your Audience: for fear of Mischief. Now I do not
wish to show Hamlet at his maddest: but mad he must be shown, or he is no
Hamlet at all. G. de Tassy eluded all that was dangerous, and all that
was characteristic. I think these _free_ opinions are less dangerous in
an old Mahometan, or an old Roman (like Lucretius) than when they are
returned to by those who have lived on happier Food. I don't know what
you will say to all this. However I dare say it won't matter whether I
do the Paper or not, for I don't believe they'll put it in.

Then--yesterday I bought at that shop in the Narrow Passage at the end of
Oxford Street a very handsome small Folio MS. of Sadi's Bostan for 10s.
But I don't know when I shall look at it to read: for my Eyes are but
bad: and London so dark, that I write this Letter now at noon by the
Light of two Candles. Of which enough for To-day. I must however while
I think of it again notice to you about those first Introductory
Quatrains to Omar in both the Copies you have seen; taken out of their
Alphabetical place, _if they be Omar's own_, evidently by way of putting
a good Leg foremost--or perhaps _not_ his at all. So that which Sprenger
says begins the Oude MS. is manifestly, not any Apology of Omar's own,
but a Denunciation of him by some one else: {344} and is a _sort_ of
Parody (in _Form_ at least) of Omar's own Quatrain 445, with its
indignant reply by the Sultan.

Tuesday Dec. 22. I have your Letter of Nov. 9--giving a gloomy Account
of what has long ere this been settled for better or worse! It is said
we are to have a Mail on Friday. I must post this Letter before then.
Thank you for the MSS. You will let me know what you expend on them. I
have been looking over De Tassy's Omar. Try and see the other Poems of
Attar mentioned by Sprenger: those with Apologues, etc., in which (as I
have said) Attar seems to me to excel. Love to the Lady. I have no news
of the Crabbes, but that they do pretty well in their new home. Donne
has just been here and gone--asking about you. I dine with him on
Christmas Day.

E. F. G.

[MERTON RECTORY].
_September_ 3/58.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . Now about my Studies, which, I think, are likely to dwindle away
too. I have not turned to Persian since the Spring; but shall one day
look back to it: and renew my attack on the 'Seven Castles,' if that be
the name. I found the Jami MS. at Rushmere: and there left it for the
present: as the other