Saturday Sept [2]4.
Henrietta went out to drive at twelve oclock with Mrs. Martin. I heard the boys read Greek—& Latin on account of Bro being at Worcester. By the bye, I hope he may bring home my shoes & combs & Theophylact.[1]
I wonder if Mr. Boyd is expecting me; & if he will be disappointed at my not coming!--
Shelleys Adonais (the Elegy on Keats) is perfectly exquisite.[2] Oh! it is so beautiful! He walks in Bion’s footsteps,[3] & thinks about Adonis, evidently; but who would quarrel with an earthly piper for imitating the music of the spheres? Shelley was one of the Θεοι παρεδροι,[4] without any doubt. Finished Lamartine who is a poet too—tho’ he is a frenchman. Can any good POETRY come out of PARIS?— My answer today is quite a different one from what it wd. have been a year ago.[5]
Mrs. Martin—yes! & Mr. Martin,—came to dinner; & afterwards I talked to the latter, about the pleasure of writing letters. It was a pleasure to me! And indeed, while my dear Papa is away, it is. What is the quia of Mrs. Martin icing me all over, as she undeniably does?
She & Henrietta were at the Moneys[6] today. They say that Eugenia is almost pretty, & quite agreable. Mr. Martin went away sooner than he liked, on account of Mrs. M’s influencing influenza. I forgot to speak of my having been attrappèed today by Messrs. Davis & Allen Cliffe, who were deputed by Eliza to search our books, for the model of a triumphal chariot. It wdnt. do; but to make them amends for their walk, I showed them my Homer the Great. I almost admired them, for their admiration of it.
1. Eleventh century Archbishop of Achrida, known for his theological commentaries, modelled on those of St. John Chrysostom.
2. Adonais: an Elegy on the Death of John Keats (Pisa, 1821).
3. Bion of Smyrna (fl. ca. 100 B.C.), best known for his Lament for Adonis, which E.B.B. translated and published in her Poems (London, 1850), I, 191–198.
4. “Those sitting near the gods.”
5. In her letter to H.S.B. of 8 [September 1830] she had said “The French have no part or lot in poetry. I am more and more convinced that they have none” (BC, 2, 252–254).
6. The Rev. Kyrle Ernle Money and his family. He was Prelector and Prebendary of Hereford Cathedral, and Vicar of Much Marcle, about 8 miles S.W. of Hope End.
