ESTABLI SHED 18 42. MUDIE'S^^LIBRARY, LIMITED.. 30 TO 34, NEW OXFORD STREET, J 241 , BROMPTON ROAD.S.W. 'I48,ouee:n victoria ST, E.C. BRANCH OFFICES V SUBSCRI PTION , HALF A GUINEA PER ANNUM & UPWARDS. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Hetirg m. Sage 1891 A-^£^iSk,S-. Z.J3 .///:./.a..5.... The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this boofecony the calico, andgive to th^ librarian. ■~ ^, HOME USE RULES. All Books subject to Recall. Books not used for instruction or research m.i are returnable within ^"^4 inm^ 4 weeks. '*«5D Volumes of periodi- cals and of pamphlets are held in the library ^. as much as possible. INTERtt©»A»im. C — ^^^-tiiX^-ti^^^cL^ LIFE af LETTERS OF EDWARD BYLES COWELL M.A., HON D.C.L., OXON., HON. LL.D., EDIN. PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT, CAMBRIDGE, 1 867 — 1903 BY GEORGE COWELL, F.R.C.S. MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1904 All rights rescj-z'ed A, "KZt^t^-h Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, bread street hill, e.g., and bungay, suffolk. PREFACE Matthew Arnold has defined greatness as " a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration," and further asserts that " the proof of greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration." This is impossible without some degree of self-efface- ment, and the world does not appear to understand this uncommon quality, but as a rule takes a man at his own valuation, and prefers to reward "push " and self-assertion, and to esteem success thus gained as representing some measure of greatness. How often has it been said that the world knows nothing of its greatest men, and is it riot because it generally fails to value that genuine self- depreciation which is really the truest sign of greatness ? " Simplex sigillum veri." Professor Cowell was a true savant. With all his characteristic simplicity, he knew well the littleness and limitations of human intellect and knowledge, and proved his greatness by never knowing that he excelled. And when the letter^ ' " Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald," W. Aldis Wright, Vol. L, p. 410. VI PREFACE to Professor Norton was published In which FitzGerald wrote of him, " Edward Cowell, a brother Professor of your's at our Cambridge : the most learned man there, I believe, and the most amiable and delightful, I believe, also," Cowell shrank from it, testified his dislike of such " exaggerated praise," and repudiated it as not true. (Vide p. 311, in Chap. VII.) His dislike of the passage above quoted led me to omit it from the book, but his absolute non-acceptance of it was too characteristic to be omitted. The testimony abides, however, and the reader will judge how far it is confirmed by the letters recorded in these pages. Professor Cowell has left behind him many results of his enormous power of work, his rare scholarly grasp, his wondrous memory and his bright intelligence, in the form of accurate texts and translations of some of the most difficult and abstruse philosophical Oriental writers. And from the time he left school to the end of his life he loved to pour out to the friends who sought it, in letters and in quiet social intercourse, the knowledge that he had amassed. It was in the hope of preserving for a wider circle of readers some of this wealth of knowledge that the idea of this biography took shape. I was in Tunis in search of sun, when the thought arose, that in his broken health, a letter fresh from a visit to the site of ancient Carthage would not fail to interest my cousin, and revive in him memories of Polybius and his account of the first and second Punic wars. The intention was PREFACE vu not realised, for en route to Carthage, my English news- paper told me of his death. On my return to England in April, no one of his Cambridge friends could be found with sufficient leisure to enter upon the arduous duty of collecting materials for such a book. All agreed that the life should be written, and little qualified as I was for the task, I determined to undertake it, rather than that the many interesting letters which I knew had been treasured, and the valuable lessons of the life, should pass all too quickly into oblivion. The work has not been light, but it has been truly a labour of love. My thanks are due, and are hereby sincerely rendered, to many of his friends at Oxford, Cambridge, and in India, and to a great number of his pupils both at home and abroad. I may mention especially Dean Kitchin, who sent me a large packet of early letters which have added much to the interest of the book, Mr. Charles W Moule, the Rev. M. B. Cowell, and Miss C. M. Ridding, who have given me kind and invaluable help. My thanks are also due to Dr. W. Aldis Wright and Messrs. Macmillan for permission to print extracts from FitzGerald's letters which had reference to the Cowells. They are additionally interesting, perhaps, from occupying their relative place in the life. I am glad also to have been permitted to print some interesting and characteristic letters of FitzGerald to the Cowells which have not before been published, as they will be widely welcomed VIU PREFACE on account of the additional light they throw upon this close and interesting friendship. Cowell's character bears fully the test with which I began this Preface ; let me end by saying that he has given the key-note of his own letters and of his life in a line of the sonnet which he wrote to the memory of Dr. Kay :— " Thy heart was to the last as childhood's fresh." G. C. 34 Harrington Gardens, London. June 2isf, 1904. CONTENTS PREFACE ..... V CHAPTER I SCHOOL DAYS — EARLY WORK, 1826-47 I CHAPTER II ENGAGEMENT AND MARRIAGE— LIFE AT BRAMFORD, 1845-50 . . 