I have not been able to ascertain the exact time at which FitzGerald began his Spanish studies; but it must have been long before this, for in 1853 the first-fruits of them appeared in the 'Six Dramas from Calderon freely translated by Edward FitzGerald,' the only book to which he ever put his name. It was probably in 1853 that he took up Persian, in which, as in Spanish, his friend Cowell was his guide. _To G. Crabbe_. BOULGE, _July_ 22/53. MY DEAR GEORGE, Your account of the Doctor's warnings to your Cousin in your first note delighted me greatly: as it did your Father to whom I read it last night. For, on coming home from Aldbro' (where I had been for a day) I found to my great surprise your Father smoking in my room, with a bottle of Port (which he had brought with him!). The mystery was then solved; that, after his own dinner, Mr. --- was announced, and your Father dreading lest he should stay all the Evening declared he had most important business, first at Woodbridge, then, on second thoughts, with me; and so decamped. Now as to your second letter which I found also on my return: I am very glad you like the plays {282} and am encouraged to hope that other persons who are not biassed by pedantic prejudices or spites might like them too. But I fully expect that (as I told you, I think) the London press, etc., will either sink them, or condemn them as on too free a principle: and all the more if they have not read the originals. For these are safe courses to adopt. All this while I am assuming the plays are well done in their way, which of course I do. On the other hand, they really may not be as well done as I think; on their own principle: and that would really be a fair ground of condemnation. _To W. F. Pollock_. BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _July_ 25/53. MY DEAR POLLOCK, Thank you for your letter. Though I believed the Calderon to be on the whole well done and entertaining, I began to wish to be told it was so by others, for fear I had made a total mistake: which would have been a bore. And the very free and easy translation lies open to such easy condemnation, unless it be successful. Your account of Sherborne rouses all the Dowager within me. I shall have to leave this cottage, I believe, and have not yet found a place sufficiently dull to migrate to. Meanwhile to-morrow I am going to one of my great treats: viz. the Assizes at Ipswich: where I shall see little Voltaire Jervis, {283a} and old Parke, {283b} who I trust will have the gout, he bears it so Christianly. _To G. Crabbe_. BOULGE, WOODBRIDGE, _Sept_. 12/53. MY DEAR GEORGE,