gh of the matter: that I do not wish E. B. C. to
be made answerable for errors which E. F. G. (the '_copist'_) may have
made: and that E. F. G. neither merits nor desires any honourable mention
as a Persian Scholar: being none. Tell E. B. C. that I have used his
name with all caution, referring De Tassy to Vararuchi, etc. But these
Frenchmen are so self-content and superficial, one never knows how they
will take up anything. To turn to other matters--we are talking of
leaving this place almost directly. . . . I often wonder if I shall ever
see you both again! Well, for the present, Adieu, Adieu, Adieu!

LONDON, _May_ 7/57.

MY DEAR COWELL,

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 ha