Letters of Edward FitzGerald Volume I Part 29

E. F. G.

[MERTON RECTORY].

_September_ 3/58.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . Now about my Studies, which, I think, are likely to dwindle away too. I have not turned to Persian since the Spring; but shall one day look back to it: and renew my attack on the 'Seven Castles,' if that be the name. I found the Jami MS. at Rushmere: and there left it for the present: as the other Poem will be enough for me for my first onslaught.

I believe I will do a little a day, so as not to lose what little knowledge I had. As to my Omar: I gave it to Parker in January, I think: he saying Fraser was agreeable to take it. Since then I have heard no more; so as, I suppose, they don't care about it: and may be quite right.

Had I thought they would be so long however I would have copied it out and sent it to you: and I will still do so from a rough and imperfect Copy I have (though not now at hand) in case they show no signs of printing me. My Translation will interest you from its _Form_, and also in many respects in its _Detail_: very unliteral as it is. Many Quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's Simplicity, which is so much a Virtue in him. But there it is, such as it is. I purposely said in the very short notice I prefixed to the Poem that it was so short because better Information might be furnished in another Paper, which I thought _you_ would undertake. So it rests. Nor have I meddled with the Mantic lately: nor does what you say encourage me to do so. For what I had sketcht out was very paraphrase indeed. I do not indeed believe that any readable Account (unless a prose a.n.a.lysis, for the History and Curiosity of the Thing) will be possible, for _me_ to do, at least. But I took no great pleasure in what I had done: and every day get more and more a sort of Terror at re-opening any such MS. My '_Go'_ (such as it was) is _gone_, and it becomes _Work_: and the Upshot is not worth _working_ for. It was very well when it was a Pleasure. So it is with Calderon. It is well enough to sketch such things out in warm Blood; but to finish them in cold! I wish I could finish the 'Mighty Magician' in my new way: which I know you would like, in spite of your caveat for the Gracioso. I have not wholly dropt the two Students, but kept them quite under: and brought out the religious character of the Piece into stronger Relief. But as I have thrown much, if not into Lyric, into Rhyme, which strikes a more Lyric Chord, I have found it much harder to satisfy myself than with the good old Blank Verse, which I used to manage easily enough. The 'Vida es Sueno' again, though blank Verse, has been difficult to arrange; here also Clarin is not quenched, but subdued: as is all Rosaura's Story, so as to a.s.sist, and not compete with, the main Interest. I really wish I could finish these some lucky day: but, as I said, it is so much easier to leave them alone; and when I had done my best, I don't know if they are worth the pains, or whether any one (except you) would care for them even if they were worth caring for. So much for my grand Performances: except that I amuse myself with jotting down materials (out of Vocabularies, etc.) for a Vocabulary of _rural_ English, or _rustic_ English: that is, only the best country words selected from the very many Glossaries, etc., relating chiefly to country matters, but also to things in general: words that carry their own story with them, without needing Derivation or Authority, though both are often to be found. I always say I have heard the Language of Queen Elizabeth's, or King Harry's Court, in the Suffolk Villages: better a great deal than that spoken in London Societies, whether Fashionable or Literary: and the homely [strength] of which has made Shakespeare, Dryden, South, and Swift, what they could not have been without it. But my Vocabulary if ever done will be a very little Affair, if ever done: for here again it is pleasant enough to jot down a word now and then, but not to equip all for the Press.

FARLINGAY, WOODBRIDGE. _Nov_. 2/58.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . No. I have not read the Jami Diwan; partly because I find my Eyes are none the better, and partly because I have now no one to 'p.r.i.c.k the sides of my Intent'; not even 'Vaulting Ambition' now. I have got the Seven Castles {348} in my Box here and old Johnson's Dictionary; and these I shall strike a little Fire out of by and by: Jami also in time perhaps. I have nearly finisht a metrical Paraphrase and Epitome of the Mantic: but you would scarce like it, and who else would? It has amused me to give a 'Bird's Eye' View of the Bird Poem in some sixteen hundred lines. I do not think one could do it as Salaman is done. As to Omar, I hear and see nothing of it in Fraser yet: and so I suppose they don't want it. I told Parker he might find it rather dangerous among his Divines: he took it however, and keeps it. I really think I shall take it back; add some Stanzas which I kept out for fear of being too strong; print fifty copies and give away; one to you, who won't like it neither.

