sorry for him. I suppose
Jupiter had it instead, just then--Hebe pouring it, and Juno's ox-eyes
bellowing their splendour at it, if you will forgive me that broken
metaphor, for the sake of Aeschylus's genius, and my own particular
intoxication.

Indeed, there _never was_, in modern days, such wine. Flush, to whom
I offered the last drop in my glass, felt it was supernatural, and
ran away. I have an idea that if he had drunk that drop, he would have
talked afterwards--either Greek or English.

Never was such wine! The very taste of ideal nectar, only stiller,
from keeping. If the bubbles of eternity were on it, _we_ should run
away, perhaps, like Flush.

Still, the thought comes to me, ought I to take it from you? Is it
right of me? are you not too kind in sending it? and should you be
allowed to be too kind? In any case, you must, not think of sending me
more than you have already sent. It is more than enough, and I am not
less than very much obliged to you.

I have passed the middle of my second volume, and I only hope that
critics may say of the rest that it smells of Greek wine. Dearest Mr.
Boyd's

Ever affectionate
E.B. BARRETT.

_To Mr. Westwood_
June 28, 1844.

My dear Mr. Westwood,--I have certainly and considerably increased
the evidence of my own death by the sepulchral silence of the last few
days. But after all I am not dead, not even _at heart_, so as to be
insensible to your kind anxiety, and I can assure you of this, upon
very fair authority, neither is the book dead yet. It has turned the
corner of the _felo de se_, and if it is to die, it will be by the
critics. The mystery of the long delay, it would not be very easy for
me to explain, notwithstanding I hear Mr. Moxon says: 'I suppose Miss
Barrett is not in a hurry about her publication;' and _I_ say: 'I
suppose Moxon is not in a hurry about the publication.' There may be
a little fault on my side, when I have kept a proof a day beyond the
hour, or when 'copy' has put out new buds in my hands as I passed it
to the printer's. Still, in my opinion, it is a good deal more the
fault of Mr. Moxon's not being in a hurry, than in the excessive
virtue of my patience, or vice of my indolence. Miss Mitford says, as
you do, that she never heard of so slow-footed a book.

_To H.S. Boyd_
50 Wimpole Street:
Wednesday, August I, 1844 [postmark].

My very dear Friend,--Have you expected to hear from me? and are you
vexed with me? I am a little amb