any one (except you) would care for them even if they were worth caring for. So much for my grand Performances: except that I amuse myself with jotting down materials (out of Vocabularies, etc.) for a Vocabulary of _rural_ English, or _rustic_ English: that is, only the best country words selected from the very many Glossaries, etc., relating chiefly to country matters, but also to things in general: words that carry their own story with them, without needing Derivation or Authority, though both are often to be found. I always say I have heard the Language of Queen Elizabeth's, or King Harry's Court, in the Suffolk Villages: better a great deal than that spoken in London Societies, whether Fashionable or Literary: and the homely [strength] of which has made Shakespeare, Dryden, South, and Swift, what they could not have been without it. But my Vocabulary if ever done will be a very little Affair, if ever done: for here again it is pleasant enough to jot down a word now and then, but not to equip all for the Press. FARLINGAY, WOODBRIDGE. _Nov_. 2/58. MY DEAR COWELL, . . . No. I have not read the Jami Diwan; partly because I find my Eyes are none the better, and partly because I have now no one to 'prick the sides of my Intent'; not even 'Vaulting Ambition' now. I have got the Seven Castles {348} in my Box here and old Johnson's Dictionary; and these I shall strike a little Fire out of by and by: Jami also in time perhaps. I have nearly finisht a metrical Paraphrase and Epitome of the Mantic: but you would scarce like it, and who else would? It has amused me to give a 'Bird's Eye' View of the Bird Poem in some sixteen hundred lines. I do not think one could do it as Salaman is done. As to Omar, I hear and see nothing of it in Fraser yet: and so I suppose they don't want it. I told Parker he might find it rather dangerous among his Divines: he took it however, and keeps it. I really think I shall take it back; add some Stanzas which I kept out for fear of being too strong; print fifty copies and give away; one to you, who won't like it neither. Yet it is most ingeniously tesselated into a sort of Epicurean Eclogue in a Persian Garden. INDEX TO LETTERS _To_ JOHN ALLEN, 4, 5, 9, 10-21, 28, 29, 32-35, 40, 43-48, 55, 59, 66, 69, 71, 122, 138, 172, 196, 234, 235, 243, 252, 255, 280, 291 * _To_ MRS. CHARLES ALLEN, 337 * _To_ the Editor of the Athenaeum, 6 _To_ BERNARD BARTON, 50-52, 61, 62, 74, 88, 93, 96, 98, 99, 104-110, 132, 134, 142, 158, 168, 169, 173, 175, 178, 186, 189-191, 197, 209, 220, 222 _From_ CARLYLE, 127, 130, 181 _note_, 205, 298, 299, 302 _To_ CARLYLE, 213, 216, 226, 293, 295, 297 _To_ MRS. CHARLESWORTH, 154-157 *, 160 *, 161 * _To_ E. B. COWELL, 204, 208, 211 *, 212 *, 228, 231, 232, 240, 248 *, 284, 304, 304 *, 306 *, 309-321, 328-335, 340, 341 *, 345, 348 _To_ MRS. COWELL, 307, 308, 326 _To_ GEORGE CRABBE, 247, 266-268, 273, 274, 282, 284