SD657.1. Edmund Henry Barker to Hugh Stuart Boyd
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 2.
Thetford
June 11, 1828
Dear Sir,
I ought to have written to you before; but my mind has been paralysed with various matters, which required despatch, & Mr Valpy has kept me too well supplied with proofsheets of the Index to the Greek Thesaurus, of which Index about two thirds are completed. It is a desperate long job, & though not laborious, it is wearisome.
I have read with much interest your extract from Miss Barrett’s Poem entitled The Battle of Marathon, & think with you that such a production at such an age is extraordinary. I am very ready to acknowledge her bright genius, & powerful mind, capable of uniting lighter & severer studies—she has been ‘dipped in the dew of Castalie’—her raiment is of Plato’s needlework. I am glad to find that she has some acquaintance with Sir Uvedale Price, & also that you have written for the Classical Journal a Letter on the subject of his Essay, which is excellent. It is only a foretaste of what you may expect from the larger work. I furnished him with many extracts from books, & a few criticisms. Was the Battle of Marathon published, or privately printed? Or have you seen it only in Ms.? I have had two or three Letters from Sir Uvedale Price since I received your last: he is a most excellent critic, but I fear that he will hardly know enough of Miss Barrett to justify his speaking of any thing but her Poem. I design to ask him on the first opportunity; but, as he does not write often except for particular reasons, & is above 80 years old, I dare not start too many subjects. I have read Miss Barrett’s poem with great admiration of her talents & great veneration for the virtue, which it displays. I am no critic in poetry, & though I could comment on some parts, I know not whether you would venture to lay before her my remarks, or whether I ought even to make them. She has great power of condensing thought, & conveying a multitudinous idea in few words—she is well qualified to become a didactic poetess of the highest order of intellect—she unites the solidity of a virile understanding with the playfulness of a female fancy—her mind is well inbued with classical images, & she loves ‘to rove over Hybla’s dews’—there is great propriety & beauty & novelty in her classical applications. Tell her that I admire her genius, & shall be most happy to encourage it in any respect. I could criticise a little, but ought I to criticise a composition written at such an early age? In p. 9. she says—
Mark Byron, the Mont Blanc of intellect.
The line is harsh to the ear, & the alliteration, m&b is in bad taste. Again p. 37.
Let Science’ soaring sons, the ballast, cast
There is not only bad alliteration here, but the elision of s before soaring is very awkward in recitation, & it is almost impossible for a hearer to consider soaring in any other light than as an epithet of science. I think that there is a little playfulness in her preface, which is not exactly suited to the gravity of the subject, & perhaps here & there in the poem may be found matter of this sort. She hath a philosophic spirit—I hope that she will not absorb herself wholly in metaphysics, but keep her eye rather on moral & political philosophy—be more like Mrs Cockburn, whose writings were edited by Dr Birch, than Lady Mary Shepherd, of whom she will soon see a curious account in my Parriana; the book will be presented to her acceptance in respectful homage for her talents & the useful direction, which she is likely to give to them. May she live a thousand years, enlightening & delighting the world by the occasional displays of her genius, & ‘presenting the august image of virtue in her sublimest form’! Old Cato saith that he loves many, whom he has never seen, & I too love many whom I never expect to see:
Beauty in vain her sparkling eyes may roll;
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
In p. 102, she falls into a common errour in reasoning about Bacon: yea, a double errour. The question is not whether Bacon hath said so of James the first, but whether what he says is not conformable to the adulatory spirit of the times, & Bacon had been a courtier rather than a philosopher. She is reasoning from the present times, & if Bacon were now living, he would have had all the noble independence of mind, which she would require in a philosopher of the most unworldly cast. She committed the same sin as Juvenal does in condemning Cicero’s poetry—she tries philosophy as he did poetry by an ex-post-facto law. Cicero is NOT to be compared with Virgil who lived after him, or even with Lucretius, but with Ennius etc., & then his poetry will bear comparison. Hath not Sir Walter Raleigh, yea hath not Lord Coke, the same servile spirit as Bacon? Besides, she must consider that a philosopher is not a pure intelligence, undebased by earthly affections, but bears about him the impress of humanity. My respect for Bacon is not in the least diminished by reason of what she imputes to him—if history had chronicled nothing of the sort, I should have given to him full credit for such fallibility. I reason from man as he is, not as he ought to be. In my Parriana I shall shew how low even a great philosopher of our own time has sunk by his conduct in one matter relative to my philosophical friend, John Fearn: yet before Dugald Stewart had sinned in this way, I should have taken for granted that he had so much of mortality about him. The subject is of the deepest importance, & I must be emphatic.
I remain, dear Sir, very truly yours, E. H. Barker.
P.S. You may send this Letter to her if you like.
Address, on integral page: H. S. Boyd Esqr. / Malvern / Worcestershire.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.
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