hem now and then for the few years I suppose I have to live. . . .

This is a terribly long Letter: but, if it be legible sufficiently, will
perhaps do as if I were spinning it in talk under the walls of the
Cathedral. I dare not now even talk of going any visits: I can truly say
I wish you could drop in here some Summer Day and take a Float with me on
our dull River, which does lead to THE SEA some ten miles off. . .

You must think I have become very nautical, by all this: haul away at
ropes, swear, dance Hornpipes, etc. But it is not so: I simply sit in
Boat or Vessel as in a moving Chair, dispensing a little Grog and Shag to
those who do the work.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

MARKET HILL, WOODBRIDGE.
_December_ 7/61.

MY DEAR COWELL,

. . . I shall look directly for the passages in Omar and Hafiz which you
refer to and clear up, though I scarce ever see the Persian Character
now. I suppose you would think it a dangerous thing to edit Omar: else,
who so proper? Nay, are you not the only Man to do it? And he certainly
is worth good re-editing. I thought him from the first the most
remarkable of the Persian Poets: and you keep finding out in him
Evidences of logical Fancy which I had not dreamed of. I dare say these
logical Riddles are not his best: but they are yet evidences of a
Strength of mind which our Persian Friends rarely exhibit, I think. I
always said about Cowley, Donne, etc., whom Johnson calls the
metaphysical Poets, that their very Quibbles of Fancy showed a power of
Logic which could follow Fancy through such remote Analogies. This is
the case with Calderon's Conceits also. I doubt I have given but a very
one-sided version of Omar: but what I do only comes up as a Bubble to the
Surface, and breaks: whereas you, with exact Scholarship, might make a
lasting impression of such an Author. So I say of Jelaluddin, whom you
need not edit in Persian, perhaps, unless in selections, which would be
very good work: but you should certainly translate for us some such
selections exactly in the way in which you did that apologue of Azrael.
{27} I don't know the value of the Indian Philosophy, etc., which you
tell me is a fitter exercise for the Reason: but I am sure that you
should give us some of the Persian I now speak of, which you can do all
so easily to yourself; yes, as a holiday recreation, you say, to your
Indian Studies. As to India being 'your Place,' it may be: but as to
your being lost in Englan