. . . No. I have not read the Jami Diwan; 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: Jami 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 Salaman 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.