Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2FitzGerald, Edward
General
Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2
FitzGerald, Edward
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence; FitzGerald, Edward, 1809-1883 -- Correspondence
'Only yesterday I lighted upon some mention of your Father in the
Letters of that mad man of Genius Morton, who came to a sudden and
terrible end in Paris not long after. He was a good deal in Coram
Street, and no one admired your Father more, nor made so sure of his
'_doing something_' at last, so early as 1842. A Letter of Jan. 22/45
says: "I hear of Thackeray at Rome. Once there, depend upon it, he
will stay there some time. There is something glutinous in the soil
of Rome, that, like the sweet Dew that lies on the lime-leaf, ensnares
the Butterfly Traveller's foot." Which is not so bad, is it? And
again, still in England, and harping on Rome, whose mere name, he
says, "moves the handle of the Pump of Tears in him" (one of his
grotesque fancies), he suddenly bethinks him (Feb. 4/45). "This is
the last day of Carnival, Thackeray is walking down the Corso with his
hands in his Breeches pockets: stopping to look at some little Child.
At night, millions of Moccoletti, dasht about with endless Shouts and
Laughter, etc."'
{144} Byron's verses on Rogers.
{145} In Fraser's Magazine, May 1870.
{146a} Inferno, Canto V. 127.
{146b} F. C. Brooke of Ufford.
{146c} Probably a frontispiece to Omar Khayyam which was never used.
{147} Roqueplan, La Vie Parisienne.
{148} Salons Celebres, p. 97, ed. 1882.
{149a} Q. Rev. No. LXVII. p. 216.
{149b} Wherstead.
{150} Euphranor.
{153} 31st March, when the letter was probably finished.
{160} Cent. III. section 238.
{161} In June 1871 he wrote to me, 'One Improvement I persist in
recommending for your Chapel: but no one will do it. Instead of
Lucretius' line (which might apply to Shakespeare, etc.) at the foot of
Newton's Statue, you should put the first words of Bacon's Novum Organum,
(Homo) 'Naturae Minister et Interpres': which eminently becomes Newton,
as he stands, with his Prism; and connects him with his great Cambridge
Predecessor, who now (I believe) sits in the Ante-Chapel along with him.'
{162} Agamemnon.
{163a} Written in French, 22 July 1873.
{163b} The Family of Love, vol. viii p. 43.
{163c} Ibid. p. 40.
{164} Tacitus, by W. B. Donne, in Ancient Classics for English Readers,
1873.
{165} Ann. XIV. 10.
{169} In January 1874, Donne wrote to Thompson, 'You probably know that
our friend E. F. G. has been turned out of his long inhabited lodgings by
a widow weighing at least fourteen stone, who is soon to espouse, and
sure to rule over, his landlord, who weighs at most nine stone--"impar
congressus." "Ordinary men and Christians" would occupy a new and
commodious house which they have built, and which, in this case, you
doubtless have seen. But the FitzGeralds are not _ordinary_ men, however
_Christian_ they may be, and our friend is now looking for an alien home
for himself, his books, pictures, and other "rich moveables."'
{170} See Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. I. 137.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Letters of Edward FitzGerald, in Two Volumes. Vol. 2 — John Shaqi
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