Freunden (1956), II, 651–652 and II, 689–690. It is interesting to note that EBB’s cousin, Angela Bayford, had urged her to undertake a translation of Der Messias some years earlier (see SD632).
9. Probably that by Mary Collyer (1766; 1811).
10. The Book of Common Prayer, Psalm 90:10.
11. Cf. Proverbs, 14:32.
12. II Corinthians, 3:18. Charlotte Butler had died in August while on vacation in France.
13. i.e., George Barrett Hunter.
14. Hamlet, III, 1, 82.
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