37 CHAPTER III OXFORD. 1850-56 . . . . 85 CHAPTER IV INDIA. 1856-64 . ... . 126 CHAPTER V LONDON— THE PROFESSORSHIP, 1 864-67 . ... . . . 195 CHAPTER VI CAMBRIDGE (l) 1 867-83 . . . . • 229 CHAPTER VII CAMBRIDGE (2) 1 883-92 . . .282 CHAPTER VIII CAMBRIDGE (3) 1 892-98 • • 325 X CONTENTS PAGE- CHAPTER IX CAMBRIDGE (4) 1898-I903 . . . 376 CHAPTER X FURTHER REMINISCENCES ... 421 APPENDIX I.— SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK'S ARTICLE FROM THE "PILOT" 455 APPENDIX II. — PROF. COWELL'S SKETCH OF SANSKRIT SCHOLAR- SHIP IN ENGLAND 460 APPENDIX III.— BIBLIOGRAPHY 464 471 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS THE PRESENTATION PORTRAIT BY MR. BROCK IN THE HALL OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE . . . Frontispiece BRAMFORD VALE AND CHURCH To face page 49 PORTRAIT TAKEN SOON AFTER HIS RETURN FROM INDIA To face page 210 THE STUDY AT SCROOPE TERRACE, CAMBRIDGE . . To face page 272 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL CHAPTER I SCHOOL DAYS EARLY WORK 1826 1847 Edward Byles Cowell was born on January 23rd, 1826, in a house in St. Clement's Street in Ipswich in the County of Suffolk. The house is still standing, and the picturesque street used to be the place of residence of some of the leading mercantile families of the then quiet country town. His grandfather, Abraham Kersey Cowell, a pious, active, and benevo- lent gentleman of the old school, estabhshed in Ipswich a prosperous business as a Merchant and Maltster. He had a numerous family of sons and daughters, the names of the sons being Charles, Samuel Harrison, and George Kersey. The eldest son Charles, who was born in 1800, joined his father in the Merchant's business, and married, in 1824, Marianne, the eldest daughter of Nathaniel Byles Byles, of the Hill House, Ipswich, who was the head of another prosperous mercantile business in the same town. She was, too, the cousin of Barnard Byles, who learned the rudiments of business in his uncle's office, but who afterwards studied Law and became well known and distinguished in succession as an author of important books on Law, as Mr. Serjeant Byles of the Norfolk Circuit, and as Mr. Justice Byles of the Court 2 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. of Common Pleas. Of the three sons and three daughters of this marriage, Edward Byles was the eldest. Two sons still survive, Charles Henry, who became the head of the Merchant business, is an ex-Mayor of his native town, and more recently succeeded to the Byles Hill House Estate ; Maurice Byles, Vicar of Ashbocking, and Rural Dean of Claydon in the County of SuiFolk ; and one daughter, Elizabeth Byles, unmarried. Charles Cowell unfortunately died in 1842, before his father, and whilst his children were still young. Cowell's school days were spent at the Ipswich Grammar School, known in Dr. Rigaud's time as Queen Elizabeth's School. It was one of the best of the town grammar schools and was of considerable antiquity. There is evidence that it was in existence in the reign of Edward IV. It was afterwards merged in the school and college founded there by Wolsey, of which only the picturesque gate remains. This institution was dis- continued at the fall of that Prelate, and Henry VIII. granted a new Charter for the re-establishment of the Grammar School. This Charter was renewed, con- firmed and enlarged by another granted by Queen Elizabeth on March i8th, 1565. The institution has of course undergone many changes and developments since Cowell was a pupil there. The school-room at that time was a substantial building in the Shirehall Yard, which had been the Refectory of a House of Blackfriars (Dominicans) established there in the reign of Henry III. as a branch of a much older House. The doorways showed fourteenth century work, though the roof was undoubtedly much later. It is worthy of record that when, in 1853, the walls of this school-room, which had stood for upwards of three centuries, and in which CoweU had first learned his Eton Latin Grammar, were with much labour pulled down to make room for other build- ings, the workmen required the aid of many horses and ropes before the solid workmanship of a former age could be broken up. It so happened that at the time this was I SCHOOL CAREER 3 taking place, it was discovered that the walls of the large school-room forming part of the present pile of buildings, of which the foundation stone was laid with great eclat by Prince Albert in 1 8 5 1 , showed signs of not being strong enough to withstand the thrust of the heavy roof, and it became necessary to strengthen them with buttresses and tie-rods to avert a collapse. I remember well, in his rooms in Oxford, the amusement of Cowell at the two pictures of these incidents, which were published, side by side, after the manner of Pugin's Contrasts, and in which were shown the almost impossibility of pulling down the walls of the old and the great difficulty of keeping erect the walls of the new. The Head Master of the Ipswich School in the thirties and early forties was the Rev. J. C. Ebden, a man of high character and no mean scholar. It is historical that he obtained great influence over his boys, and although in those days education