Yet it is most ingeniously tesselated into a sort of Epicurean Eclogue in a Persian Garden.

INDEX TO LETTERS

_To_ JOHN ALLEN, 4, 5, 9, 10-21, 28, 29, 32-35, 40, 43-48, 55, 59, 66, 69, 71, 122, 138, 172, 196, 234, 235, 243, 252, 255, 280, 291 *

_To_ MRS. CHARLES ALLEN, 337 *

_To_ the Editor of the Athenaeum, 6

_To_ BERNARD BARTON, 50-52, 61, 62, 74, 88, 93, 96, 98, 99, 104-110, 132, 134, 142, 158, 168, 169, 173, 175, 178, 186, 189-191, 197, 209, 220, 222

_From_ CARLYLE, 127, 130, 181 _note_, 205, 298, 299, 302

_To_ CARLYLE, 213, 216, 226, 293, 295, 297

_To_ MRS. CHARLESWORTH, 154-157 *, 160 *, 161 *

_To_ E. B. COWELL, 204, 208, 211 *, 212 *, 228, 231, 232, 240, 248 *, 284, 304, 304 *, 306 *, 309-321, 328-335, 340, 341 *, 345, 348

_To_ MRS. COWELL, 307, 308, 326

_To_ GEORGE CRABBE, 247, 266-268, 273, 274, 282, 284

_To_ W. B. DONNE, 22-26, 31, 41, 97, 187, 198, 203, 206, 210, 241, 253, 259, 279

_To_ SAMUEL LAURENCE, 75, 90, 116, 117, 121, 137, 140, 146, 166, 170, 215, 225, 233, 242

_To_ W. F. POLLOCK, 114, 115, 125, 133, 283

_From_ JAMES SPEDDING, 75 _note_

_To_ FREDERIC TENNYSON, 57, 66, 76, 81, 86, 91, 101, 111, 118, 139, 141, 143, 144, 150, 163, 176, 180, 188, 192, 199, 200, 223, 236, 244, 249, 254, 256, 260, 269, 271, 275, 285, 287

_From_ W. M. THACKERAY, 280

_To_ W. M. THACKERAY, 38, 281

_From_ W. H. THOMPSON, 22 _note_

_To_ W. H. THOMPSON, 79, 85

_The asterisks indicate the letters which are here printed for the first time_.

Footnotes:

{0a} See Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald, vol. iii. p.

464.

{14} Now Librarian of the William Salt Library at Stafford: introduced to FitzGerald at Cambridge by Thackeray. [He died 10th February 1893, aged 82.]

{19} Through the kindness of Mr. Thomas Allen, I have been enabled to recover these missing stanzas:--

TO A LADY SINGING.

1.

Canst thou, my Clora, declare, After thy sweet song dieth Into the wild summer air, Whither it falleth or flieth?

Soon would my answer be noted, Wert thou but sage as sweet throated.

2.

Melody, dying away, Into the dark sky closes, Like the good soul from her clay Like the fair odor of roses: Therefore thou now art behind it, But thou shalt follow and find it.

{22} 'My dear Donne,' as FitzGerald called him, 'who shares with Spedding my oldest and deepest love.' He afterwards succeeded J. M.

Kemble as Licenser of Plays. The late Master of Trinity, then Greek Professor, wrote to me of him more than five and twenty years ago, 'It may do no harm that you should be known to Mr. Donne, whose acquaintance I hope you will keep up. He is one of the finest gentlemen I know, and no ordinary scholar--remarkable also for his fidelity to his friends.'

{23} The Return to Nature, or, a Defence of the Vegetable Regimen, dedicated to Dr. W. Lambe, and written in 1811. It was printed in 1821 in The Pamphleteer, No. 38, p. 497.

{28} Wherstead Lodge on the West bank of the Orwell, about two miles from Ipswich, formerly belonged to the Vernon family. The FitzGeralds lived there for about ten years, from 1825 to 1835, when they removed to Boulge, near Woodbridge, the adjoining Parish to Bredfield.

{32} By De Quincey, in Tait's Magazine, Sept. 1834, etc.

{38} At Boulge.

{42} Life of Cowper.