Owing partly to my own Stupidity, and partly to a change in the India
Post days, my last two letters (to you and wife) which were quite ready
by the Marseilles Post of April 25th will not get off till the
Southampton Mail of this May 10. Your letter of March 21 reached me
three days ago. Write only when you have Leisure and Inclination, and
only as much as those two good things are good for: I will 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 _kharab_. 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 _rubayat_. 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 _rubayat_ 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 AEschylus. 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 Khayyam!,
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 Aura 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 Irae,' 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. . . .
June 27. Geldestone Hall. I brought back my two Nieces here yesterday:
and to-day am sitting as of old in my accustomed Bedroom, looking out on
a Landscape which your Eyes would drink. It is said there has not been
such a Flush of Verdure for years: and they are making hay on the Lawn
before the house, so as one wakes to the tune of the Mower's
Scythe-whetting, and with the old Perfume blowing in at open windows. . .
.
July 1. June over! A thing I think of with Omar-like sorrow. And the
Roses here are blowing--and going--as abundantly as even in Persia. I am
still at Geldestone, and still looking at Omar by an open window which
gives over a Greener Landscape than yours. To-morrow my eldest Nephew,
Walter Kerrich, whom I first took to school, is to be married in the
Bermudas to a young Widow. He has chosen his chosen sister Andalusia's
Birthday to be married on; and so we are to keep that double Festival. .
. .
_Extract from Letter begun_ 3 _July_, 1857.
Monday, July 13. This day year was the last I spent with you at
Rushmere! We dined in the Evening at your Uncle's in Ipswich, walking
home at night together. The night before (yesterday year) you all went
to Mr. Maude's Church, and I was so sorry afterward I had not gone with
you too; for the last time, as your wife said. One of my manifold
stupidities, all avenged in a Lump now! I think I shall close this
letter to-morrow: which will be the Anniversary of my departure from
Rushmere. I went from you, you know, to old Crabbe's. Is he too to be
wiped away by a yet more irrecoverable exile than India? By to-morrow I
shall have finisht my first Physiognomy of Omar, whom I decidedly prefer
to any Persian I have yet seen, unless perhaps Salaman. . . .
Tuesday, July 14. Here is the Anniversary of our Adieu at Rushmere. And
I have been (rather hastily) getting to an end of my first survey of the
Calcutta Omar, by way of counterpart to our joint survey of the Ouseley
MS. then. I suppose we spoke of it this day year; probably had a final
look at it together before I went off, in some Gig, I think, to Crabbe's.
We hear rather better Report of him, if the being likely to live a while
longer is better. I shall finish my Letter to-day; only leaving it open
to add any very particular word. I must repeat I am sure this Calcutta
Omar is, in the same proportion with the Ouseley, by as good a hand as
the Ouseley: by as good a hand, if not Omar's; which I think you seemed
to doubt if it was, in one of your Letters. . . .
Have I previously asked you to observe 486, of which I send a poor Sir W.
Jones' sort of Parody which came into my mind walking in the Garden here;
where the Rose is blowing as in Persia? And with this poor little Envoy
my Letter shall end. I will not stop to make the Verse better.
I long for wine! oh Saki of my Soul,
Prepare thy Song and fill the morning Bowl;
For this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Takes many a Sultan with it as it goes.
_To Mrs. Charles Allen_. {337}
GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_August_ 15/57.