Your very affectionate,

BA.

Henry and Daisy have been to see the lying in state, as lying stark and dead is called whimsically, of the Duke of Sussex.  It was a fine sight, they say.

To H.S.  Boyd May 9, 1843 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,—­I thank you much for the copies of your ‘Anti-Puseyistic Pugilism.’  The papers reached my hands quite safely and so missed setting the world on fire; and I shall be as wary of them evermore (be sure) as if they were gunpowder.  Pray send them to Mary Hunter.  Why not?  Why should you think that I was likely to ‘object’ to your doing so?  She will laugh. I laughed, albeit in no smiling mood; for I have been transmigrating from one room to another, and your packet found me half tired and half excited, and whole grave.  But I could not choose but laugh at your Oxford charge; and when I had counted your great guns and javelin points and other military appurtenances of the Punic war, I said to myself—­or to Flush, ‘Well, Mr. Boyd will soon be back again with the dissenters.’  Upon which I think Flush said, ‘That’s a comfort.’

Mary’s direction is, 111 London Road, Brighton.  You ought to send the verses to her yourself, if you mean to please her entirely:  and I cannot agree with you that there is the slightest danger in sending them by the post.  Letters are never opened, unless you tempt the flesh by putting sovereigns, or shillings, or other metallic substances inside the envelope; and if the devil entered into me causing me to write a libel against the Queen, I would send it by the post fearlessly from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End inclusive.

One of your best puns, if not the best,

  Hatching succession apostolical,
  With other falsehoods diabolical,

lies in an octosyllabic couplet; and what business has that in your heroic libel?

The ‘pearl’ of maidens sends her love to you.

Your very affectionate
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

To H.S.  Boyd May 14, 1843.

My very dear Friend,—­I hear with wonder from Arabel of your repudiation of my word ‘octosyllabic’ for the two lines in your controversial poem.  Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line:  of that I am perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic.  Do you not observe, my dearest Mr. Boyd, that the final accent and rhyme fall on the eighth syllable instead of the tenth, and that that single circumstance determines the class of verse—­that they are in fact octosyllabic verses with triple rhymes?

  Hatching succession apostolical,
  With other falsehoods diabolical.

Pope has double rhymes in his heroic verses, but how does he manage them?  Why, he admits eleven syllables, throwing the final accent and rhyme on the tenth, thus: