INS

After Mr. FitzGerald's death in June 1883 a small tin box addressed to me
was found by his executors, containing among other things corrected
copies of his printed works, and the following letter, which must have
been written shortly after my last visit to him at Easter that year:

WOODBRIDGE: _May_ 1/83.

MY DEAR WRIGHT,

I do not suppose it likely that any of my works should be reprinted
after my Death. Possibly the three Plays from the Greek, and
Calderon's Magico: which have a certain merit in the Form they are
cast into, and also in the Versification.

However this may be, I venture to commit to you this Box containing
Copies of all that I have corrected in the way that I would have them
appear, if any of them ever should be resuscitated.

The C. Lamb papers are only materials for you, or any one else, to use
at pleasure.

The Crabbe volume would, I think, serve for an almost sufficient
Selection from him; and some such Selection will have to be made, I
believe, if he is to be resuscitated. Two of the Poems--'The Happy
Day' and 'The Family of Love'--seem to me to have needed some such
abridgement as the 'Tales of the Hall,' for which I have done little
more than hastily to sketch the Plan. For all the other Poems, simple
Extracts from them will suffice: with a short notice concerning their
Dates of Composition, etc., at the Beginning.

My poor old Lowestoft Sea-slang may amuse yourself to look over
perhaps.

And so, asking your pardon for inflicting this Box upon you I am ever
sincerely yours

E. F. G.

In endeavouring to carry out these last wishes of my friend I thought
that of the many who know him only as a translator some would be glad to
have a picture of him as he appeared to the small circle of his intimate
acquaintances. The mere narrative of the life of a man of leisure and
literary tastes would have contained too few incidents to be of general
interest, and it appeared to me best to let him be his own biographer,
telling his own story and revealing his own character in his letters.
Fortunately there are many of these, and I have endeavoured to give such
a selection from them as would serve this purpose, adding a few words
here and there to connect them and explain what was not sufficiently
evident. As the letters begin from the time that he left College and
continue with shorter or longer intervals till the