My very dear Friend,--I received your long letter and receive your short one, and thank you for the pleasure of both. Of course I am very _very_ glad of your approval in the matter of the papers, and your kindness could not have wished to give me more satisfaction than it gave actually. Mr. Kenyon tells me that Mr. Burgess[64] has been reading and commending the papers, and has brought me from him a newly discovered scene of the 'Bacchae' of Euripides, edited by Mr. Burgess himself for the 'Gentlemen's Magazine,' and of which he considers that the 'Planctus Mariae,' at least the passage I extracted from it, is an imitation. Should you care to see it? Say 'Yes,'--and I will send it to you. Do you think it was wrong to make _eternity_ feminine? I knew that the Greek word was not feminine; but imagined that the English personification should be so. Am I wrong in this? Will you consider the subject again? Ah, yes! That was a mistake of mine about putting Constantine for Constantius. I wrote from memory, and the memory betrayed me. But say nothing about it. Nobody will find it out. I send you Silentiarius and some poems of Pisida in the same volume. Even if you had not asked for them, I should have asked you to look at some passages which are fine in both. It appears to me that Silentiarius writes difficult Greek, overlaying his description with a multitude of architectural and other far fetched words! Pisida is hard, too, occasionally, from other causes, particularly in the 'Hexaëmeron,' which is not in the book I send you but in another very gigantic one (as tall as the Irish giants), which you may see if you please. I will send a coach and six with it if you please. John Mauropus, of the Three Towns, I owe the knowledge of to _you. You_ lent me the book with his poems, you know. He is a great favorite of mine in all ways. I very much admire his poetry. Believe me, ever your affectionate and grateful ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. Pray tell me what you think. I am sorry to observe that the book I send you is marked very irregularly; that is, marked in some places, unmarked in others, just as I happened to be near or far from my pencil and inkstand. Otherwise I should have liked to compare judgments with you. Keep the book as long as you please; it is my own. [Footnote 64: George Burges, the classical scholar. He had in 1832 contributed to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ (under a pseudonym) some lines purporting to be a newly discovered portion of the _Bacchae_, but really composed by himself on the basis of a parallel passage in the _Christus Patiens_. It is apparently to these lines that Miss Barrett alludes, though the 'discovery' was then nearly ten years old.] _To H.S. Boyd_ 50 Wimpole Street: April 2, 1842.