k jests about it _now_, you see. Well, to go back to the
explanations I promised to give you, I must tell you that Arabel
_perfectly forgot_ to say a word to me about 'Blackwood' and your wish
that I should send the magazine. It was only after I heard that you
had procured it yourself, and after I mentioned this to her, that she
remembered her omission all at once. Therefore I am quite vexed and
disappointed, I beg you to believe--_I_, who have pleasure in giving
you any printed verses of mine that you care to have. Never mind! I
may print another volume before long, and lay it at your feet. In
the meantime, you _endure_ my 'Cry of the Children' better than I had
anticipated--just because I never anticipated your being able to read
it to the end, and was over-delicate of placing it in your hands
on that very account. My dearest Mr. Boyd, you are right in your
complaint against the rhythm. The first stanza came into my head in a
hurricane, and I was obliged to make the other stanzas like it--_that_
is the whole mystery of the iniquity. If you look Mr. Lucas from head
to foot, you will never find such a rhythm on his person. The whole
crime of the versification belongs to _me_. So blame _me_, and by no
means another poet, and I will humbly confess that I deserve to be
blamed in some _measure_. There is a roughness, my own ear being
witness, and I give up the body of my criminal to the rod of your
castigation, kissing the last as if it were Flush.

A report runs in London that Mr. Boyd says of Elizabeth Barrett: 'She
is a person of the most perverted judgment in England.' Now, if this
be true, I shall not mend my evil position in your opinion, my very
dear friend, by confessing that I differ with you, the more the longer
I live, on the ground of what you call 'jumping lines.' I am speaking
not of particular cases, but of the principle, the general principle,
of these cases, and the tenacity of my judgment does not arise from
the teaching of 'Mr. Lucas,' but from the deeper study of the old
master-poets--English poets--those of the Elizabeth and James ages,
before the corruption of French rhythms stole in with Waller and
Denham, and was acclimated into a national inodorousness by Dryden
and Pope. We differ so much upon this subject that we must proceed
by agreeing to differ, and end, perhaps, by finding it agreeable to
differ; there can be no possible use in an argument. Only you must be
upright in justice, and find Wordswo