I have not seen any one you know since I last wrote; nor heard from any one: except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days with us, me and that Scholar and his Wife in their Village, {262b} in their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the River side. Old Spedding was delicious there; always leaving a mark, I say, in all places one has been at with him, a sort of Platonic perfume. For has he not all the beauty of the Platonic Socrates, with some personal Beauty to boot? He explained to us one day about the laws of reflection in water: and I said then one never could look at the willow whose branches furnished the text without thinking of him. How beastly this reads! As if he gave us a lecture! But you know the man, how quietly it all came out; only because I petulantly denied his plain assertion. For I really often cross him only to draw him out; and vain as I may be, he is one of those that I am well content to make shine at my own expense.

Don't suppose that this or any other ideal day with him effaces my days with you. Indeed, my dear Frederic, you also mark many times and many places in which I have been with you. Gravesend and its [Greek text] shrimps cannot be forgotten. You say I shall never go to see you at Florence. I have said to you before and I now repeat it, that if ever I go abroad it shall be to see you and my Godchild. I really cannot say if I should not have gone this winter (as I hinted in my last) in case you had answered my letter. But I really did not know if you had not left Florence; and a fortnight ago I thought to myself I would write to Horatio at Cheltenham and ask him for news of you. As to Alfred, I have heard of his marriage, etc., from Spedding, who also saw and was much pleased with her indeed. But you know Alfred himself never writes, nor indeed cares a halfpenny about one, though he is very well satisfied to see one when one falls in his way. You will think I have a spite against him for some neglect, when I say this, and say besides that I cannot care for his In Memoriam. Not so, if I know myself: I always thought the same of him, and was just as well satisfied with it as now. His poem I never did greatly affect: nor can I learn to do so: it is full of finest things, but it is monotonous, and has that air of being evolved by a Poetical Machine of the highest order. So it seems to be with him now, at least to me, the Impetus, the Lyrical oestrus, is gone. . . It is the cursed inactivity (very pleasant to me who am no Hero) of this 19th century which has spoiled Alfred, I mean spoiled him for the great work he ought now to be entering upon; the lovely and noble things he has done must remain. It is dangerous work this prophesying about great Men. . . . I beg you very much to send me your poems, the very first opportunity; as I want them very much. Nobody doubts that you ought to make a volume for Moxon. Send your poems to Spedding to advise on. No doubt Alfred would be best adviser of all: but then people would be stupid, and say that he had done all that was good in the Book—(wait till I take my tea, which has been lying on the table these ten minutes)—Now, animated by some very inferior Souchong from the village shop, I continue my letter, having reflected during my repast that I have seen two College men you remember since I last wrote, Thompson and Merivale. The former is just recovering of the water cure, looking blue: the latter, Merivale, is just recovering from—Marriage!—which he undertook this Midsummer, with a light-haired daughter of George Frere's. Merivale lives just on the borders of Suffolk: and a week before his marriage he invited me to meet F. Pollock and his wife at the Rectory. There we spent two easy days, and I heard no more of Merivale till three weeks ago when he asked me to meet Thompson just before Christmas. . . . Have you seen Merivale's History of Rome, beginning with the Empire? Two portly volumes are out, and are approved of by Scholars, I believe. I have not read them, not having money to buy, nor any friend to lend.

I hear little music but what I make myself, or help to make with my Parson's son and daughter. We, with not a voice among us, go through Handel's Coronation Anthems! Laughable it may seem; yet it is not quite so; the things are so well-defined, simple, and grand, that the faintest outline of them tells; my admiration of the old Giant grows and grows: his is the Music for a Great, Active, People. Sometimes too, I go over to a place elegantly called Bungay, where a Printer {265} lives who drills the young folks of a manufactory there to sing in Chorus once a week. . . . They sing some of the English Madrigals, some of Purcell, and some of Handel, in a way to satisfy me, who don't want perfection, and who believe that the grandest things do not depend on delicate finish. If you were here now, we would go over and hear the Harmonious Blacksmith sung in Chorus, with words, of course. It almost made me cry when I heard the divine Air rolled into vocal harmony from the four corners of a large Hall. One can scarce comprehend the Beauty of the English Madrigals till one hears them done (though coarsely) in this way and on a large scale: the play of the parts as they alternate from the different quarters of the room.

I have taken another half sheet to finish my letter upon: so as my calculation of how far this half-quire is to spread over Time is defeated. Let us write oftener, and longer, and we shall not tempt the Fates by inchoating too long a hope of letter-paper. I have written enough for to-night: I am now going to sit down and play one of Handel's Overtures as well as I can—Semele, perhaps, a very grand one—then, lighting my lantern, trudge through the mud to Parson Crabbe's. Before I take my pen again to finish this letter the New Year will have dawned—on some of us. 'Thou fool! this night thy soul may be required of thee!' Very well: while it is in this Body I will wish my dear old F. T. a happy New Year. And now to drum out the Old with Handel. Good Night.

New Year's Day, 1851. A happy new Year to you! I sat up with my Parson till the Old Year was past, drinking punch and smoking cigars, for which I endure some headache this morning. Not that we took much; but a very little punch disagrees with me. Only I would not disappoint my old friend's convivial expectations. He is one of those happy men who has the boy's heart throbbing and trembling under the snows of sixty-five.

To G. Crabbe.

[GELDESTONE, Feb. 11, 1851.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I send you an Euphranor, and (as you desire it) Spedding's Examiner. {266} I believe that I should be ashamed of his praise, if I did not desire to take any means to make my little book known for a good purpose. I think he over-praises it: but he cannot over-praise the design, and (as I believe) the tendency of it.

60 LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, [Feb. 27, 1851.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . My heart saddens to think of Bramford all desolate; {267a} and I shall now almost turn my head away as any road, or railroad, brings me within sight of the little spire! I write once a week to abuse both of them for going. But they are quite happy at Oxford.

I felt a sort of horror when I read in your letter you had ordered the Book {267b} into your Club, for fear some one might guess. But if your folks don't guess, no one else will. I have heard no more of it since I wrote to you last, except that its sale does not stand still. Pickering's foreman blundered in the Advertisements; quoting an extract about the use of the Book, when he should have quoted about its amusement, which is what the world is attracted by. But I left it to him. As it would be a real horror to me to be known as the writer, I do not think I can have much personal ambition in its success; but I should sincerely wish it to be read for what little benefit it may do. . . .

I have seen scarce anybody here: Thackeray only once; neither Tennyson nor Carlyle. Donne came up for a day to see as to the morality of the 'Prodigal Son' {268} at Drury Lane, which the Bishop of London complained of. Donne is deputy Licenser for Jack Kemble. I went to see it with him; it was only stupid and gaudy.

BOULGE, Tuesday, May the something, 1851.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I am ashamed you should have the trouble of asking me to Merton so often, and so in vain. I might give you a specious reason for not going now . . . but I will honestly confess I believe I should not have accompanied your Father in his Voyage to your house, had the sky been quite clear of engagement. Why, I cannot exactly say: my soul is not packed up for Merton yet, though one day it will be; and I have no such idea of the preciousness of my company as to have any hesitation in letting my friends wait any length of time before I go to occupy their easy chairs. The day will come, if we live. I have had a very strong invitation to Cambridge this week; to live with my old friends the Skrines in Sidney College. But why should we meet to see each other grown old, etc.? (I don't mean this quite seriously.) Ah, I should like a drive over Newmarket Heath: the sun shining on the distant leads of Ely Cathedral.

To F. Tennyson.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, [25 August, 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

Why do you never write to me? I am sure I wrote last: I constantly am thinking of you, and constantly wishing to see you. Perhaps you are in England at this very hour, and do not let me know of it. When I wrote to you last I cannot remember; whether in Winter or Spring. I was in London during January and February last, but have been vegetating down here ever since. Have not been up even to see the Great Exh.—one is tired of writing, and seeing written, the word. All the world, as you know, goes in droves: you may be lounging in it this very hour, though I don't mean to say you are one of a drove. It is because there are so few F. Tennysons in the world that I do not like to be wholly out of hearing of the one I know. . . . My own affairs do not improve, and I have seen more and more of the pitiful in humanity . . . but luckily my wants decrease. I am quite content never to buy a picture or a Book; almost content not to see them. One could soon relapse into Barbarism. I do indeed take a survey of old Handel's Choruses now and then; and am just now looking with great delight into Purcell's King Arthur, real noble English music, much of it; and assuredly the prototype of much of Handel. It is said Handel would not admire Purcell; but I am sure he adapted himself to English ears and sympathies by means of taking up Purcell's vein. I wish you were here to consider this with me; but you would grunt dissent, and smile bitterly at my theories. I am trying to teach the bumpkins of the united parishes of Boulge and Debach to sing a second to such melodies as the women sing by way of Hymns in our Church: and I have invented (as I think) a most simple and easy way of teaching them the little they need to learn. How would you like to see me, with a bit of chalk in my hand, before a black board, scoring up semibreves on a staff for half a dozen Rustics to vocalize? Laugh at me in Imagination. . . .

