You won't be angry with me for my obliquity (as you will consider it) about Ossian. You know I always talk sincerely to you, and you have not made me afraid of telling you the truth--that is, _my_ truth, the truth of my belief and opinions. I do not defend much in the 'Idiot Boy.' Wordsworth is a great poet, but he does not always write equally. And that reminds me of a distinction you suggest between Ossian and Homer. _I_ fashion it in this way: Homer sometimes nods, but Ossian _makes his readers nod_. Ever your affectionate ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. Did I tell you that I had been reading through a manuscript translation of the 'Gorgias' of Plato, by Mr. Hyman of Oxford, who is a stepson of Mr. Haydon's the artist? It is an excellent translation with learned notes, but it is _not elegant_. He means to try the public upon it, but, as I have intimated to him, the Christians of the present day are not civilised enough for Plato. Arabel's love. _To H.S. Boyd_ [About the end of January 1843.] My very dear Friend,--The image you particularly admire in Ossian, I admire with you, although I am not sure that I have not seen it or its like somewhere in a classical poet, Greek or Latin. Perhaps Lord Byron remembered it when in the 'Siege of Corinth' he said of his Francesca's uplifted arm, 'You might have seen the moon shine through.' It reminds me also that Maclise the artist, a man of poetical imagination, gives such a transparency to the ghost of Banquo in his picture of Macbeth's banquet, that we can discern through it the lights of the festival. That is good poetry for a painter, is it not? I send you the magazines which I have just received from America, and which contain, one of them, 'The Cry of the Human,' and the other, four of my sonnets. My correspondent tells me that the 'Cry' is considered there one of the most successful of my poems, but you probably will not think so. Tell me exactly what you do think. At page 343 of 'Graham's Magazine,' _Editor's Table_, is a review of me, which, however extravagant in its appreciation, will give your kindness pleasure. I confess to a good deal of pleasure myself from these American courtesies, expressed not merely in the magazines, but in the newspapers; a heap of which has been sent to me by my correspondent--the 'New York Tribune,' 'The Union,' 'The Union Flag,' &c.--all scattered over with extracts from my books and benignant words about their writer. Among the extracts is the whole of the review of Wordsworth from the London 'Athenaeum,' an unconscious compliment, as they do not guess at the authorship, and one which you won't thank them for. Keep the magazines, as I have duplicates. Dearest Mr. Boyd, since you admit that I am not prejudiced about Ossian, I take courage to tell you what I am thinking of. _I am thinking_ (this is said in a whisper, and in confidence--of two kinds), _I am thinking that you don't admire him quite as much as you did three weeks ago_.