Page:The Sháhnamá Vol. I.djvu/12



interest with which I used to look forward to the publication of this work, the preparation of which afforded us innumerable happy hours, has been saddened for me of late by the death of my elder brother and senior partner in the undertaking. It was begun some twenty years ago when he was the Incumbent of St. Mary's, Tothill Fields, Westminster, and had but scanty leisure. It was continued and carried far toward completion in more favourable circumstances after his presentation by the Grocers' Company to the living of St. Mary le Bow, Cheapside, in 1887.

From early days my brother was devoted to the study of Oriental languages. His proficiency in Hebrew won him at Oxford the Pusey and Ellerton Scholarship in 1862 and the Kennicott in 1863. He was also a good Arabic and Syriac scholar. During his twenty-one laborious years first as Curate and then Incumbent at Westminster he never, I think, forewent for long his favourite branch of study, and I may add that we were engaged in revising a passage in our joint translation almost to within an hour of his sudden death from a wholly unsuspected heart-affection in April 1903.

He is, I think, fondly remembered by many. Such