Almost the only man I hear from is dear old Spedding, who has lost his Father, and is now, I suppose, a rich man. This makes no apparent change in his way of life: he has only hired an additional Attic in Lincoln's Inn Fields, so as to be able to bed a friend upon occasion. I may have to fill it ere long. Merivale (you know, surely) is married, and has a son I hear. He lives some twenty miles from here. . . .

Now, my dear Frederic, this is a sadly dull letter. I could have made it duller and sadder by telling you other things. But, instead of this, let me hear from you a good account of yourself and your family, and especially of my little Godson. Remember, I have a right to hear about him. Ever yours, dear old Grimsby,

E. F. G.

[19 CHARLOTTE ST., FITZROY SQUARE, Dec. 1851.]

MY DEAR OLD FREDERIC,

I have long been thinking I would answer a long and kind letter I had from you some weeks ago, in which you condoled with me about my finances, and offered me your house as a Refuge for the Destitute. I can never wonder at generosity in you: but I am sorry I should have seemed to complain so much as to provoke so much pity from you. I am not worse off than I have been these last three years; and so much better off than thousands who deserve more that I should deserve to be kicked if I whined over my decayed fortunes. If I go to Italy, it will be to see Florence and Fred. Tennyson: I do not despair of going one day: I believe my desire is gathering, and my indolence warming up with the exhilarating increase of Railroads.

But for the present here I am, at 19 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, come up to have a fresh squabble with Lawyers, and to see to an old College friend who is gone mad, and threatens to drive his wife mad too, I think. Here are troubles, if you like: I mean, these poor people's. Well, I have not had much time except to post about in Omnibi between Lincoln's Inn and Bayswater: but I have seen Alfred once; Carlyle once; Thackeray twice; and Spedding many times. I did not see Mrs. A.: but am to go and dine there one day before I leave. Carlyle has been undergoing the Water System at Malvern, and says it has done him a very little good. He would be quite well, he says, if he threw his Books away, and walked about the mountains: but that would be 'propter vitam, etc.' Nature made him a Writer: so he must wear himself out writing Lives of Sterling, etc., for the Benefit of the World. Thackeray says he is getting tired of being witty, and of the great world: he is now gone to deliver his Lectures {272} at Edinburgh: having already given them at Oxford and Cambridge. Alfred, I thought looking pretty well. Spedding is immutably wise, good, and delightful: not so immutably well in Body, I think: though he does not complain. But I will deal in no more vaticinations of Evil. I can't think what was the oracle in my Letters you allude to, I mean about the three years' duration of our lives. I have long felt about England as you do, and even made up my mind to it, so as to sit comparatively, if ignobly, easy on that score. Sometimes I envy those who are so old that the curtain will probably fall on them before it does on their Country. If one could save the Race, what a Cause it would be! not for one's own glory as a member of it, nor even for its glory as a Nation: but because it is the only spot in Europe where Freedom keeps her place. Had I Alfred's voice, I would not have mumbled for years over In Memoriam and the Princess, but sung such strains as would have revived the [Greek text] to guard the territory they had won. What can 'In Memoriam' do but make us all sentimental? . . .

My dear Frederic, I hope to see you one day: I really do look forward one day to go and see you in Italy, as well as to see you here in England. I know no one whom it would give me more pleasure to think of as one who might perhaps be near me as we both go down the hill together, whether in Italy or England. You, Spedding, Thackeray, and only one or two more. The rest have come like shadows and so departed.

To G. Crabbe.

[Feb. 27, 1852.]

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . I rejoice in your telling me what you think; or I should rejoice if these books were of importance enough to require honest advice. I think you may be very right about the length of the Preface; {273} that I do not think you right about the reasoning of it you may suppose by my ever printing it. It is to show why Books of that kind are dull: what sort of writers ought to be quoted, etc.; proverbial writers: and what constitutes proverbiality, etc. Well, enough of it all: I am glad you like it on the whole. As to Euphranor I do wish him not to die yet: and am gratified you think him worthy to survive a little longer. That is a good cause, let my treatment of it be as it will.

I and Drew sat up at your Father's till 3 (a.m.) last Tuesday: at the old affair of Calvinism, etc. It amuses them: else one would think it odd they did not see how they keep on fighting with Shadows, and slaying the slain.

I am really going next week from home, towards that famous expedition to Shropshire {274} which I mean to perform one day. I write after walking to Woodbridge: and hear that Mr. Cana has called in my absence to announce that 'the Hall' is let; to a Mr. Cobbold, from Saxmundham, I think, who has a farm at Sutton. I met Tom (young Tom) Churchyard in Woodbridge, who tells me he is going to America on Monday! He makes less fuss about it than I do about going to Shropshire.

HAM, June 2/52.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

. . . Order into your Book Club 'Trench on the Study of Words'; a delightful, good, book, not at all dry (unless to fools); one I am sure you will like. Price but three and sixpence and well worth a guinea at least.

In spite of my anti-London prejudices, I find this Limb of London (for such it is) very beautiful: the Thames with its Swans upon it, and its wooded sides garnished with the Villas of Poets, Wits, and Courtiers, of a Time which (I am sorry to say) has more charms to me than the Middle Ages, or the Heroic.

I have seen scarce any of the living London Wits; Spedding and Donne most: Thackeray but twice for a few minutes. He finished his Novel {275} last Saturday and is gone, I believe, to the Continent.

To F. Tennyson.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD, June 8/52.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

It gave me, as always, the greatest pleasure to hear from you. Your letter found me at my Mother's house, at Ham, close to Richmond; a really lovely place, and neighbourhood, though I say it who am all prejudiced against London and 'all the purtenances thereof.' But the copious woods, green meadows, the Thames and its swans gliding between, and so many villas and cheerful houses and terraced gardens with all their associations of Wits and Courtiers on either side, all this is very delightful. I am not heroic enough for Castles, Battlefields, etc. Strawberry Hill for me! I looked all over it: you know all the pictures, jewels, curiosities, were sold some ten years ago; only bare walls remain: the walls indeed here and there stuck with Gothic woodwork, and the ceilings with Gothic gilding, sometimes painted Gothic to imitate woodwork; much of it therefore in less good taste: all a Toy, but yet the Toy of a very clever man. The rain is coming through the Roofs, and gradually disengaging the confectionary Battlements and Cornices. Do you like Walpole? did you ever read him? Then close by is Hampton Court: with its stately gardens, and fine portraits inside; all very much to my liking. I am quite sure gardens should be formal, and unlike general Nature. I much prefer the old French and Dutch gardens to what are called the English.

I saw scarce any of our friends during the three weeks I passed at Ham. Though I had to run to London several times, I generally ran back as fast as I could; much preferring the fresh air and the fields to the smoke and 'the wilderness of monkeys' in London. Thackeray I saw for ten minutes: he was just in the agony of finishing a Novel: which has arisen out of the Reading necessary for his Lectures, and relates to those Times—of Queen Anne, I mean. He will get 1000 pounds for his Novel. He was wanting to finish it, and rush off to the Continent, I think, to shake off the fumes of it. Old Spedding, that aged and most subtle Serpent, was in his old haunt in Lincoln's Inn Fields, up to any mischief. It was supposed that Alfred was somewhere near Malvern: Carlyle I did not go to see, for I really have nothing to tell him, and I have got tired of hearing him growl: though I do not cease to admire him as much as ever. I also went once to the pit of the Covent Garden Italian Opera, to hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, of which I had only heard bits on the Pianoforte. But the first Act was so noisy, and ugly, that I came away, unable to wait for the better part, that, I am told, follows. Meyerbeer is a man of Genius: and works up dramatic Music: but he has scarce any melody, and is rather grotesque and noisy than really powerful. I think this is the fault of modern music; people cannot believe that Mozart is powerful because he is so Beautiful: in the same way as it requires a very practised eye (more than I possess) to recognize the consummate power predominating in the tranquil Beauty of Greek Sculpture. I think Beethoven is rather spasmodically, than sustainedly, grand.

Well, I must take to my third side after all, which I meant to have spared you, partly because of this transparent paper, and my more than usually bad writing. I came down here four days ago: and have this morning sketched for you the enclosed, the common that lies before my Bedroom window, as I pulled up my blind, and opened my shutter upon it, early this morning. I never draw now, never drew well; but this may serve to give a hint of poor old dewy England to you who are, I suppose, beginning to be dried up in the South. W. Browne, my host, tells me that your Grimsby Rail is looking up greatly, and certainly will pay well, sooner or later: which I devoutly hope it may.

