that_), and yet never came upstairs to express to you his sense of
obligation.

Affectionately yours always,
E.B.B.

[Footnote 131: No doubt _The Swiss Family Robinson_.]

_To John Kenyan_
Saturday [beginning of April 1845].

My dearest Cousin,--After all _I_/ said to _you_, said the other day,
about Apuleius, and about what couldn't, shouldn't, and mustn't be
done in the matter, I ended by trying the unlawful art of translating
this prose into verse, and, one after another, have done all the
subjects of the Poniatowsky gems Miss Thompson sent the list of,
except _two_, which I am doing and shall finish anon.[132] In the
meantime it comes into my head that it is just as well for you to look
over my doings, and judge whether anything in them is to the purpose,
or at all likely to be acceptable. Especially I am anxious to impress
on you that, if I could think for a moment _you would hesitate about
rejecting the whole in a body_, from any consideration for _me_, I
should not merely be vexed but pained. Am I not your own cousin, to be
ordered about as you please? And so take notice that I will not _bear_
the remotest approach to ceremony in the matter. What is wrong? what
is right? what is too much? those are the only considerations.

Apuleius is _florid_, which favored the poetical design on his
sentences. Indeed he is more florid than I have always liked to make
my verses. It is not, of course, an absolute translation, but as a
running commentary on the text it is sufficiently faithful.

But probably (I say to myself) you do not want so many illustrations,
and all too from one hand?

The two I do not send are 'Psyche contemplating Cupid asleep,' and
'Psyche and the Eagle.'

And I wait to hear how Polyphemus is to _look_--and also Adonis.

The Magazine goes to you with many thanks. The sonnet is full of force
and expression, and I like it as well as ever I did--better even!

Oh--such happy news to-day! The 'Statira' is at Plymouth, and my
brothers quite well, notwithstanding their hundred days on the sea!
_It makes me happy_.

Yours most affectionately,
BA.

You shall have your 'Radical' almost immediately. I am ashamed. _In
such haste_.

[Footnote 132: These versions were not published in Mrs. Browning's
lifetime, but were included in the posthumous _Last Poems_ (1862).
They now appear in the _Poetical Works_, v. 72-83.]

_To H.S. Boyd_
April 3, 1845.

My very dear Friend,--I have been intending