emporaries whom you respect.

I do not consider Walter Scott a great poet, but he was highly
accomplished in matters of poetical antiquarianism, and is certainly
citable as an authority on this question.

Try not to be displeased with me. I cannot conceal from you that my
astonishment is profound and unutterable at your new religion--your
new faith in this pseud-Ossian--and your desecration, in his service,
of the old Hellenic altars. And by the way, my own figure reminds me
to inquire of you whether you are not sometimes struck with a _want_
in him--a want very grave in poetry, and very strange in antique
poetry--the want of devotional feeling and conscience of God. Observe,
that all antique poets rejoice greatly and abundantly in their divine
mythology; and that if this Ossian be both antique and godless, he is
an exception, a discrepancy, a monster in the history of letters and
experience of humanity. As such I leave him.

Oh, how angry you will be with me. But you seemed tolerably prepared
in your last letter for my being in a passion.... Ever affectionately
yours,

ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.

Why should I be angry with Flush? _He_ does not believe in Ossian. Oh,
I assure you he doesn't.

The following letter was called forth by a criticism of Mr. Kenyon's
on Miss Barrett's poem, _The Dead Pan_, which he had seen in
manuscript; but it also meets some criticisms which others had made
upon her last volume (see above, p. 65).

_To John Kenyan_
Wimpole Street: March 25, 1843.

My very dear Cousin,--Your kindness having touched me much, and your
good opinion, whether literary or otherwise, being of great price to
me, it is even with tears in my eyes that I begin to write to you upon
a difference between us. And what am I to say? To admit, of course,
in the first place, the injuriousness to the 'popularity,' of the
scriptural tone. But am I to sacrifice a principle to popularity?
Would you advise me to do so? Should I be more worthy of your kindness
by doing so? and could you (apart from the kindness) call my refusal
to do so either perverseness or obstinacy? Even if you could, I hope
you will try a little to be patient with me, and to forgive, at least,
what you find it impossible to approve.

My dear cousin, if you had not reminded me of Wordsworth's
exclamation--

I would rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn--

and if he had never made it, I do think that its significance would
have occurre