Item 21 - Copy of letter from Edward Turner Boyd Twistleton to [Sir Francis Charles Hastings?] Doyle

2 folded sheets.

Boulogne. - Thanks Doyle for his 'Epitaph'; in return sends list of words which he recently noticed as 'occurring in the Odyssee [sic] but not in the Iliad. Does not think this proves the Odyssey was not written by the author of the Iliad, but it should be noted, as 'if there were very many such points of difference in language, this might be important'. Wishes Doyle would follow up his 'impression' that the structure of the hexameters in the two poems differ and 'analyse' it; suggests lines of enquiry, and compares the way the structure of Shakespeare's blank verse differs from the early to late plays.

Has been reading Virgil, for whom he feels 'something like a personal affection'; acknowledges that he is 'very inferior to Homer' in inventive and dramatic power, but considers him to have been 'in every fibre a Poet'.

Copied onto notepaper for Fryston Hall, Ferrybridge.