I do not think I told you my Father was dead; like poor old Sedley in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, all his Coal schemes at an end. He died in March, after an illness of three weeks, saying 'that engine works well' (meaning one of his Colliery steam engines) as he lay in the stupor of Death. I was in Shropshire at the time, with my old friend Allen; but I went home to Suffolk just to help to lay him in the Grave.

Pray do send me your Poems, one and all: I should like very much to talk them over with you, however much you might resent me, who am no Poet, presuming to advise you who as certainly are one. That you ought to publish some of these Poems (as I think, somewhat condensed, or, at least, curtailed) I am more and more sure, having seen the very great pleasure, and deep interest, some of them have caused when read to persons of very different talents and tastes.

And now, my dear Frederic, farewell for the present. Remember, you cannot write to me too often, as far as I am concerned.

Don't write Politics—I agree with you beforehand.

To W. B. Donne.

BOULGE, August 10/52.

MY DEAR DONNE,

It is very good of you to write to me, so much as you have to do. I am much obliged to you also for taking the trouble to go and see my Mother. You may rely on it she feels as pleased with your company as she says she is: I do not know any one who has the power of being so agreeable to her as yourself.

And dear old Thackeray is really going to America! I must fire him a letter of farewell.

The Cowells are at Ipswich, and I get over to see them, etc. They talk of coming here too. I have begun again to read Calderon with Cowell: the Magico we have just read, a very grand thing. I suppose Calderon was over-praised some twenty years ago: for the last twenty it has been the fashion to underpraise him, I am sure. His Drama may not be the finest in the world: one sees how often too he wrote in the fashion of his time and country: but he is a wonderful fellow: one of the Great Men of the world.

* * * * *

In October 1852 Thackeray sailed for America and before leaving wrote to FitzGerald the letter which he copied for Archdeacon Allen. I shall I trust be pardoned for thinking that others will be the better for reading the words of 'noble kindness' in which Thackeray took leave of his friend.

[BOULGE, 22 Nov. 1852.]

MY DEAR ALLEN,

I won't send you Thackeray's own letter because it is his own delegation of a little trust I would not hazard. But on the other side of the page I write a copy: for your eyes only: for I would not wish to show even its noble kindness to any but one who has known him as closely as myself.

From W. M. Thackeray to E. F. G.

October 27, 1852.

MY DEAREST OLD FRIEND,

I mustn't go away without shaking your hand, and saying Farewell and God Bless you. If anything happens to me, you by these presents must get ready the Book of Ballads which you like, and which I had not time to prepare before embarking on this voyage. And I should like my daughters to remember that you are the best and oldest friend their Father ever had, and that you would act as such: as my literary executor and so forth. My Books would yield a something as copyrights: and, should anything occur, I have commissioned friends in good place to get a Pension for my poor little wife. . . . Does not this sound gloomily? Well: who knows what Fate is in store: and I feel not at all downcast, but very grave and solemn just at the brink of a great voyage.

I shall send you a copy of Esmond to-morrow or so which you shall yawn over when you are inclined. But the great comfort I have in thinking about my dear old boy is that recollection of our youth when we loved each other as I do now while I write Farewell.

Laurence has done a capital head of me ordered by Smith the Publisher: and I have ordered a copy and Lord Ashburton another. If Smith gives me this one, I shall send the copy to you. I care for you as you know, and always like to think that I am fondly and affectionately yours

W. M. T.

I sail from Liverpool on Saturday Morning by the Canada for Boston.

* * * * *

That the feelings here expressed were fully reciprocated by FitzGerald is clear from the following words of a letter written by him to Thackeray to tell him of a provision he had made in his will.

'You see you can owe me no thanks for giving what I can no longer use "when I go down to the pit," and it would be some satisfaction to me, and some diminution of the shame I felt on reading your letter, if "after many days" your generous and constant friendship bore some sort of fruit, if not to yourself to those you are naturally anxious about.'

I have not been able to ascertain the exact time at which FitzGerald began his Spanish studies; but it must have been long before this, for in 1853 the first-fruits of them appeared in the 'Six Dramas from Calderon freely translated by Edward FitzGerald,' the only book to which he ever put his name. It was probably in 1853 that he took up Persian, in which, as in Spanish, his friend Cowell was his guide.

To G. Crabbe.

BOULGE, July 22/53.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

Your account of the Doctor's warnings to your Cousin in your first note delighted me greatly: as it did your Father to whom I read it last night. For, on coming home from Aldbro' (where I had been for a day) I found to my great surprise your Father smoking in my room, with a bottle of Port (which he had brought with him!). The mystery was then solved; that, after his own dinner, Mr. —- was announced, and your Father dreading lest he should stay all the Evening declared he had most important business, first at Woodbridge, then, on second thoughts, with me; and so decamped.

Now as to your second letter which I found also on my return: I am very glad you like the plays {282} and am encouraged to hope that other persons who are not biassed by pedantic prejudices or spites might like them too. But I fully expect that (as I told you, I think) the London press, etc., will either sink them, or condemn them as on too free a principle: and all the more if they have not read the originals. For these are safe courses to adopt. All this while I am assuming the plays are well done in their way, which of course I do. On the other hand, they really may not be as well done as I think; on their own principle: and that would really be a fair ground of condemnation.

To W. F. Pollock.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, July 25/53.

MY DEAR POLLOCK,

Thank you for your letter. Though I believed the Calderon to be on the whole well done and entertaining, I began to wish to be told it was so by others, for fear I had made a total mistake: which would have been a bore. And the very free and easy translation lies open to such easy condemnation, unless it be successful.

Your account of Sherborne rouses all the Dowager within me. I shall have to leave this cottage, I believe, and have not yet found a place sufficiently dull to migrate to. Meanwhile to-morrow I am going to one of my great treats: viz. the Assizes at Ipswich: where I shall see little Voltaire Jervis, {283a} and old Parke, {283b} who I trust will have the gout, he bears it so Christianly.

To G. Crabbe.

BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, Sept. 12/53.

MY DEAR GEORGE,

I enclose you a scrap from 'The Leader' as you like to see criticisms on my Calderon. I suppose your sisters will send you the Athenaeum in which you will see a more determined spit at me. I foresaw (as I think I told you) how likely this was to be the case: and so am not surprized. One must take these chances if one will play at so doubtful a game. I believe those who read the Book, without troubling themselves about whether it is a free Translation or not, like it: but Critics must be supposed to know all, and it is safe to condemn. On the other hand, the Translation may not be good on any ground: and then the Critics are all right.

To E. B. Cowell.

3 PARK VILLAS WEST, RICHMOND, SURREY, October 25/53.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I think I forgot to tell you that Mr. Maccarthy (my literal Rival in Calderon) mentions in his Preface a masterly Critique on Calderon in the Westminster 1851, which I take to be yours. {284} He says it, and the included translations, are the best Commentary he has seen on the subject.

I have ordered Eastwick's Gulistan: for I believe I shall potter out so much Persian. The weak Apologue {285a} goes on (for I have not had time for much here) and I find it difficult enough even with Jones's Translation.

I am now going to see the last of the Tennysons at Twickenham.

To F. Tennyson.

BREDFIELD RECTORY, {285b} WOODBRIDGE. December 27/53.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

I am too late to wish you a Happy Christmas; so must wish you a happy New Year. Write to me here, and tell me (in however few words) how you prospered in your journey to Italy: how you all are there: and how your Book progresses. I saw Harvest Home advertised in Fraser: and I have heard from Mrs. Alfred it is so admired that Parker is to print two thousand copies of the Volume. I am glad of this: and I think, little ambitious or vain as you really are, you will insensibly be pleased at gaining your proper Station in public Celebrity. Had I not known what an invidious office it is to meddle with such Poems, and how assuredly people would have said that one had helped to clip away the Best Poems, and the best part of them, I should have liked to advise you in the selection: a matter in which I feel confidence. But you would not have agreed with me any more than others: though on different grounds: and so in all ways it was, and is, and will be, best to say nothing more on the subject. I am very sure that, of whatever your Volume is composed, you will make public almost the only Volume of Verse, except Alfred's, worthy of the name.

I hear from Mrs. Alfred they are got to their new abode in the Isle of Wight. I have been into Norfolk: and am now come to spend Christmas in this place, where, as you have been here, you can fancy me. Old Crabbe is as brave and hearty as ever: drawing designs of Churches: and we are all now reading Moore's Memoirs with considerable entertainment: I cannot say the result of it in one's mind is to prove Moore a Great Man: though it certainly does not leave him altogether 'The Poor Creature' that Mr. Allingham reduced him to. I also amuse myself with poking out some Persian which E. Cowell would inaugurate me with: I go on with it because it is a point in common with him, and enables us to study a little together. He and his wife are at Oxford: and his Pracrit Grammar is to be out in a few days.

