BIB_ID
403393
Accession number
MA 8917.32
Creator
Boyd, Hugh Stuart, 1781-1848.
Display Date
[1843 April 13].
Credit line
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Description
1 item (4 pages, with address) ; 22.9 x 18.6 cm
Notes
Date of writing estimated from the postmark. No place of writing is given but Boyd was known to be living in London at that time and there is a Hampstead postmark on the letter. See the published editions of the correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Addressed to: "Miss Barrett/ 50 Wimpole Street/ London."
Boyd was blind; the letter is in the hand of an amanuensis.
With a seal.
Addressed to: "Miss Barrett/ 50 Wimpole Street/ London."
Boyd was blind; the letter is in the hand of an amanuensis.
With a seal.
Provenance
Acquired from the University of Illinois, 1961.
Summary
Recalling that, several years earlier, he had had read to him the review of a book which, in his remembering, vindicated James Macpherson and proved the authenticity of the Poems of Ossian: "It is now ascertained, that these Poems are really in existence, and were not forged by him. I myself do not remember, that I ever for a single minute doubted their genuineness. The absurdities attendant, on the contrary opinion are so great, that I wonder how any person of common sense can swallow them"; dismissing Sir Walter Scott's opinions on Ossian; paraphrasing a letter by David Hume, which Boyd remembers as in support of Macpherson; writing that he has not tired of Ossian, but that "[i]t is not pleasant to my head, to read a great deal in one day. There is one Book greater than Ossian. If I read much of his Poems, I must read less of that Book [i.e., the Bible]"; telling her not to "be in a fury" at his arguments, nor to take out her feelings on Arabella or Flush; arguing that Ossian is greater than Homer: "Remember, it is not his fault, if Homer stands dim behind him, like the darkened half of the Moon, behind its growing light; not indeed to destroy, but because he is outdone."
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