Lecture. . . . I should like to see Nizami's Shirin,
though I have not yet seen enough to care for in Nizami. Get me a MS. if
you can get a fair one; as also one of Attar's Birds; of which however
Garcin de Tassy gives hint of publishing a Text. There might be a good
Book made of about half the Text of the Original; for the Repetitions are
many, and the stories so many of them not wanted. What a nice Book too
would be the Text of some of the best Apologues in Jami, Jelaleddin,
Attar, etc., with literal Translations! . . .

I was with Borrow {317} a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth three
months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a
long Translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire,
and his Taste becomes stranger than ever.

24 PORTLAND TERRACE,
REGENT'S PARK.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . March 12. You see I leave this Letter like an unfinished Picture;
giving it a touch every now and then. Meanwhile it lies in a volume of
Sir W. Ouseley's Travels. Meanwhile also I keep putting into shape some
of that Mantic which however would never do to publish. For this reason;
that anything like a literal Translation would be, I think, unreadable;
and what I have done for amusement is not only so unliteral, but I doubt
_unoriental_, in its form and expression, as would destroy the value of
the Original without replacing it with anything worth reading of my own.
It has amused me however to reduce the Mass into something of an Artistic
Shape. There are lots of Passages which--how should I like to talk them
over with you! Shall we ever meet again? I think not; or not in such
plight, both of us, as will make Meeting what it used to be. Only to-day
I have been opening dear old Salaman: the original Copy we bought and
began this time three years ago at Oxford; with all my scratches of Query
and Explanation in it, and the Notes from you among the Leaves. How
often I think with Sorrow of my many Harshnesses and Impatiences! which
are yet more of manner than Intention. My wife is sick of hearing me
sing in a doleful voice the old Glee of 'When shall we Three Meet again?'
Especially the Stanza, 'Though in foreign Lands we sigh, Parcht beneath a
hostile Sky, etc.' How often too I think of the grand Song written by
some Scotch Lady, {318} which I sing to myself for you on Ganges Banks!

Slow spreads the Gloom my Soul desires,
The Sun from India's Shore retires:
To _