I have settled upon no new Abode: but have packed up all my few goods in a neighbouring Farm House {287a} (that one near Woodbridge I took you to), and will now float about for a year and visit some friends. Perhaps I shall get down to the Isle of Wight one day: also to Shropshire, to see Allen: to Bath to a Sister. But you can always direct hither, since old Crabbe is only too glad to have some letters to pay for, and forward to me. . . . We have one of the old fashioned winters, snow and frost: not fulfilling the word of those who were quite sure the seasons were altered. Farewell, my dear Frederic.

E. F. G.

BATH, May 7/54.

MY DEAR FREDERIC,

You see to what fashionable places I am reduced in my old Age. The truth is however I am come here by way of Visit to a sister {287b} I have scarce seen these six years; my visit consisting in this that I live alone in a lodging of my own by day, and spend two or three hours with her in the Evening. This has been my way of Life for three weeks, and will be so for some ten days more: after which I talk of flying back to more native counties. I was to have gone on to see Alfred in his 'Island Home' from here: but it appears he goes to London about the same time I quit this place: so I must and shall defer my Visit to him. Perhaps I shall catch a sight of him in London; as also of old Thackeray who, Donne writes me word, came suddenly on him in Pall Mall the other day: while all the while people supposed the Newcomes were being indited at Rome or Naples.

If ever you live in England you must live here at Bath. It really is a splendid City in a lovely, even a noble, Country. Did you ever see it? One beautiful feature in the place is the quantity of Garden and Orchard it is all through embroidered with. Then the Streets, when you go into them, are as handsome and gay as London, gayer and handsomer because cleaner and in a clearer Atmosphere; and if you want the Country you get into it (and a very fine Country) on all sides and directly. Then there is such Choice of Houses, Cheap as well as Dear, of all sizes, with good Markets, Railways, etc. I am not sure I shall not come here for part of the Winter. It is a place you would like, I am sure: though I do not say but you are better in Florence. Then on the top of the hill is old Vathek's Tower, which he used to sit and read in daily, and from which he could see his own Fonthill, while it stood. Old Landor quoted to me 'Nullus in orbe locus, etc.,' apropos of Bath: he, you may know, has lived here for years, and I should think would die here, though not yet. He seems so strong that he may rival old Rogers; of whom indeed one Newspaper gave what is called an 'Alarming Report of Mr. Rogers' Health' the other day, but another contradicted it directly and indignantly, and declared the Venerable Poet never was better. Landor has some hundred and fifty Pictures; each of which he thinks the finest specimen of the finest Master, and has a long story about, how he got it, when, etc. I dare say some are very good: but also some very bad. He appeared to me to judge of them as he does of Books and Men; with a most uncompromising perversity which the Phrenologists must explain to us after his Death.

By the bye, about your Book, which of course you wish me to say something about. Parker sent me down a copy 'from the Author' for which I hereby thank you. If you believe my word, you already know my Estimation of so much that is in it: you have already guessed that I should have made a different selection from the great Volume which is now in Tatters. As I differ in Taste from the world, however, quite as much as from you, I do not know but you have done very much better in choosing as you have; the few people I have seen are very much pleased with it, the Cowells at Oxford delighted. A Bookseller there sold all his Copies the first day they came down: and even in Bath a Bookseller (and not one of the Principal) told me a fortnight ago he had sold some twenty Copies. I have not been in Town since it came out: and have now so little correspondence with literati I can't tell you about them. There was a very unfair Review in the Athenaeum; which is the only Literary Paper I see: but I am told there are laudatory ones in Examiner and Spectator.

I was five weeks at Oxford, visiting the Cowells in just the same way that I am visiting my Sister here. I also liked Oxford greatly: but not so well I think as Bath: which is so large and busy that one is drowned in it as much as in London. There are often concerts, etc., for those who like them; I only go to a shilling affair that comes off every Saturday at what they call the Pump Room. On these occasions there is sometimes some Good Music if not excellently played. Last Saturday I heard a fine Trio of Beethoven. Mendelssohn's things are mostly tiresome to me. I have brought my old Handel Book here and recreate myself now and then with pounding one of the old Giant's Overtures on my sister's Piano, as I used to do on that Spinnet at my Cottage. As to Operas, and Exeter Halls, I have almost done with them: they give me no pleasure, I scarce know why.

I suppose there is no chance of your being over in England this year, and perhaps as little Chance of my being in Italy. All I can say is, the latter is not impossible, which I suppose I may equally say of the former. But pray write to me. You can always direct to me at Donne's, 12 St. James' Square, or at Rev. G. Crabbe's, Bredfield, Woodbridge. Either way the letter will soon reach me. Write soon, Frederic, and let me hear how you and yours are: and don't wait, as you usually do, for some inundation of the Arno to set your pen agoing. Write ever so shortly and whatever-about-ly. I have no news to tell you of Friends. I saw old Spedding in London; only doubly calm after the death of a Niece he dearly loved and whose death-bed at Hastings he had just been waiting upon. Harry {291} Lushington wrote a martial Ode on seeing the Guards march over Waterloo Bridge towards the East: I did not see it, but it was much admired and handed about, I believe. And now my paper is out: and I am going through the rain (it is said to rain very much here) to my Sister's. So Good Bye, and write to me, as I beg you, in reply to this long if not very interesting letter.

To John Allen.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE. October 8/54.

MY DEAR ALLEN,

'What cheer?' This is what we nautical Men shout to one another as we pass in our Ships. The Answer is generally only an Echo; but you will have to tell me something more. I find it rather disgusting to set you an example by telling of my Doings; for it is always the same thing over and over again. I doubt this will put an End to even Letters at last: I mean, on my part. You have others beside yourself to tell of; you go abroad, too; deliver charges, etc.

Well, however, I had better say that I have been for the last four months going about in my little Ship as in former years, and now am about to lay up her, and myself, for the Winter. The only Friend I hear from is Donne, who volunteers a Letter unprovoked sometimes. Old Spedding gives an unwilling Reply about thrice in two years. You speak when spoken to; so does Thompson, in general: I shall soon ask of him what he has been doing this Summer.

I have been reading in my Boat—Virgil, Juvenal, and Wesley's Journal. Do you know the last? one of the most interesting Books, I think, in the Language. It is curious to think of his Diary extending over nearly the same time as Walpole's Letters, which, you know, are a sort of Diary. What two different Lives, Pursuits, and Topics! The other day I was sitting in a Garden at Lowestoft in which Wesley had preached his first Sermon there: the Wall he set his Back against yet standing. About 1790 {292a} Crabbe, the Poet, went to hear him; he was helped into the Pulpit by two Deacons, and quoted—

'By the Women oft I'm told, Poor Anacreon, thou grow'st old, etc.' {292b}

So I have heard my George Crabbe tell: who has told it also in his very capital Memoir of his Father. {292c}

Sheet full. Kind Regards to Madame and Young Folks. Ever yours,

E. F. G.

To T. Carlyle.

RECTORY, BREDFIELD, WOODBRIDGE.

DEAR CARLYLE,

I should sometimes write to you if I had anything worth telling, or worth putting you to the trouble of answering me. About twice in a year however I do not mind asking you one thing which is easily answered, how you and Mrs. Carlyle are? And yet perhaps it is not so easy for you to tell me so much about yourself: for your 'well-being' comprises a good deal! That you are not carried off by the Cholera I take for granted: since else I should have seen in the papers some controversy with Doctor Wordsworth as to whether you were to be buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of Wilberforce perhaps! Besides, a short note from Thackeray a few weeks ago told me you had been to see him. I conclude also from this that you have not been a summer excursion of any distance.

I address from the Rectory (Vicarage it ought to be) of Crabbe, the 'Radiator,' whose mind is now greatly exercised with Dr. Whewell's Plurality of Worlds. Crabbe, who is a good deal in the secrets of Providence, admires the work beyond measure, but most indignantly rejects the Doctrine as unworthy of God. I have not read the Book, contented to hear Crabbe's commentaries. I have been staying with him off and on for two months, and, as I say, give his Address because any letter thither directed will find me sooner or later in my little wanderings. I am at present staying with a Farmer in a very pleasant house near Woodbridge: inhabiting such a room as even you, I think, would sleep composedly in; my host a taciturn, cautious, honest, active man whom I have known all my Life. He and his Wife, a capital housewife, and his Son, who could carry me on his shoulders to Ipswich, and a Maid servant who, as she curtsies of a morning, lets fall the Tea-pot, etc., constitute the household. Farming greatly prospers; farming materials fetching an exorbitant price at the Michaelmas Auctions: all in defiance of Sir Fitzroy Kelly who got returned for Suffolk on the strength of denouncing Corn Law Repeal as the ruin of the Country. He has bought a fine house near Ipswich, with great gilded gates before it, and by dint of good dinners and soft sawder finally draws the country Gentry to him. . . .

