LIFE OF EDWARD FITZGERALD.
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dward FitzGerald was born in the year 1809, at Bredfield House, nearWoodbridge, Suffolk, being the third son of John Purcell, who,subsequently to his marriage with a Miss FitzGerald, assumed the nameand arms proper to his wife's family. St. Germain and Paris were in turn the home of his earlier years, but in1821, he was sent to the Grammar School at Bury St. Edmunds. During hisstay in that ancient foundation he was the fellow pupil of JamesSpedding and J. M. Kemble. From there he went in 1826 to TrinityCollege, Cambridge, where he made the acquaintance of W. M. Thackerayand others of only less note. His school and college friendships weredestined to prove lasting, as were, also, all those he was yet to form. One of FitzGerald's chief characteristics was what might almost becalled a genius for friendship. He did not, indeed, wear his heart uponhis sleeve, but ties once formed were never unloosed by any failure incharitable and tender affection on his part. Never, throughout a lengthylife, did irritability and erratic petulance (displayed 'tis true, attimes by the translator of "that large infidel"), darken the eyes ofthose he honoured with his friendship to the simple and whole-heartedgenuineness of the man. From Oxford, FitzGerald retired to the 'suburb grange' at Woodbridge,referred to by Tennyson. Here, narrowing his bodily wants to within thelimits of a Pythagorean fare, he led a life of a truly simple typesurrounded by books and roses, and, as ever, by a few firm friends.Annual visits to London in the months of Spring kept alive the alliancesof earlier days, and secured for him yet other intimates, notably theTennyson brothers. Amongst the languages, Spanish seems to have been his earlier love. Histranslation of Calderon, due to obedience to the guiding impulse ofProfessor Cowell, showed him to the world as a master of the rarest ofarts, that of conveying to an English audience the lights and shades ofa poem first fashioned in a foreign tongue. At the bidding of the same mentor, he, later, turned his attention toPersian, the first fruits of his toil being an anonymous version, inMiltonic verse, of the 'Salámán and Absál' of Jámi. Soon after, thetreasure-house of the Bodleian library yielded up to him the pearl ofhis literary endeavour, the verses of "Omar Khayyám," a pearl whosedazzling charm previously had been revealed to but few, and that throughthe medium of a version published in Paris by Monsieur Nicolas. FitzGerald's hasty and ill-advised union with Lucy, daughter of BernardBarton, the Quaker poet and friend of Lamb, was but short-lived, anddemands no comment. They agreed to part. In later life, most summers found the poet on board his yacht "TheScandal" (so-called as being the staple product of the neighbourhood) incompany with 'Posh' as he dubbed Fletcher, the fisherman of Aldeburgh,whose correspondence with FitzGerald has lately been given to the world. To the end he loved the sea, his books, his roses and his friends, andthat end came to him, when on a visit with his friend Crabbe, with allthe kindliness of sudden death, on the 14th June, 1883. Besides the works already mentioned, FitzGerald was the author of"Euphranor" [1851], a Platonic Dialogue on Youth; "Polonius": aCollection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances [1852]; and translations ofthe "Agamemnon" of Æschylus [1865]; and the "Œdipus Tyrannus" and"Œdipus Coloneus" of Sophocles. Of these translations the "Agamemnon"probably ranks next to the Rubáiyát in merit. To the six dramas ofCalderon, issued in 1853, there were added two more in 1865. Of theseplays, "Vida es Sueno" and "El Magico Prodigioso" possess especialmerit. His "Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám" was first issued anonymously on January15th, 1859, but it caused no great stir, and, half-forgotten, wasreintroduced to the notice of the literary world in the following yearby Rossetti, and, in this connection, it is curious to note to what alarge extent Rossetti played the part of a literary Lucina. FitzGerald,Blake and Wells are all indebted to him for timely aid in thereanimation of offspring, that seemed doomed to survive but for a shorttime the pangs that gave them birth. Mr. Swinburne and Lord Houghtonwere also impressed by its merits, and its fame slowly spread. Eightyears elapsed, however, before the publication of the second edition. After the passage of a quarter-of-a-century a considerable stimulus wasgiven to the popularity of the "Rubáiyát" by the fact thatTennyson—appropriately enough in view of FitzGerald's translation ofSophocles' "Œdipus"—prefaced his "Tiresias, and other Poems," withsome charmingly reminiscent lines written to "Old Fitz" on his lastbirthday. "This," says Mr. Edmund Gosse, "was but the signal for thatuniversal appreciation of 'Omar Khayyám' in his English dress, which hasbeen one of the curious literary phenomena of recent years. The melodyof FitzGerald's verse is so exquisite, the thoughts he rearranges andstrings together are so profound, and the general atmosphere of poetryin which he steeps his version is so pure, that no surprise need beexpressed at the universal favour which the poem has met with amongcritical readers." Neither the "Rubáiyát" nor his other works are mere translations. Theyare better, perhaps, described as consisting of "largely new work basedon the nominal originals." In the "Omar," admittedly the highest inquality of his works, he undoubtedly took considerable liberties withhis author, and introduced lines, or even entire quatrains, which,however they may breathe the spirit of the original, have no materialcounterpart therein. In illustration of FitzGerald's capacity for conveying the spirit ratherthan the very words of the original, comparison of the Ousely MS. of1460 A.D., in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with the "Rubáiyát" as weknow it, is of great interest.
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