do the same. I will at once say (in reply to a kind offer you make to have Hatifi’s ‘Haft Paikar’ copied for me) that it will [be] best to wait till you have read it; you know me well enough to know whether it will hit my taste. However, if it be but a very short poem, no harm would be done by a Copy: but do let me be at the Charges of such things. I will ask for Hatifi’s Laili: but I didn’t (as you know) take much to what little I saw. As to any copies Allen might have had, I believe there is no good asking for them: for, only yesterday going to put into Madden’s hands Mr. Newton’s MS. of the Mantic, I saw Allen’s house kharáb. There had been a Fire there, Madden told me, which had destroyed stock, etc., but I could not make much out of the matter, Madden putting on a Face of foolish mystery. You can imagine it? We talked of you, as you may imagine also: and I believe in that he is not foolish. Well, and to-day I have a note from the great De Tassy which announces, ‘My dear Sir, Definitively I have written a little Paper upon Omar with some Quotations taken here and there at random, avoiding only the too badly sounding rubayát. I have read that paper before the Persian Ambassador and suite, at a meeting of the Oriental Society of which I am Vice President, the Duc de Dondeauville being president. The Ambassador has been much pleased of my quotations.’ So you see I have done the part of an ill Subject in helping France to ingratiate herself with Persia when England might have had the
start! I suppose it probable Ferukh Khan himself had never read or perhaps heard of Omar. I think I told you in my last that I had desired De Tassy to say nothing about you in any Paper he should write; since I cannot have you answerable for any blunders I may have made in my Copy, nor may you care to be named with Omar at all. I hope the Frenchman will attend to my desire; and I dare say he will, as he will then have all credit to himself. He says he can’t make out the metre of the rubayát at all—never could—though ‘I am enough skilful in scanning the Persian verses as you have seen’ (Qy?) ‘in my Prosody of the languages of Musulman Countries, etc.’ So much for De Tassy. No; but something more yet: and better, for he tells me his Print of the Mantic is finisht, ‘in proofs,’ and will be out in about a Month: and he will send me one. Now, my dear Cowell, can’t I send one to you? Yes, we must manage that somehow.
Well, I have not turned over Johnson’s Dictionary for the last month, having got hold of Æschylus. I think I want to turn his Trilogy into what shall be readable English Verse; a thing I have always thought of, but was frightened at the Chorus. So I am now; I can’t think them so fine as People talk of: they are terribly maimed; and all such Lyrics require a better Poet than I am to set forth in English. But the better Poets won’t do it; and I cannot find one readable translation. I shall (if I make one) make a very free one; not for Scholars,
but for those who are ignorant of Greek, and who (so far as I have seen) have never been induced to learn it by any Translations yet made of these Plays. I think I shall become a bore, of the Bowring order, by all this Translation: but it amuses me without any labour, and I really think I have the faculty of making some things readable which others have hitherto left unreadable. But don’t be alarmed with the anticipation of another sudden volume of Translations; for I only sketch out the matter, then put it away; and coming on it one day with fresh eyes trim it up with some natural impulse that I think gives a natural air to all. So I have put away the Mantic. When I die, what a farrago of such things will be found! Enough of such matter. . . .
Friday, June 5! What an interval since the last sentence! And why? Because I have been moving about nearly ever since till yesterday, and my Letter, thus far written, was packt up in a Box sent down hither, namely, Gorlestone Cliffs, Great Yarmouth. Instead of the Regent’s Park, and Regent Street, here before my windows are the Vessels going in and out of this River: and Sailors walking about with fur caps and their brown hands in their Breeches Pockets. Within hail almost lives George Borrow who has lately published, and given me, two new Volumes of Lavengro called ‘Romany Rye,’ with some excellent things, and some very bad (as I have made bold to write to him—how shall I face him!). You would not like the Book at all, I
think. But I must now tell you an odd thing, which will also be a sad thing to you. I left London last Tuesday fortnight for Bedfordshire, meaning to touch at Hertford in passing; but as usual, bungled between two Railroads and got to Bedford, and not to Hertford, on the Tuesday Evening. To that latter place I had wanted to go, as well to see it, as to see N. Newton, who had made one or two bungled efforts to see me in London. So, when I got to Bedford, I wrote him a line to say how it was I had missed him. On the very Saturday immediately after, I received a Hertford Paper announcing the sudden Death of N. Newton on the very Tuesday on which I had set out to see him! He had been quite well till the Saturday preceding: had then caught some illness (I suppose some infectious fever) which had been visiting some in his house; died on the Tuesday, and was buried on the Thursday after! What will Austin do without him? He had written to me about your Hafiz saying he had got several subjects for Illustration, and I meant to have had a talk with him on the matter. What should be done? I dare not undertake any great responsibility in meddling in such a matter even if asked to do so, which is not likely to be unless on your part; for I find my taste so very different from the Public that what I think good would probably be very unprofitable.
When in Bedfordshire I put away almost all Books except Omar Khayyám!, which I could not help looking over in a Paddock covered with Buttercups
and brushed by a delicious Breeze, while a dainty racing Filly of W. Browne’s came startling up to wonder and snuff about me. ‘Tempus est quo Orientis Aurâ mundus renovatur, Quo de fonte pluviali dulcis Imber reseratur; Musi-manus undecumque ramos insuper splendescit; Jesu-spiritusque Salutaris terram pervagatur.’ Which is to be read as Monkish Latin, like ‘Dies Iræ,’ etc., retaining the Italian value of the Vowels, not the Classical. You will think me a perfectly Aristophanic Old Man when I tell you how many of Omar I could not help running into such bad Latin. I should not confide such follies but to you who won’t think them so, and who will be pleased at least with my still harping on our old Studies. You would be sorry, too, to think that Omar breathes a sort of Consolation to me! Poor Fellow; I think of him, and Oliver Basselin, and Anacreon; lighter Shadows among the Shades, perhaps, over which Lucretius presides so grimly. Thursday, June 11. Your letter of April is come to hand, very welcome; and I am expecting the MS. Omar which I have written about to London. And now with respect to your proposed Fraser Paper on Omar. You see a few lines back I talk of some lazy Latin Versions of his Tetrastichs, giving one clumsy example. Now I shall rub up a few more of those I have sketched in the same manner, in order to see if you approve, if not of the thing done, yet of
(letter breaks off abruptly at the end of the page.)
June 23. I begin another Letter because I am looking into the Omar MS. you have sent me, and shall perhaps make some notes and enquiries as I go on. I had not intended to do so till I had looked all over and tried to make out what I could of it; since it is both pleasant to oneself to find out for oneself if possible, and also saves trouble to one’s friends. But yet it will keep me talking with you as I go along: and if I find I say silly things or clear up difficulties for myself before I close my Letter (which has a month to be open in!) why, I can cancel or amend, so as you will see the whole Process of Blunder. I think this MS. furnishes some opportunities for one’s critical faculties, and so is a good exercise for them, if one wanted such! First however I must tell you how much ill poor Crabbe has been: a sort of Paralysis, I suppose, in two little fits, which made him think he was sure to die: but Dr. Beck at present says he may live many years with care. Of this also I shall be able to tell you more before I wind up. The brave old Fellow! he was quite content to depart, and had his Daughter up to give her his Keys, and tell her where the different wines were laid! I must also tell you that Borrow is greatly delighted with your MS. of Omar which I showed him: delighted at the terseness so unusual in Oriental Verse. But his Eyes are apt to cloud: and his wife has been obliged, he tells me, to carry off even the little Omar out of reach of them for a while. . . .