Please to look at the September Number of Fraser's Magazine where are some prose Translations of Hafiz by Cowell which may interest you a little. I think Cowell (as he is apt to do) gives Hafiz rather too much credit for a mystical wine-cup, and Cupbearer; I mean taking him on the whole. The few odes he quotes have certainly a deep and pious feeling: such as the Man of Mirth will feel at times; none perhaps more strongly.

Some one by chance read out to me the other day at the seaside your account of poor old Naseby Village from Cromwell, quoted in Knight's 'Half Hours, etc.' It is now twelve years ago, at this very season, I was ransacking for you; you promising to come down, and never coming. I hope very much you are soon going to give us something: else Jerrold and Tupper carry all before them.

SATURDAY, October 14/54.

* * * * *

In August 1855 Carlyle went to stay with FitzGerald at Farlingay, a farm house on the Hasketon road, half a mile from Woodbridge.

BREDFIELD RECTORY, WOODBRIDGE. August 1, [1855].

DEAR CARLYLE,

I came down here yesterday: and saw my Farming Friends to-day, who are quite ready to do all service for us at any time. They live about two miles nearer Woodbridge than this place I write from and I am certain they and their place will suit you very well. I am going to them any day: indeed am always fluctuating between this place and theirs; and you can come down to me there, or here, any day—(for Crabbe and his Daughter will, they bid me say, be very glad if you will come; and I engage you shan't be frightened, and that the place shall suit you as well as the Farmer's). I say you can come to either place any day, and without warning if you like; only in that case I can't go to meet you at Ipswich. Beds, etc., are all ready whether here or at the Farmer's. If you like to give me notice, you can say which place you will come to first: and I will meet you at any time at Ipswich.

I think if you come you had best come as soon as possible, before harvest, and while the Days are long and fine. Why not come directly? while all the Coast is so clear?

Now as to your mode of going. There are Rail Trains to Ipswich from Shoreditch, at 7 a.m. 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. all of which come to Ipswich in time for Coaches which carry you to Woodbridge; where, if you arrive unawares, any one will show you the way to Mr. Smith's, of Farlingay Hall, about half a mile from Woodbridge; or direct you to Parson Crabbe's, at Bredfield, about three miles from Woodbridge. You may take my word (will you?) that you will be very welcome at either or both of these places; I mean, to the owners as well as myself.

Well, then there is a Steamer every Wednesday and Sunday; which starts from Blackwall at 9 a.m.; to go by which you must be at the Blackwall Railroad Station in Fenchurch Street by half past eight. This Steamer gets to Ipswich at half past 5 or 6; probably in time for a Woodbridge Coach, but not certainly. It is a very pleasant sail. The Rail to Ipswich takes three or two and a half hours.

Have I more to say? I can't think of it if I have. Only, dear Mrs. Carlyle, please to let me know what C. is 'To Eat—Drink—and Avoid.' As I know that his wants are in a small compass, it will be as easy to get what he likes as not, if you will only say. If you like Sunday Steam, it will be quite convenient whether here or at Farlingay. Crabbe only is too glad if one doesn't go to his church.

BREDFIELD, Sunday.

Scrap for Scrap! I go to-morrow to stay at Farlingay, where you will find me, or I will find you, as proposed in my last. Do not let it be a burden on you to come now, then, or at all; but, if you come, I think this week will be good in weather as in other respects. You will be at most entire Liberty; with room, garden, and hours, to yourself, whether at Farlingay or here, where you must come for a day or so. Pipes are the order of the house at both places; the Radiator always lighting up after his 5 o'clock dinner, and rather despising me for not always doing so. At both places a capital sunshiny airy Bedroom without any noise. I wish Mrs. C. could come, indeed; but I will not propose this; for though my Farm has good room, my Hostess would fret herself to entertain a Lady suitably, and that I would avoid, especially toward Harvest time. Will Mrs. Carlyle believe this?

E. F. G.

P.S. Bring some Books. If you don't find yourself well, or at ease, with us, you have really but to go off without any sort of Ceremony as soon as you like: so don't tie yourself to any time at all. If the weather be fair, I predict you will like a week; and I shall like as much more as you please; leaving you mainly to your own devices all the while.

From T. Carlyle.

CHELSEA, 7 Augt. 1855.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

In spite of these heavy showers, I persist in believing the weather will clear, and means really to be dry: at any rate I am not made of sugar or of salt; so intend to be off to-morrow;—and am, even now, in all the horrors of a half rotted ship, which has lain two years, dead, among the ooze, and is now trying to get up its anchor again: ropes breaking, sails holed, blocks giving way, you may fancy what a pother there is!

My train is to be 11 a.m. from Shoreditch; which gets to Ipswich about two? If you have a gig and pony, of course it will be pleasant to see your face at the end of my shrieking, mad, (and to me quite horrible) rail operations: but if I see nothing, I will courageously go for the Coach, and shall do quite well there, if I can get on the outside especially. So don't mind which way it is; a small weight ought to turn it either way. I hope to get to Farlingay not long after 4 o'clock, and have a quiet mutton chop in due time, and have a do pipe or pipes: nay I could even have a bathe if there was any sea water left in the evening. If you did come to Ipswich, an hour (hardly more) to glance at the old Town might not be amiss.

I will bring Books enough with me: I am used to several hours of solitude every day; and cannot be said ever to weary of being left well alone. But we will 'drive' to any places you recommend; do bidding of the omens, to a fair degree withal: in short I calculate on getting some real benefit by this plunge into the maritime rusticities under your friendly guidance, and the quiet of it will be of all things welcome to me.

My wife firmly intended writing to you to-day, and perhaps has done so; but if not, you are to take it as a thing done, for indeed there was nothing whatever of importance to be said farther.

To-morrow then (Wednesday 8th) 11 a.m.—wish me a happy passage. Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

CHELSEA, 23 Augt. 1855.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

Here, after a good deal of bothering to improve it, above all to abridge it, is the proposed Inscription for the Pillar at Naseby. You need not scruple a moment to make any change that strikes you; I am well aware it is good for nothing except its practical object, and that I have no skill in lapidary literature.

The worst thing will be, discovering the date of your Naseby diggings. I ought to have it here; and probably I have,—in some remote dusty trunk, whither it is a terror to go looking for it! Try you what you can, and the Naseby Farmer too (if he is still extant); then I will try. At worst we can say 'Ten years ago'; but the exact date would be better.

The figure of the stone ought to be of Egyptian simplicity: a broadish parallelopipedon (or rather octaedron; the corners well chamfered off, to avoid breakages, will make it 8-faced, I think); in the substance of the stone there is one quality to be looked for, durability; and the letters ought to be cut deep,—and by no means in lapidary lines (attend to that!), but simply like two verses of the Bible, so that he who runs may read. I rather like the Siste Viator,—yet will let you blot it out,—it is as applicable as to any Roman Tomb, and more so than to ours, which are in enclosed places, where any 'Traveller,' if he either 'stop' or go, will presently have the constable upon him. This is all I have to say about the stone; and I recommend that it be now done straightway, before you quit hold of that troublesome locality.

I find I must not promise to myself to go thither with you; alas, nor at all. I cannot get to sleep again since I came out of Suffolk: the stillness of Farlingay is unattainable in Chelsea for a second sleep, so I have to be content with the first, which is oftenest about 5 hours, and a very poor allowance for the afflicted son of Adam. I feel privately confident I have got good by my Suffolk visit, and by all the kindness of my beneficent brother mortals to me there: but in the meanwhile it has 'stirred up a good deal of bile,' I suppose; and we must wait.

London is utterly vacant to me, of all but noises from Cremorne and such sources: there is not in Britain a better place for work than this Garret, if one had strength or heart for fronting work to any purpose. I try a little, but mostly with very small result.

If you know Glyde of Ipswich, and can understand him to be really worth subscribing for, pray put down your name and mine, as a bit of duty; if not, not,—and burn his letter.

I send the heartiest thanks, and remembrances to kind Mrs. Smith, and all the industrious Harvesters; also to Papa and the young lady at Bredfield:—as I well may!—I recommend myself to your prayers; and hope to come again, if I live, when you have set your own house in order. Yours, dear F., with true regards,

T. CARLYLE.

Naseby Pillar (briefest and final form).

Siste Viator.

Here, and for —- yards to rearward, lies the Dust of men slain in the Battle of Naseby, 14 June 1645. Hereabouts appears to have been the crisis of the struggle, hereabouts the final charge of Oliver Cromwell and his Ironsides, that day.

This {302a} Ground was opened, not irreverently or witht reluctance, Saty 23 Septr 1842, to ascertain that fact, and render the contemporary records legible. Peace henceforth to these old Dead.

Edwd Fitzgd (with date).

ADDISCOMBE FARM, CROYDON, 15 Septr, 1855.

