* * * * *
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.