Chapter IX: Part 9

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.