DEAR FITZGERALD,

I have been here ever since the day you last heard of me; leading the strangest life of absolute Latrappism; and often enough remembering Farlingay and you. I live perfectly alone, and without speech at all,—there being in fact nobody to speak to, except one austerely punctual housemaid, who does her functions, like an eight-day clock, generally without bidding. My wife comes out now and then to give the requisite directions; but commonly withdraws again on the morrow, leaving the monster to himself and his own ways. I have Books; a complete Edition of Voltaire, {302b} for one Book, in which I read for use, or for idleness oftenest,—getting into endless reflexions over it, mostly of a sad and not very utterable nature. I find V. a 'gentleman,' living in a world partly furnished with such; and that there are now almost no 'gentlemen' (not quite none): this is one great head of my reflexions, to which there is no visible tail or finish. I have also a Horse (borrowed from my fat Yeoman friend, who is at sea bathing in Sussex); and I go riding, at great lengths daily, over hill and dale: this I believe is really the main good I am doing,—if in this either there be much good. But it is a strange way of life to me, for the time; perhaps not unprofitable: To let Chaos say out its say, then, and one's Evil Genius give one the very worst language he has, for a while. It is still to last for a week or more. To day, for the first time, I ride back to Chelsea, but mean to return hither on Monday. There is a great circle of yellow light all the way from Shooter's Hill to Primrose Hill, spread round my horizon every night, I see it while smoking my pipe before bed (so bright, last night, it cast a visible shadow of me against the white window-shutters); and this is all I have to do with London and its gases for a fortnight or more. My wife writes to me, there was an awful jangle of bells last day she went home from this; a Quaker asked in the railway, of some porter, 'Can thou tell me what these bells mean?'—'Well, I suppose something is up. They say Sebastopol is took, and the Rushans run away.'—A la bonne heure: but won't they come back again, think you?

On the whole I say, when you get your little Suffolk cottage, you must have in it a 'chamber in the wall' for me, plus a pony that can trot, and a cow that gives good milk: with these outfits we shall make a pretty rustication now and then, not wholly Latrappish, but only half, on much easier terms than here; and I shall be right willing to come and try it, I for one party.—Meanwhile, I hope the Naseby matter is steadily going ahead; sale completed; and even the monument concern making way. Tell me a little how that and other matters are. If you are at home, a line is rapidly conveyed hither, steam all the way: after the beginning of the next week, I am at Chelsea, and (I dare say) there is a fire in the evenings now to welcome you there. Shew face in some way or other.

And so adieu; for my hour of riding is at hand.

Yours ever truly, T. CARLYLE.

To E. B. Cowell.

31 GREAT PORTLAND STREET, P. PLACE. [1856.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . You never say a word about your Hafiz. Has that fallen for the present, Austin not daring to embark in it in these days of war, when nothing that is not warlike sells except Macaulay? Don't suppose I bandy compliments; but, with moderate care, any such Translation of such a writer as Hafiz by you into pure, sweet, and partially measured Prose must be better than what I am doing for Jami; {304} whose ingenuous prattle I am stilting into too Miltonic verse. This I am very sure of. But it is done.

[Jan. 1856.]

MY DEAR COWELL,

I send you a sketch of Jami's Life, which cut, correct, and annotate as you like. Where there was so little to tell I have brought in all the fine Names and extra bits I could to give it a little sparkle. There is very little after all; I have spread it over Paper to give you room to note upon it. Only take care not to lose either these, or Yesterday's, Papers—for my Terror at going over the Ground!

You must put in the corrected Notice about the Sultan Hussein, both in the Memoir and in the Note to the Poem. The latter will have room for at least four (I think five) lines of note Type: which you must fill, and not overflow: 'Strong without rage, etc.'

I feel guilty at taking up your Time and Thoughts: and also at Dressing myself so in your Plumes. But I mean to say a word about this, [Greek text], in my Preliminary Notice; and would gladly dedicate the little Book to you by Name, with due acknowledgment, did I think the world would take it for a Compliment to you. But though I like the Version, and you like it, we know very well the world—even the very little world, I mean, who will see it—may not; and might laugh at us both for any such Compliment. They cannot laugh at your Scholarship; but they might laugh at the use I put it to: and at my dedicating a cobweb (as Carlyle called Maud the other night) to you.

31 GT PORTLAND ST., P. PLACE. Jan. 10/56.

MY DEAR COWELL,

Do make a sign of some sort to me. I sent you a string of Questions about Salaman last week, all of which I did not want you to answer at once, but wishing at least to hear if you had leisure and Inclination to meddle with them. There is no reason in the world you should unless you really have Time and Liking. If you have, I will send you the Proofs of the Little Book which Mr. Childs is even now putting in hand. Pray let me know as soon as you can what and how much of all this will be agreeable to you.

You don't tell me how Hafiz gets on. There is one thing which I think I find in Salaman which may be worth your consideration (not needing much) in Hafiz: namely, in Translation to retain the original Persian Names as much as possible—'Shah' for 'king' for instance—'Yusuf and Suleyman' for 'Joseph and Solomon,' etc. The Persian is not only more musical, but removes such words and names further from Europe and European Prejudices and Associations. So also I think best to talk of 'A Moon' rather than 'a Month,' and perhaps 'sennight' is better than 'week.'

This is a little matter; but it is well to rub off as little Oriental Colour as possible.

As to a Notice of Jami's Life, you need not trouble yourself to draw it up unless you like; since I can make an extract of Ouseley's, and send you for any addition or correction you like. Very little needs be said. I have not yet been able to find Jami out in the Biographie Universelle. . . .

Now let me hear from you something—whatever you like. Yours and Lady's, E. F. G.

You, I believe, in your Oxford Essay, translate Jami's 'Haft Aurang' as the 'Seven Thrones,' it also meaning, I see, the seven Stars of the Great Bear—'The Seven Stars.' Why should not this latter be the Translation? more intelligible, Poetical, and Eastern (as far as I see) than 'Thrones.'

To Mrs. Cowell.

LONDON. Friday [April 25, 1856].

MY DEAR LADY,

The Picture after all did not go down yesterday as I meant, but shall and will go to-morrow (Saturday). Also I shall send you dear Major Moor's 'Oriental Fragments'; an almost worthless Book, I doubt, to those who did not know him—which means, love him! {307} And somehow all of us in our corner of Suffolk knew something of him: and so again loved something of him. For there was nothing at all about him not to be beloved. Ah! I think how interested he would have been with all this Persian: and how we should have disputed over parts and expressions over a glass of his Shiraz wine (for he had some) in his snug Parlour, or in his Cornfields when the Sun fell upon the latest Gleaners! He is dead, and you will go where he lived, to be dead to me!

Remember to take poor Barton's little Book {308a} with you to India; better than many a better Book to you there!

I got a glimpse of Professor Muller's Essay {308b}—full of fine things; but I hardly gather it up into a good whole, which is very likely my fault; from hasty perusal, ignorance, or other Incapacity. Perhaps, on the other hand, he found the Subject too great for his Space; and so has left it disproportioned, which the German is not inapt to do. But one may be well thankful for such admirable fragments, perhaps left so in the very honesty that is above rounding them into a specious Theory which will not hold.

[1856.]

MY DEAR LADY,

. . . If you see Trench's new Book about Calderon {308c} you will see he has dealt very handsomely with me. He does not approve the Principle I went on; and what has he made of his own! I say this with every reason, as you will see, to praise him for his good word. He seems to me wrong about his 'asonantes,' which were much better un-assonanted as Cowell did his Specimens. {309} With Trench the Language has to be forced to secure the shadow of a Rhyme which is no pleasure to the Ear. So it seems to me on a hasty Look.

* * * * *

Mr. Cowell was appointed Professor of History at the Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1856, and went out to India by the Cape in August, greatly to FitzGerald's regret. 'Your talk of going to India,' he wrote, 'makes my Heart hang really heavy at my side.'

To E. B. Cowell.

31 GT PORTLAND ST. LONDON. Jan. 22/57.

MY DEAREST COWELL,

As usual I blunder. I have been taking for granted all this while that of course we could not write to you till you had written to us! Else how several times I could have written! could have sent you some Lines of Hafiz or Jami or Nizami that I thought wanted Comment of some kind: so as the Atlantic should have been no greater Bar between us than the two hours rail to Oxford. And now I have forgot many things, or have left the Books scattered in divers places; or, if I had all here, 'twould be too much to send. So I must e'en take up with what the present Hour turns up.

It was only yesterday I heard from your Brother of a Letter from you, telling of your safe Arrival; of the Dark Faces about you at your Calcutta Caravanserai! Methinks how I should like to be there! Perhaps should not, though, were the Journey only half its length! Write to me one day. . . .

