looking over De Tassy’s Omar. Try and see the other Poems of Attár mentioned by Sprenger: those with Apologues, etc., in which (as I have said) Attár seems to me to excel. Love to the Lady. I have no news of the Crabbes, but that they do pretty well in their new home. Donne has just been here and gone—asking about you. I dine with him on Christmas Day.
E. F. G.
[Merton Rectory].
September 3/58.
My dear Cowell,
. . . Now about my Studies, which, I think, are likely to dwindle away too. I have not turned to Persian since the Spring; but shall one day look back to it: and renew my attack on the ‘Seven Castles,’ if that be the name. I found the Jámí MS. at Rushmere: and there left it for the present: as the other Poem will be enough for me for my first onslaught. I believe I will do a little a day, so as not to lose what little knowledge I had. As to my Omar: I gave it to Parker in January, I think: he saying Fraser was agreeable to take it. Since then I have heard no more; so as, I suppose, they don’t care about it: and may be quite right. Had I thought they would be so long however I would have copied it out and sent it to you: and I will still do so from a rough and imperfect Copy I have (though not now at hand) in case they show no signs of printing me. My Translation will interest you from
its Form, and also in many respects in its Detail: very unliteral as it is. Many Quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar’s Simplicity, which is so much a Virtue in him. But there it is, such as it is. I purposely said in the very short notice I prefixed to the Poem that it was so short because better Information might be furnished in another Paper, which I thought you would undertake. So it rests. Nor have I meddled with the Mantic lately: nor does what you say encourage me to do so. For what I had sketcht out was very paraphrase indeed. I do not indeed believe that any readable Account (unless a prose Analysis, for the History and Curiosity of the Thing) will be possible, for me to do, at least. But I took no great pleasure in what I had done: and every day get more and more a sort of Terror at re-opening any such MS. My ‘Go’ (such as it was) is gone, and it becomes Work: and the Upshot is not worth working for. It was very well when it was a Pleasure. So it is with Calderon. It is well enough to sketch such things out in warm Blood; but to finish them in cold! I wish I could finish the ‘Mighty Magician’ in my new way: which I know you would like, in spite of your caveat for the Gracioso. I have not wholly dropt the two Students, but kept them quite under: and brought out the religious character of the Piece into stronger Relief. But as I have thrown much, if not into Lyric, into Rhyme, which strikes a more Lyric Chord, I have found it much harder to
satisfy myself than with the good old Blank Verse, which I used to manage easily enough. The ‘Vida es Sueño’ again, though blank Verse, has been difficult to arrange; here also Clarin is not quenched, but subdued: as is all Rosaura’s Story, so as to assist, and not compete with, the main Interest. I really wish I could finish these some lucky day: but, as I said, it is so much easier to leave them alone; and when I had done my best, I don’t know if they are worth the pains, or whether any one (except you) would care for them even if they were worth caring for. So much for my grand Performances: except that I amuse myself with jotting down materials (out of Vocabularies, etc.) for a Vocabulary of rural English, or rustic English: that is, only the best country words selected from the very many Glossaries, etc., relating chiefly to country matters, but also to things in general: words that carry their own story with them, without needing Derivation or Authority, though both are often to be found. I always say I have heard the Language of Queen Elizabeth’s, or King Harry’s Court, in the Suffolk Villages: better a great deal than that spoken in London Societies, whether Fashionable or Literary: and the homely [strength] of which has made Shakespeare, Dryden, South, and Swift, what they could not have been without it. But my Vocabulary if ever done will be a very little Affair, if ever done: for here again it is pleasant enough to jot down a word now and then, but not to equip all for the Press.
Farlingay, Woodbridge. Nov. 2/58.
My dear Cowell,
. . . No. I have not read the Jámí Díwán; partly because I find my Eyes are none the better, and partly because I have now no one to ‘prick the sides of my Intent’; not even ‘Vaulting Ambition’ now. I have got the Seven Castles [348] in my Box here and old Johnson’s Dictionary; and these I shall strike a little Fire out of by and by: Jámí also in time perhaps. I have nearly finisht a metrical Paraphrase and Epitome of the Mantic: but you would scarce like it, and who else would? It has amused me to give a ‘Bird’s Eye’ View of the Bird Poem in some sixteen hundred lines. I do not think one could do it as Salámán is done. As to Omar, I hear and see nothing of it in Fraser yet: and so I suppose they don’t want it. I told Parker he might find it rather dangerous among his Divines: he took it however, and keeps it. I really think I shall take it back; add some Stanzas which I kept out for fear of being too strong; print fifty copies and give away; one to you, who won’t like it neither. Yet it is most ingeniously tesselated into a sort of Epicurean Eclogue in a Persian Garden.