Sunday 5th. June.

I went to church with Bummy & Arabel in our wheelbarrow;[1] & heard such singing—& such preaching. Alas for my ears & understanding! And alas for Mrs. Peyton’s[2] eyes, which were red in consequence of the sermon. How affected she must have been! There seemed to me to be far more bathos than pathos in Mr. Barnaby’s[3] discourse: but it only lasted ten minutes, & so I forgive him my share of the weariness.

No letters today. I sent a note written last night, to Mrs. Boyd, in which I send my love to Annie, & make no observations. Arabel sent a note to Annie reproaching her for unkindness to me; & would not let me see it. What will the effect be? Nothing good I am afraid, & I am afraid something bad. If Annie does not answer it, Arabel says she will not go to see her on Thursday,—a day fixed for our going to Malvern. Fudge! said Mr. Burchell![4] Annie will not answer it: & Arabel will go to see her.

We were a part of Mr. Curzon’s[5] congregation at the gate. Able sermon—but nothing eloquent—nothing to make me glow. Met the Cliffes & Cranes at the gate. Settled—that Eliza shd. come here on Thursday to ride with us to Malvern, & bring a poney for Henrietta. Henrietta & Bummy are going to hear Miss Steers[6] play.

I read some of Chrysostom’s commentary on the Ephesians.[7] I am getting tired of this commentary. Such underground dark passages before you get at anything worth standing to look at! Very eloquent sometimes: but such a monotony & lengthiness!—— Sunday is not a reading day with me. Driving to church—driving back again—driving to chapel—driving back again—& prayers three times at home besides! All that fills up the day—except the few interstices between the intersections. Mr. Curzon told me that he saw Mr. Boyd on Friday evening & sate an hour & a half with him.

1. A light, three-wheeled, open carriage, accommodating three passengers.

2. Eliza Peyton (1788–1861), wife of Nicholson Peyton, was the only surviving daughter of Mrs. Griffith of Barton Court.

3. The Rev. Thomas Barneby (1773–1842), Rector of Edvin Loach and Tedstone Wafer, and Lecturer of Bromyard, in the Diocese of Hereford.

4. Otherwise Sir William Thornhill, in [Oliver Goldsmith’s] The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale (Salisbury, 1766), I, 104: “I should have mentioned the very impolite behaviour of Mr. Burchell, who, during this discourse, sate with his face turned to the fire, and at the conclusion of every sentence would cry out fudge, an expression which displeased us all, and in some measure damped the rising spirit of the conversation.”

5. The Hon. and Rev. George Henry Roper-Curzon (1798–1889), later (1842) 16th Baron Teynham. In 1828 he was ordained a Baptist Minister, and was appointed to Ledbury. In addition to the services in the chapel in Ledbury, he conducted meetings in a building by the Hope End south gate. He left Ledbury shortly after the Barretts did, in 1832.

6. Frances Steers (1797–1860), of Well House, Malvern Wells. In a letter to Robert Browning, dated 7 April 1889, George Moulton-Barrett wrote: “With this I send, what seems to me a pretty drawing of Hope End. It was executed by a Miss Steers, who … was an artist at Malvern & gave lessons to my sister Henrietta in music & drawing. Afterwards I believe she became a member of the Society of Water colours.” (ms at Eton) Miss Steers did become a member of the New Water-colour Society (later the Royal Institute), and 59 of her pictures were included in their exhibitions between 1846 and 1860.

7. PCC, LXII, cols. 5–176. St. John Chrysostom (ca. 345–407), Archbishop of Constantinople, one of the Fathers of the Christian Church, was one of the principal theological writers studied by E.B.B. with H.S.B.


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