I have now been five weeks alone at my old Lodgings in London where you came this time last year! My wife in Norfolk. She came up yesterday; and we have taken Lodgings for two months in the Regent's Park. And I positively stay behind here in the old Place on purpose to write to you in the same condition you knew me in and I you! I believe there are new Channels fretted in my Cheeks with many unmanly Tears since then, 'remembering the Days that are no more,' in which you two are so mixt up. Well, well; I have no news to tell you. Public Matters you know I don't meddle with; and I have seen scarce any Friends even while in London here. Carlyle but once; Thackeray not once; Spedding and Donne pretty often. Spedding's first volume of Bacon is out; some seven hundred pages; and the Reviews already begin to think it over-commentaried. How interested would you be in it! and from you I should get a good Judgment, which perhaps I can't make for myself. I hear Tennyson goes on with King Arthur; but I have not seen or heard from him for a long long while.

Oddly enough, as I finished the last sentence, Thackeray was announced; he came in looking gray, grand, and good-humoured; and I held up this Letter and told him whom it was written to and he sends his Love! He goes Lecturing all over England; has fifty pounds for each Lecture: and says he is ashamed of the Fortune he is making. But he deserves it.

And now for my poor Studies. I have read really very little except Persian since you went: and yet, from want of Eyes, not very much of that. I have gone carefully over two-thirds of Hafiz again with Dictionary and Von Hammer: and gone on with Jami and Nizami. But my great Performance all lies in the last five weeks since I have been alone here; when I wrote to Napoleon Newton to ask him to lend me his MS. of Attar's Mantic uttair; and, with the help of Garcin de Tassy {311} have nearly made out about two-thirds of it. For it has greatly interested me, though I confess it is always an old Story. The Germans make a Fuss about the Sufi Doctrine; but, as far as I understand, it is not very abstruse Pantheism, and always the same. One becomes as wearied of the man-i and du-i in their Philosophy as of the bulbul, etc., in their Songs. Attar's Doctrine seems to me only Jami and Jelaleddin (of whom I have poked out a little from the MS. you bought for me), but his Mantic has, like Salaman, the advantage of having a Story to hang all upon; and some of his illustrative Stories are very agreeable: better than any of the others I have seen. He has not so much Fancy or Imagination as Jami, nor I dare say, so much depth as Jelaleddin; but his touch is lighter. I mean to make a Poetic Abstract of the Mantic, I think: neither De Tassy nor Von Hammer {312} gives these Stories which are by far the best part, though there are so many childish and silly ones. Shah Mahmud figures in the best. I am very pleased at having got on so well with this MS. though I doubt at more cost of Eyesight than it is worth. I have exchanged several Letters with Mr. Newton, though by various mischances we have not yet met; he has however introduced me to Mr. Dowson of the Asiatic, with whom, or with a certain Seyd Abdullah recommended by Allen, I mean (I think) to read a little. No need of this had you remained behind! Oh! how I should like to read the Mantic with you! It is very easy in the main. But I believe I shall never see you again; I really do believe that. And my Paper is gradually overcome as I write this: and I must say Good Bye. Good Bye, my dear dear Friends! I dare not meddle with Mr. and Mrs. Charlesworth. {313} Thackeray coming in overset me, with one thing and another. Farewell. Write to me; direct—whither? For till I see better how we get on I dare fix on no place to live or die in. Direct to me at Crabbe's, Bredfield, till you hear further.

24 PORTLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK. Saturday January 23 [? 24] 1857.

MY DEAR E. B. C.,

I must write you a second Letter (which will reach you, I suppose, by the same Post as that which I posted on Thursday Jan. 22) to tell you that not half an hour after I had posted that first Letter, arrived yours! And now, to make the Coincidence stranger, your Brother Charles, who is now with us for two days, tells me that very Thursday Jan. 24 (? 22) is your Birthday! I am extremely obliged to you for your long, kind, and interesting Letter: yes, yes: I should have liked to be on the Voyage with you, and to be among the Dark People with you even now. Your Brother Charles, who came up yesterday, brought us up your Home Letter, and read it to us last night after Tea to our great Satisfaction. I believe that in my already posted Letter I have told you much that you enquire about in yours received half an hour after: of my poor Studies at all events. This morning I have been taking the Physiognomy of the 19th Birds. . . . There are, as I wrote you, very pleasant stories. One, of a Shah returning to his Capital, and his People dressing out a Welcome for him, and bringing out Presents of Gold, Jewels, etc., all which he rides past without any Notice, till, coming to the Prison, the Prisoners, by way of their Welcome, toss before him the Bloody Heads and Limbs of old and recent Execution. At which the Shah for the first time stops his Horse—smiles—casts Largess among the Prisoners, etc. And when asked why he neglected all the Jewels, etc., and stopped with satisfaction at such a grim welcome as the Prisoners threw him, he says, 'The Jewels, etc., were but empty Ostentation—but those bloody Limbs prove that my Law has been executed, without which none of those Heads and Carcases would have parted Company, etc.' De Tassy notices a very agreeable Story of Mahmud and the Lad fishing: and I find another as pleasant about Mahmud consorting 'incog:' with a Bath-Stove-Keeper, who is so good a Fellow that, at last, Mahmud, making himself known, tells the Poor Man to ask what he will—a Crown, if he likes. But the poor Fellow says, 'All I ask is that the Shah will come now and then to me as I am, and here where I am; here, in this poor Place, which he has made illustrious with his Presence, and a better Throne to me with Him, than the Throne of Both Worlds without Him, etc.' You observed perhaps in De Tassy's Summary that he notices an Eastern Form of William Tell's Apple? A Sultan doats on a beautiful Slave, who yet is seen daily to pine away under all the Shah's Favour, and being askt why, replies, 'Because every day the Shah, who is a famous Marksman with the Bow, shoots at an Apple laid on my Head, and always hits it; and when all the Court cries "Lo! the Fortune of the King!" He also asks me why I turn pale under the Trial, he being such a Marksman, and his Mark an Apple set on the Head he most doats upon?' I am going to transcribe on the next Page a rough draft of a Version of another Story, because all this will amuse you, I think. I couldn't help running some of these Apologues into Verse as I read them: but they are in a very rough state as yet, and so perhaps may continue, for to correct is the Bore.

When Yusuf from his Father's House was torn, His Father's Heart was utterly forlorn; And, like a Pipe with but one note, his Tongue Still nothing but the name of Yusuf rung. Then down from Heaven's Branches came the Bird Of Heaven, and said 'God wearies of that Word. Hast thou not else to do, and else to say?' So Yacub's Lips were sealed from that Day. But one Night in a Vision, far away His Darling in some alien Home he saw, And stretch'd his Arms forth; and between the Awe Of God's Displeasure, and the bitter Pass Of Love and Anguish, sigh'd forth an Alas! And stopp'd—But when he woke The Angel came, And said, 'Oh, faint of purpose! Though the Name Of that Beloved were not uttered by Thy Lips, it hung sequester'd in that Sigh.'

You see this is very imperfect, and I am not always quite certain of always getting the right Sow by the Ear; but it is pretty anyhow. In this, as in several other Stories, one sees the fierce vindictive Character of the Eastern Divinity and Religion: a 'jealous God' indeed! So there is another Story of a poor Hermit, who retires into the Wilderness to be alone with God, and lives in a Tree; and there in the Branches a little Bird has a Nest, and sings so sweetly that the poor old Man's Heart is drawn to it in spite of Himself; till a Voice from Heaven calls to Him—'What are you about? You have bought Me with your Prayers, etc., and I You by some Largess of my Grace: and is this Bargain to be cancelled by the Piping of a little Bird?' {316} So I construe at least right or wrong. . . .

Monday Jan. 25 [? 26]. Like your Journal, you see, I spread my Letter over more than a Day. On Saturday Night your Brother and I went to hear Thackeray lecture on George III.—very agreeable to me, though I did not think highly of the Lecture. . . . I should like to see Nizami's Shirin, though I have not yet seen enough to care for in Nizami. Get me a MS. if you can get a fair one; as also one of Attar's Birds; of which however Garcin de Tassy gives hint of publishing a Text. There might be a good Book made of about half the Text of the Original; for the Repetitions are many, and the stories so many of them not wanted. What a nice Book too would be the Text of some of the best Apologues in Jami, Jelaleddin, Attar, etc., with literal Translations! . . .

I was with Borrow {317} a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth three months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a long Translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire, and his Taste becomes stranger than ever.

