Ever affectionately yours,
E.B.B.


_To H.S. Boyd_
Wednesday, January 13, 1842 (postmark).

My dear Friend,--Thank you, thank you, for your kind suggestion and
advice altogether. I had just (when your note arrived) finished two
hymns of Synesius, one being the seventh and the other the ninth.
Oh! I do remember that you performed upon the latter, and my modesty
should have certainly bid me 'avaunt' from it. Nevertheless, it is so
fine, so prominent in the first class of Synesius's beauties, that I
took courage and dismissed my scruples, and have produced a version
which I have not compared to yours at all hitherto, but which probably
is much rougher and _rather_ closer, winning in faith what it loses
in elegance. 'Elegance' isn't a word for me, you know, generally
speaking. The barbarians herd with me, 'by two and three.'

I had a letter to-day from Mr. Dilke, who agrees to everything, closes
with the idea about 'Christian Greek poets' (only begging me to keep
away from theology), and suggesting a subsequent reviewal of English
poetical literature, from Chaucer down to our times.[62] Well, but
the Greek poets. With all your kindness, I have scarcely sufficient
materials for a full and minute survey of them. I have won a sight of
the 'Poetae Christiani,' but the price is ruinous--_fourteen guineas_,
and then the work consists almost entirely of Latin poets, deducting
Gregory and Nonnus, and John Damascenus, and a cento from Homer by
somebody or other. Turning the leaves rapidly, I do not see much else;
and you know I may get a separate copy of John Dam., and have access