Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/210

 202

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. MARCH 17, 1900.

In the ' Agamemnon,' again, we find qua- trains which seem an echo of the utterances of the astronomer-poet of Naishapur :

The Robber, blinded in his own conceit,

Must needs think Retribution deaf and blind : Fool ! not to know what tongue was in the wind,

When Tellus shudder'd under flying feet.

And-

Call not on Death, old man, that v call'd or no, Comes quick; nor spend your ebbing breath on me, Nor Helena : who but as arrows be

Shot by the hidden hand behind the bow.

The following lines, though in a different metre, enunciate the same philosophy :

But thus it is : All bides the destined Hour ;

And Man, albeit with Justice at his side, Fights in the dark against a secret Power

Not to be conquer'd and how pacified ?

It seems to me a matter of regret that the attention of the world should be concentrated on a single poem a poem which, noble in expression as it is, throws but a dim side- light upon the real nature of the man and that his other writings should be neglected. A reason for this neglect may, perhaps, be found in the fact that the separate editions of FitzGerald's works were printed in such limited quantities that they never really came into circulation, and are now scarcely obtain- able, while the edition of his * Letters and Literary Remains ' which was produced, six years after his death, under the care of Dr. Aldis Wright, though not a costly book, still carries such a price as hardly to bring it within the reach of "the general." I trust I may, without impertinence, express a hope that cheap editions of the lesser works of FitzGerald may, within a short time, be issued to rank on one's shelves with the "Golden Treasury " edition of the ' Rubaiyat.' A re- print 01 ' Euphranor,' with the appendix to the second edition of ' Polonius,' the introduc- tion to Crabbe's 'Tales of the Halls,' and the memoirs of Bernard Barton and the younger Crabbe would make a capital beginning. The Spanish and Greek plays might follow in due course.

I have compiled the bibliographical notes which follow, partly from a wish to present in a compendious form a list of FitzGerald's works, accompanied by such information as is available regarding the circumstances under which they were respectively written, and partly in the hope that they may form a stepping-stone to a more general acquaint- ance with the writings in question. I believe it to be a fuller list than has yet been drawn up, though it has, of course, no pretensions to be exhaustive. I have confined myself to the issues which were published, or, more pro-

perly speaking, printed, in FitzGerald's life- time (with the exception of the ' Letters and Literary Remains '), as I consider that these alone possess any real bibliographical value. To enumerate all the American editions of the ' Rubaiyat ' would be an endless, as well as useless, task. The kindness which I have received from those who have been in a posi- tion to help me in my work deserves my warmest acknowledgments. To Dr. Aldis Wright, the literary executor of FitzGerald, my grateful thanks are due. Without his generous aid, and without his permission to extract from the ' Letters ' such passages as throw light on the inception and execution of FitzGerald's literary output, it would hardly have been possible to carry out this little attempt. I have to thank Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. R. A. Potts, and Mr. Francis Hindes Groome for substantial assistance ; and my acknowledgments are also due to Messrs. Billing & Sons, of Guild ford, for valuable information in connexion with the printing of FitzGerald's later works. I may add that the quotations in the text are from the " Eversley " edition of the ' Letters.'

I. SEPARATE WOEKS.

1851.

Euphranor | A Dialogue on Youth | [Line] Lon- don | William Pickering | 1851.

Collation : Small octavo : pp. [ii] and 82 (last page unnumbered), consisting of: Title-page as above, with imprint on verso, "John Childs and Son, Bungay/ pp. [i, ii] ; Text, pp. 1-81 ; Errata, and imprint as before, p. [82]. The title is given as a headline throughout. Issued in green cloth boards, with stamped sides, and lettered upwards along the back " Euphranor," within a gilt ornamental border.

Though not published till 1851, this book had occupied FitzGerald's thoughts several years previously. In a letter to Prof. Co well, written at the end of 1846, he says : "I have been doing some of the dialogue, which seems the easiest thing in the world to do but is not" ('Letters,' i. 212). In February, 1851, he sent to the Rev. G. Crabbe a copy of ' Euphranor ' and of the Examiner, in which Spedding had reviewed the book ('Letters,' i. 266, 267). In a letter to the same corre- spondent, written a fortnight later, he says : " As I have a real horror to be known as the writer, I do not think I can have much per- sonal ambition in its success." Nevertheless, it seems to have had a good sale, as in May, 1868, in again writing to Mr. Co well, Fitz- Gerald says he does not know where to lay his hands on a copy of the first edition ('Let- ters,' ii. 104). Though a mere skeleton as compared with the later editions, it contained some fine passages, one of which elicited the