some lucky
day: but, as I said, it is so much easier to leave them alone; and when I
had done my best, I don't know if they are worth the pains, or whether
any one (except you) would care for them even if they were worth caring
for. So much for my grand Performances: except that I amuse myself with
jotting down materials (out of Vocabularies, etc.) for a Vocabulary of
_rural_ English, or _rustic_ English: that is, only the best country
words selected from the very many Glossaries, etc., relating chiefly to
country matters, but also to things in general: words that carry their
own story with them, without needing Derivation or Authority, though both
are often to be found. I always say I have heard the Language of Queen
Elizabeth's, or King Harry's Court, in the Suffolk Villages: better a
great deal than that spoken in London Societies, whether Fashionable or
Literary: and the homely [strength] of which has made Shakespeare,
Dryden, South, and Swift, what they could not have been without it. But
my Vocabulary if ever done will be a very little Affair, if ever done:
for here again it is pleasant enough to jot down a word now and then, but
not to equip all for the Press.

FARLINGAY, WOODBRIDGE. _Nov_. 2/58.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . 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.

INDEX TO LETTERS

_To_ JOHN ALLEN, 4, 5, 9, 10-21, 28, 29, 32-35, 40, 43-48, 55, 59, 66,
69, 71, 122, 138,