It is more unworthy than he could have expected when he expressed that desire, having been written in very early youth, when the mind was scarcely free in any measure from trammels and Popes, and, what is worse, when flippancy of language was too apt to accompany immaturity of opinion.  The miscellaneous verses are, still more than the chief poem, ‘childish things’ in a strict literal sense, and the whole volume is of little interest even to its writer except for personal reasons—­except for the traces of dear affections, since rudely wounded, and of that love of poetry which began with her sooner than so soon, and must last as long as life does, without being subject to the changes of life.  Little more, therefore, can remain for such a volume than to be humble and shrink from circulation.  Yet Mr. Westwood’s kind words win it to his hands.  Will he receive at the same moment the expression of touched and gratified feelings with which Miss Barrett read what he wrote on the subject of her later volumes, still very imperfect, although more mature and true to the truth within?  Indeed she is thankful for what he said so kindly in his note to her.

[Footnote 59:  Mr. Thomas Westwood was the author of a volume of ‘Poems,’ published in 1840, ‘Beads from a Rosary’ (1843), ’The Burden of the Bell’ (1850), and other volumes of verse.  Several of his compositions were appearing occasionally in the Athenaeum at the time when this correspondence with Miss Barrett commenced.]

[Footnote 60:  The Essay on Mind.]

To H.S.  Boyd 50 Wimpole Street:  January 6, 1842.

My dear Friend,—­I have done your bidding and sent the translations to the ‘Athenaeum,’ attaching to them an infamous prefatory note which says all sorts of harm of Gregory’s poetry.  You will be very angry with it and me.

And you may be angry for another reason—­that in the midst of my true thankfulness for the emendations you sent me, I ventured to reject one or two of them.  You are right, probably, and I wrong; but still, I thought within myself with a womanly obstinacy not altogether peculiar to me,—­’If he and I were to talk together about them, he would kindly 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