give up the point to me--so that, now we cannot talk
together, _I might as well take it_.' Well, you will see what I have
done. Try not to be angry with me. You shall have the 'Athenaeum' as
soon as possible.

My dear Mr. Boyd, you know how I disbelieved the probability of these
papers being accepted. You will comprehend my surprise on receiving
last night a very courteous: note from the editor, which I would
send to you if it were legible to anybody except people used to
learn reading from the pyramids. He wishes me to contribute to the
'Athenaeum' some prose papers in the form of reviews--'the review
being a mere form, and the book a mere text.' He is not very
clear--but I fancy that a few translations of _excerpta_, with a prose
analysis and synthesis of the original author's genius, might suit
his purpose. Now suppose I took up some of the early Christian Greek
poets, and wrote a few continuous papers _so_?[61] Give me your
advice, my dear friend! I think of Synesius, for one. Suppose you send
me a list of the names which occur to you! _Will_ you advise me? Will
you write directly? Will you make allowance for my teazing you? Will
you lend me your little Synesius, and Clarke's book? I mean the one
commenced by Dr. Clarke and continued by his son. Above all things,
however, I want the advice.

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 y