24 PORTLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . March 12. You see I leave this Letter like an unfinished Picture; giving it a touch every now and then. Meanwhile it lies in a volume of Sir W. Ouseley's Travels. Meanwhile also I keep putting into shape some of that Mantic which however would never do to publish. For this reason; that anything like a literal Translation would be, I think, unreadable; and what I have done for amusement is not only so unliteral, but I doubt unoriental, in its form and expression, as would destroy the value of the Original without replacing it with anything worth reading of my own. It has amused me however to reduce the Mass into something of an Artistic Shape. There are lots of Passages which—how should I like to talk them over with you! Shall we ever meet again? I think not; or not in such plight, both of us, as will make Meeting what it used to be. Only to-day I have been opening dear old Salaman: the original Copy we bought and began this time three years ago at Oxford; with all my scratches of Query and Explanation in it, and the Notes from you among the Leaves. How often I think with Sorrow of my many Harshnesses and Impatiences! which are yet more of manner than Intention. My wife is sick of hearing me sing in a doleful voice the old Glee of 'When shall we Three Meet again?' Especially the Stanza, 'Though in foreign Lands we sigh, Parcht beneath a hostile Sky, etc.' How often too I think of the grand Song written by some Scotch Lady, {318} which I sing to myself for you on Ganges Banks!

Slow spreads the Gloom my Soul desires, The Sun from India's Shore retires: To Orwell's Bank, with temperate ray— Home of my Youth!—he leads the Day: Oh Banks to me for ever dear, Oh Stream whose Murmur meets my Ear; Oh all my Hopes of Bliss abide Where Orwell mingles with the Tide.

The Music has come to me for these Words, little good otherwise than expressive: but there is no use sending it to India. To India! It seems to me it would be easy to get into the first great Ship and never see Land again till I saw the Mouth of the Ganges! and there live what remains of my shabby Life.

But there is no good in all such Talk. I never write to you about Politics in which you know I little meddle. . . . March 20. Why, see how the Time goes! And here has my Letter been lying in Sir W. Ouseley for the last ten days, I suppose. To-day I have been writing twenty pages of a metrical Sketch of the Mantic, for such uses as I told you of. It is an amusement to me to take what Liberties I like with these Persians, who (as I think) are not Poets enough to frighten one from such excursions, and who really do want a little Art to shape them. I don't speak of Jelaleddin whom I know so little of (enough to show me that he is no great Artist, however), nor of Hafiz, whose best is untranslatable because he is the best Musician of Words. Old Johnson {319} said the Poets were the best Preservers of a Language: for People must go to the Original to relish them. I am sure that what Tennyson said to you is true: that Hafiz is the most Eastern—or, he should have said, most Persian—of the Persians. He is the best representative of their character, whether his Saki and Wine be real or mystical. Their Religion and Philosophy is soon seen through, and always seems to me cuckooed over like a borrowed thing, which people, once having got, don't know how to parade enough. To be sure, their Roses and Nightingales are repeated enough; but Hafiz and old Omar Khayyam ring like true Metal. The Philosophy of the Latter is, alas!, one that never fails in the World. 'To-day is ours, etc.'

While I think of it, why is the Sea {320} (in that Apologue of Attar once quoted by Falconer) supposed to have lost God? Did the Persians agree with something I remember in Plato about the Sea and all in it being of an inferior Nature, in spite of Homer's 'divine Ocean, etc.' And here I come to the end of my sheet, which you will hardly get through, I think. I scarce dare to think of reading it over. But I will try.

24 PORTLAND TERRACE, REGENT'S PARK. March 29, [1857].

MY DEAR COWELL,

I only posted my last long letter four days ago: and how far shall I get with this? Like the other, I keep it in Sir W. Ouseley, and note down a bit now and then. When the time for the Mail comes, the sheet shall go whether full or not. I had a letter from your Mother telling me she had heard from you—all well—but the Heats increasing. I suppose the Crocuses we see even in these poor little Gardens hereabout would wither in a Glance of your Sun. Now the black Trees in the Regent's Park opposite are beginning to show green Buds; and Men come by with great Baskets of Flowers; Primroses, Hepaticas, Crocuses, great Daisies, etc., calling as they go, 'Growing, Growing, Growing! All the Glory going!' So my wife says she has heard them call: some old Street cry, no doubt, of which we have so few now remaining. It will almost make you smell them all the way from Calcutta. 'All the Glory going!' What has put me upon beginning with this Sheet so soon is, that, (having done my Will for the present with the Mantic—one reason being that I am afraid to meddle more with N. Newton's tender MS., and another reason that I now lay by what I have sketched out so as to happen on it again one day with fresh eyes)—I say, this being shelved, I took up old Hafiz again, and began with him where I left off in November at Brighton. And this morning came to an ode we did together this time two years ago when you were at Spiers' in Oxford. . . . How it brought all back to me! Oriel opposite, and the Militia in Broad Street, and the old Canary-coloured Sofa and the Cocoa or Tea on the Table! . . .

I should think Bramford begins to look pretty about this time, hey, Mr. Cowell? And Mrs. Cowell? There is a house there constantly advertised to let in the Papers. I think that one by the Mill; not the pleasant place where Trygaeus {322} looked forth on the Rail! 'The Days are gone when Beauty bright, etc.' . . .

Spedding has been once here in near three months. His Bacon keeps coming out: his part, the Letters, etc., of Bacon, is not come yet; so it remains to be seen what he will do then: but I can't help thinking he has let the Pot boil too long. Well, here is a great deal written to-day: and I shall shut up the Sheet in Ouseley again. March 30. Another reason for thinking the mahi which supports the world to be only a myth of the simple Fish genus is that the stage next above him is Gau, the Bull, as the Symbol of Earth. It seems to me one sees this as it were pictured in those Assyrian Sculptures; just some waving lines and a fish to represent Water, etc. And it hooks on, I think, to Max Muller's Theory in that Essay {323a} of his. Saturday, April 4. Why, we are creeping toward another Post day! another 25th when the 'Via Marseilles' Letters go off! And I now renew this great Sheet, because in returning to old Hafiz two or three days ago, I happened on a line which you will confer with a Tetrastich of Omar's. . . . Donne has got the Licenser's Post; given him in the handsomest way by Lord Bredalbane to whom the Queen as handsomely committed it. The said Donne has written an Article on Calderon in Fraser, {323b} in which he says very handsome things of me, but is not accurate in what he says. I suppose it was he wrote an Article in the Saturday Review some months ago to the same effect; but I have not asked him. I find people like that Calderon book. By the bye again, what is the passage I am to write out for you from the Volume you gave me, the old Bramford Volume, 'E. B. Cowell, Bramford, Aug. 20, 1849?' Tell me, and I will write it in my best style: I have the Volume here in my room, and was looking into it only last night; at that end of the Magico which we read together at Elmsett! I don't know if I could translate it now that the 'aestus' caught from your sympathy is gone! . . . April 5. In looking into the 'Secreto Agravio' I see an Oriental superstition, which was likely enough however to be a poetical fancy of any nation: I mean, the Sun turning Stone to Ruby, etc. Enter Don Luis: 'Soy mercador, y trato en los Diamantes, que hoy son Piedras, y rayos fueron antes de Sol, que perficiona e ilumina rustico Grano en la abrasada Mina.' The Partridge in the Mantic tells something of the same; he digs up and swallows Rubies which turn his Blood to Fire inside him and sparkle out of his Eyes and Bill. This volume of Calderon is marked by the Days on which you finished several Plays, all at Bramford! Wednesday, April 8. I have been reading the 'Magico' over and remembering other days; I saw us sitting at other tables reading it. Also I am looking over old AEschylus—Agamemnon—with Blackie's Translation. . . . Is it in Hafiz we have met the Proverb (about pregnant Night) which Clytemnestra also makes her Entry with [264, 5]? [Greek ttext]. I think one sees that the Oriental borrowed this Fancy, which smacks of the Grecian Personification of Mother Night. What an Epitaph for a Warrior are those two Greek words by which the Chorus express all that returns to Mycenae of the living Hero who went forth [435]—[Greek text]!

Well; and I have had a Note from Garcin de Tassy whom I had asked if he knew of any Copy of Omar Khayyam in all the Paris Libraries: he writes 'I have made, by means of a Friend, etc.' But I shall enclose his Note to amuse you. Now what I mean to do is, in return for his politeness to me, to copy out as well as I can the Tetrastichs as you copied them for me, and send them as a Present to De Tassy. Perhaps he will edit them. I should not wish him to do so if there were any chance of your ever doing it; but I don't think you will help on the old Pantheist, and De Tassy really, after what he is doing for the Mantic, deserves to make the acquaintance of this remarkable little Fellow. Indeed I think you will be pleased that I should do this. Now for some more AEschylus. Friday, April 17. I have been for the last five days with my Brother at Twickenham; during which time I really copied out Omar Khayyam, in a way! and shall to-day post it as a 'cadeau' to Garcin de Tassy in return for his Courtesy to me. I am afraid, a bad return: for my MS. is but badly written and it would perhaps more plague than profit an English 'savant' to have such a present made him. But a Frenchman gets over all this very lightly. Garcin de Tassy tells me he has printed four thousand lines of the Mantic. And here is April running away and it will soon be time to post you another Letter! When I once get into the Country I shall have less to write you about than now; and that, you see, is not much.