Thank you once more, dear Mr. Boyd! May all my critics be gentle after
the pattern of your gentleness!

Believe me, affectionately yours,
E.B. BARRETT.


_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street: June 17 [1838].

My dear Friend,--I send you a number of the 'Atlas' which you may
keep. It is a favorable criticism, certainly--but I confess this of my
vanity, that it has not altogether pleased me. You see what it is to
be spoilt.

As to the 'Athenaeum,' although I am _not_ conscious of the quaintness
and mannerism laid to my charge, and am very sure that I have always
written too naturally (that is, too much from the impulse of thought
and feeling) to have studied '_attitudes_,' yet the critic was quite
right in stating his opinion, and so am I in being grateful to him for
the liberal praise he has otherwise given me. Upon the whole, I like
his review better than even the 'Examiner,' notwithstanding my being
perfectly satisfied with _that_.

Thank you for the question about my health. I am very tolerably
well--for _me_: and am said to look better. At the same time I am
aware of being always on the verge of an increase of illness--I mean,
in a very excitable state--with a pulse that flies off at a word
and is only to be caught by digitalis. But I am better--for the
present--while the sun shines.