Saturday. August 27.
I determined yesterday to be the bearer of certain news to Mr. Boyd today: and the news of my having proposed to do so, appeared to have excited a tumult down stairs. According to Henrietta’s report, Bummy exclaimed “What has Mr. Boyd to do with it?” What has Mr. Boyd to do with it? Why if he has nothing to do with it, what must be the sincerity of his professed regard for me? H & B had sent to the Martins; and is my friend to be treated with less consideration than theirs? I said so to H, who irritated me by her reply about the cases being different, & about the impropriety of my feeling more friendship for Mr. Boyd than for the Martins!— It is extraordinary that more than one person in this house, should entertain such dispositions towards a person whom everybody knows, I, justly or injustly, consider as my dear & intimate friend. I believe the fact to be this. They have, as most people have, clearer ideas of the aristocracy of rank & wealth, than of the aristocracy of mind. Therefore it appears singular to them, & not very reasonable, that I shd. so obviously prefer Mr. Boyd’s society to that of some other individuals. I love dearest B & H to the bottom of my heart; and they deserve my love, to the bottom of theirs: but without my pursuits they cannot have my tastes, & without having my tastes, they cannot be expected to understand them. It wd. be wrong in me to blame, a miscomprehension—or to go on scribbling speculatively in this way, when there are facts to be stated memorabilialy.
The poney wd’nt be caught, so I could’nt get away from this place until 9. N. B. Bummy thought me “quite right” in going, when I proposed it to her—& made no shade of objection openly, whatever the darkness might have been in the private committee. Got to Ruby Cottage, just as Mrs. B’s breakfast was in an incipient state. Told her the good news! She had the tears in her eyes, & kissed me again & again! & I cd. not help being affected by this kindness of manner. Uncomfortable account of Annie, upon whch my annotations & reflections assume the brun foncè. I wish she were, or cd. be made, unlike herself in some respects. Not in all. There is much good in her,—& more might be elicited. If she cd. be married to a sensible man whom she entirely loved, she might he happy & make him so. But the love must be strong enough to place her altogether under his influence!—or the happiness wd. be beyond both his & her’s—Mr. Boyd sent for me; & his first words were “Have you heard?” A smile was his answer after hearing mine, & I am sure, a pleased smile: but no enthusiastic pleasure was expressed!— We talked until shaving time, & then I was exiled for half an hour; & then readmitted. Read two poems of Gregorys, “I would I were a dove.” & “Where are my winged words”.[1] They have both great merit, but the last is too much drawn out—too much Procrustianized.[2] The Ηθελον[3] &c is really fine; very fine. I read besides, but did not translate, the last ten lines of the poem De vita suâ,[4] & admired them very much indeed. Gregory is not a great poet, scarcely a real poet: in general, Gods men & columns wd. have nothing to do with him:[5] but there is, sometimes, much in his poetry, which is even admirable.
After dinner, while we were at des[s]ert, a voice at the door, said “Porsonia, are you ready to come?” Yes she was ready & willing to come.
Read a little more Gregory, & talked about Burgess the Bishop of Salisbury,[6] (who must be a benevolent man by what I heard of him),— & on several other subjects. At last I thought & asked about the Greek epigram on the Tories, which I was to have procured from Mr. Spowers. Mr. Boyd let me write it down from his dictation, & then manumitted me, to send it to the Times,—but without his initials.[7] On the whole, I had another happy day today.
Agreed with Miss Gibbons, who wishes to hear Mr. Curzon—that she shd. go to Hope End tomorrow & dine with us. Got home late, (at half past eight) & got a scold, both for my lateness & the Gibbons business. If she were to come from any house but Mr. Boyd’s, it wd. not be so. I was excited into complaining that no objection was ever made to the visitors of other people; but that whatever person I[8] invited, on him or her, every objection was concentrated. Sorry I shd. have said so, tho’ there’s some truth in it. Long pauses, & sharp words down stairs tonight. None of them mine however, after that one ebullition.
Wrote to the Editor of the Times about Mr Boyd’s Greek epigram.
1. Carmen VI, “De Vitæ Huius Vanitate atque Incertitudine” and Carmen VIII, “Ad Seipsum per Interrogationem & Responsionem” (GNO, II, 75–76 and 77–78). A partial translation of the former was included in H.S.B.’s Select Poems, of Synesius and Gregory Nazianzen (London, 1814), pp. 59–62. His translation of the latter appeared in The Fathers Not Papists, or, Six Discourses by the Most Eloquent Fathers of the Church, new edn. (London, 1834), pp. 405–406. E.B.B.’s translation of the second poem was contained in part II of “Some Account of the Greek Christian Poets” (The Athenæum, 5 March 1842, pp. 210–212).
2. In the manner of the famous robber Procrustes, who stretched or mutilated his victims to make them fit his bed.
3. The initial word of the poem “I would I were a dove.”
4. GNO, II, 1–31.
5. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, lines 372–373: “mediocribus esse poetis / non homines, non di, non concessere columnæ.” (“But that poets be of middling rank, neither men nor gods nor booksellers ever brooked,” LCL–HO/S, pp. 480–481.)
6. Thomas Burgess (1756–1837), theological author, elected Bishop of St. David’s in 1803, translated to Salisbury in 1825.
7. The epigram appeared in The Times, 30 August (see fn. 2, p. 111).
8. Underscored twice.
