Your ever affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

[Footnote 69:  It was this picture that called forth the sonnet, ’On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B.R.  Haydon’ (Poetical Works, iii. 62), alluded to in the next letter.]

[Footnote 70:  The following is the letter from Wordsworth which gave such pleasure to Miss Barrett, and which she treasured among her papers for the rest of her life.  Two slips of the pen have been corrected between brackets.

’Rydal Mount:  Oct. 26, ’42.

’Dear Miss Barrett,—­Through our common friend Mr. Haydon I have received a sonnet which his portrait of me suggested.  I should have thanked you sooner for that effusion of a feeling towards myself, with which I am much gratified, but I have been absent from home and much occupied.

’The conception of your sonnet is in full accordance with the painter’s intended work, and the expression vigorous; yet the word “ebb,” though I do not myself object to it, nor wish to have it altered, will I fear prove obscure to nine readers out of ten.

  “A vision free
  And noble, Haydon, hath thine art released.”

Owing to the want of inflections in our language the construction here is obscure.  Would it not be a little [better] thus?  I was going to write a small change in the order of the words, but I find it would not remove the objection.  The verse, as I take it, would be somewhat clearer thus, if you would tolerate the redundant syllable: 

  “By a vision free
  And noble, Haydon, is thine art released.”

I had the gratification of receiving, a good while ago, two copies of a volume of your writing, which I have read with much pleasure, and beg that the thanks which I charged a friend to offer may be repeated [to] you.

’It grieved me much to hear from Mr. Kenyon that your health is so much deranged.  But for that cause I should have presumed to call upon you when I was in London last spring.

’With every good wish, I remain, dear Miss Barrett, your much obliged

‘WM. WORDSWORTH.’

[Postmark:  Ambleside, Oct. 28, 1842.]

It may be added that although Miss Barrett altered the passage criticised by the great poet, she did not accept his amendment.  It now runs

  ’A noble vision free
  Our Haydon’s hand has flung out from the mist.

To H.S.  Boyd December 4, 1842.

My very dear Friend,—­You will think me in a discontented state of mind when I knit my brows like a ‘sleeve of care’ over your kind praises.  But the truth is, I won’t be praised for being liberal in Calvinism and love of Byron. I liberal in commending Byron!  Take out my heart and try it! look at it and compare it with yours; and answer and tell me if I do not love and admire Byron more warmly than you yourself do.  I suspect it indeed.  Why, I am always reproached for my love to Byron.  Why, people say to me, ‘You, who overpraise Byron!’ Why, when I was a little girl (and, whatever you may think, my tendency is not to cast off my old loves!) I used to think seriously of dressing up like a boy and running away to be Lord Byron’s page.  And I to be praised now for being ‘liberal’ in admitting the merit of his poetry! I!