one up together; the Spanish, at least, which are, I think, all
of a size. Will you tell the Master so if you happen to see him and
mention the subject? Allow me to end by writing myself yours sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

12 MARINE TERRACE, LOWESTOFT.
_Dec._ 28 [1867].

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I don't think I told you about Garcin de Tassy. He sent me (as no
doubt he sent you) his annual Oration. I wrote to thank him: and said I
had been lately busy with another countryman of his, Mons. Nicolas, with
his Omar Khayyam. On which De Tassy writes back by return of post to ask
'Where I got my Copy of Nicolas? He had not been able to get one in all
Paris!' So I wrote to Quaritch: who told me the Book was to be had of
Maisonneuve, or any Oriental Bookseller in Paris; but that probably the
Shopman did not understand, when '_Les Rubaiyat d'Omar_, etc.,' were
asked for, that it meant '_Les Quatrains_, etc.' This (which I doubt not
is the solution of the Mystery) I wrote to Garcin: at the same time
offering one of my two Copies. By return of Post comes a frank
acceptance of one of the Copies; and his own Translation of Attar's Birds
by way of equivalent. [Greek text]. Well, as I got these Birds just as
I was starting here, I brought them with me, and looked them over. Here,
at Lowestoft, in this same row of houses, two doors off, I was writing
out the Translation I made in the Winter of 1859. I have scarce looked
at Original or Translation since. But I was struck by this; that eight
years had made little or no alteration in my idea of the matter: it
seemed to me that I really had brought in nearly all worth remembering,
and had really condensed the whole into a much compacter Image than the
original. This is what I think I can do, with such discursive things:
such as all the Oriental things I have seen are. I remember you thought
that I had lost the Apologues towards the close; but I believe I was
right in excluding them, as the narrative grew dramatic and neared the
Catastrophe. Also, it is much better to glance at the dangers of the
Valley when the Birds are in it, than to let the Leader recount them
before: which is not good policy, morally or dramatically. When I say
all this, you need not suppose that I am vindicating the Translation as a
Piece of Verse. I remember thinking it from the first rather
disagreeable than not: though with some good parts. Jam satis.

There is a prett