Supporting Documents

SD1067.  Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother) & Edward Moulton-Barrett (father) to Septimus Moulton-Barrett

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 360 (in part).

Thursday night. Octbr 31st 1839

My dearest Set

Here has Arabel crammed her pen into my hand, at the same time desiring me to write any nonsense that comes into my head– Now this may be sufficiently complimentary to you, but as far as I am concerned I beg to observe before I go further that my head is not a place into which nonsense is in the habit of entering, & that it is just as easy for me to write sensibly & eloquently as it is for her to write frivolously & nonsensically. This being understood I shall now proceed to enlighten you as to our late sayings & doings. In the first place I have just got up from a game at chess with the Governor in which I came off second best & I am consequently in any thing but an aimiable [sic] mood, my temper having been taken by surprise at the same time with my Queen, & check-mated at the same time with my King. So you have turned sugar merchant in the absence of the head of the firm, I suppose a fresh set of samples must be required at least twice a week if you attend the markets with tolerable regularity– I trust you have nothing to do with the sale of the rum, otherwise two omnibuses would be required to bring you home– This place is just beginning to lose its vegetable & recover its animal beauties for the leaves are all dropping off & the ladies are all dropping in, Ld Brownlow has brought in an importation of brown lasses, Sir something Syke has done the like, & we have so large an assortment of Macintoshes next door that a man must be hard to please indeed who cannot find one to fit him under all their little blue bonnets. It is indeed one of those curious coincidences which Mr Pickwick delighted in recording that whilst hair-bells have disappeared Belles & hares have come into fashion– Apropo to hares, the belles are as much befurred as they, for the weather is so unaccountably cold & gloomy that I begin to think that those spots, which have been observed of late upon the Sun’s disk are growing to that extent that if our astronomers do not speedily apply some caustic to the disease the broad eye of the poor old Sun will be fairly put out, & couching wont save us from becoming a world of ice & darkness–

Ask George if it was necessary to fill so large a space as 5 sheepskins with all that legal rigma<role> (of which I shall not read one word,) why [he] did not skin a couple of donkeys, & <…> the joint labors of a couple of sollicitors <…> 2 or 3 barristers (George being one if he <…>) & some 4 or 5 lawyers clerks, as pretty <a doc>ument might have been prepared as any young gent of resp<ecta>ble character & moderate int<ellect> ever set hand to– I am desired to say that your services at the sugar market were acceptable & that if you have nothing better to do on next Tuesday a repetition of them would be agreable. Tell George that the Governor thinks he will scarcely be rich enow to pay Mr Moody his account, but if he is anxious for any part of it, he can advance him money on account, & the remainder of the debt will be discharged when the Govr returns to Town. The coal merchant has been written & you will perhaps be relieved from your starving state in the course of next month. Dearest Ba feels this cold weather sadly she is however not worse & I hope a change has taken place this morning in the temperature, for it is raining most perseveringly, snowing I suppose with you. There are aweful times we live in. The oldest inhabitants of the Globe never remember to have seen such weather in their younger days, how strangely changed this earth with all its appurtenances must be—at least to them—since they were young. I think with this moral reflection my letter may very appropriately close. Good bye old fellow & as you seem to be in some danger of forgetting my name just say it over two or three times every morning before you sit down to breakfast by way of grace. Give my best love to all your small party not forgeting Minny—& to Treppy when you see her–

Your affectionate–

Bro.

I think Arabel’s injunction must have inflicted me <w>i<th her> own capability for nonsense!

[Continued in the hand of Edward Moulton-Barrett (father)]

My best Compts. to the old Governor & hope that his cough is quite gone– Perhaps George can spare Moody £20. if not give him something less, whereby he may keep afloat. Precious Ba slept pretty well last night & is tolerable this morng.

Address, in the hand of Edward Moulton-Barrett (brother), on integral page: Septmus Barrett Esqre / 50 Wimpole Street / London.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.

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