He retorted with acrimony, that 'it might be Greek, twice over; but that it was exceedingly beastly.'
I resumed, with persuasive argument, that 'it could scarcely be beastly, inasmuch as the taste reminded one of oranges and orange flower together, to say nothing of the honey of Mount Hymettus.'
He took me up with stringent logic, 'that any wine must positively be beastly, which, pretending to be wine, tasted sweet as honey, and that it was beastly on my own showing!' I send you this report as an evidence of a curious opinion. But drinkers of port wine cannot be expected to judge of nectar—and I hold your 'Cyprus' to be pure nectar.
I shall have pleasure in doing what you ask me to do—that is, I will—if you promise never to call me Miss Barrett again. You have often quite vexed me by it. There is Ba—Elizabeth—Elzbeth—Ellie—any modification of my name you may call me by—but I won't be called Miss Barrett by you. Do you understand? Arabel means to carry your copy of my book to you. And I beg you not to fancy that I shall be impatient for you to read the two volumes through. If you ever read them through, it will be a sufficient compliment, and indeed I do not expect that you ever will.
May God bless you, dearest Mr. Boyd.
I remain,
Your affectionate and grateful
ELIZABETH B. BARRETT.
The date of this last letter marks, as nearly as need be, the date of publication of Miss Barrett's volumes. The letters which follow deal mainly with their reception, first at the hand of friends, and then by the regular critics. The general verdict of the latter was extremely complimentary. Mr. Chorley, in the 'Athenaeum,'[[100]] described the volumes as 'extraordinary,' adding that 'between her [Miss Barrett's] poems and the slighter lyrics of most of the sisterhood, there is all the difference which exists between the putting-on of "singing robes" for altar service, and the taking up lute or harp to enchant an indulgent circle of friends and kindred.' In the 'Examiner,'[[101]] John Forster declared that 'Miss Barrett is an undoubted poetess of a high and fine order as regards the first requisites of her art—imagination and expression.... She is a most remarkable writer, and her volumes contain not a little which the lovers of poetry will never willingly let die,' a phrase then not quite so hackneyed as it has since become. The 'Atlas'[[102]] asserted that 'the present volumes show extraordinary powers, and, abating the failings of which all the followers of Tennyson are guilty, extraordinary genius.' More influential even than these, 'Blackwood'[[103]] paid her the compliment of a whole article, criticising her faults frankly, but declaring that 'her poetical merits infinitively outweigh her defects. Her genius is profound, unsullied, and without a flaw.' All agreed in assigning her a high, or the highest, place among the poetesses of England; but, as Miss Barrett herself pointed out, this, in itself, was no great praise.[[104]]
With regard to individual poems, the critics did not take kindly to the 'Drama of Exile,' and 'Blackwood' in particular criticised it at considerable length, calling it 'the least successful of her works.' The subject, while half challenging comparison with Milton, lends itself only too readily to fancifulness and unreality, which were among the most besetting sins of Miss Barrett's genius. The minor poems were incomparably more popular, and the favourite of all was that masterpiece of rhetorical sentimentality, 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship.' It must have been a little mortifying to the authoress to find this piece, a large part of which had been dashed off at a single heat in order to supply the printers' needs, preferred to others on which she had employed all the labour of her deliberate art; but with the general tone of all the critics she had every reason to be as content as her letters show her to have been. Only two criticisms rankled: the one that she was a follower of Tennyson, the other that her rhymes were slovenly and careless. And these appeared, in varying shapes, in nearly all the reviews.