in the provinces was somewhat rudimentary, he certainly laid the foundation of Cowell's love and aptitude for work. Cowell was always proud to have been a pupil of Ebden's, and many years afterwards it happened to him when dining at the house of a Cambridge friend to hear an undergraduate who was present state that he had been at the Ipswich School under Dr. Holden. A graduate amongst the guests said he was there under Dr. Rigaud, another followed with the information that he had been at the same school under Mr. Fenwick, when Cowell, much amused, capped the series by announcing that he was a pupil there under Mr. Ebden : an unusual and not uninteresting meeting of pupils of four successive Head Masters of the School. Cowell was sent to the Grammar School in 1833, when he was little more than seven years of age. This would now be considered young for a public school, but early in the century other ideas obtained and most boys were sent to a public school during their eighth year. He was from the first unusually industrious. Early in his school career he won one of the school scholarships, and he has told us 4 UFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. in one of his letters, that he ran the whole way home, so eager was he to tell his father and mother of his success. He may be said to have been fortunate in his school- fellows and fortunate in his master, and early he learned what the great majority of boys never acquire, the great art of how to learn. He had too a splendid memory, and with it developed a real love for learning, which grew and strengthened as he stored up and assimilated all that he was taught. He remained at school nearly nine years, and some eighteen months or two years before he left he showed a taste for study, a craving for absorbing the contents of all sorts of books, and for comparing what he read in one with all that he remembered in others. His school lessons did not nearly suffice to satisfy him. Although it is true that he was shortsighted he did not neglect games, for he enjoyed as much as any boy a fierce onset of prisoners' base and other games among his school-fellows or with his relations and intimate friends, but in those days cricket and football had not anywhere arrived at their present importance and still less in the provincial schools of the country. He, however, early began to keep his half- holidays free, and they were generally set apart for litera- ture and utilised in following the bent of his studious inclinations. His pocket money was always saved and accumulated for the purchase of some book outside his school studies In this way he bought not only a huge book. Walker s Corpus Poet^rum Latinorum^ but also an edition of Livy, whose many volumes in the bookseller's window had long tempted his hungry eyes. His next brother, who in due time had joined him at school, tells the story that he was often remonstrated with by Cowell for wasting his pocket money in the usual schoolboy purchases, instead of saving it up to buy some classic, which he thought every boy must regard with the same appreciation as himself. Cowell's school days were all spent in the same school and under the same Head Master, and it is ' The book thus obtained is now in the University Library in Cambridge. I HIS FATHER AND MOTHER 5 probable that the simplicity of the educational system and restricted role of study had to some extent a com- pensating advantage in giving him some freedom and leisure for extending his pursuit of knowledge in many other directions, and for satisfying those tastes and urgent literary desires so unusual in boyhood's days. The chief Home influences, which, together, contributed to form Cowell's character and direct perhaps the bent and aspirations of his life, were undoubtedly his Father and Mother and his Aunt Elizabeth (or Ella as she was usually called by the boys), his Mother's' sister. Any account of Cowell's early days would be incomplete with- out some notice of each of them, and it is only justice to their memory, and in accordance with his own feeling of indebtedness to them and often expressed veneration for them, that a picture of each in a few words should find a place. The Rev. M. B. Cowell, the brother, has kindly furnished me with the following brief and able notice of them, which must be given in his own words : — "Cowell's Father was a thoughtful, enlightened reader of Modern History and Philosophy, an able conversationalist and public speaker, influential in the affairs of the town, and eagerly- interested in the thrilling Reform Politics of the day. He was a correspondent of George Grote and William Cobbett, a student of Bentham and Brougham. He spent his leisure amidst the books of De Torqueville and Hallam, Guizot and Arnold. An ardent advocate of all Civil and Religious Liberty, he was rich in dreams of Fiscal Revision, Political Economy, and Radical Pro- gress. Brought up amidst the Great War, with the Waterloo confidence of a great English future, on the margin of the Victorian Era, he was no ' Little Englander.' His own future plans for his children would have been to train them up for foreign commerce, to place each of his sons apart in some Con- tinental Capital centre, and to direct himself, from Ipswich, extended business operations, such as were then perhaps too visionary, but have since been practically realised all round us. However, amidst his busy plans, he died on May 8th, 1842, of the same age as the century, and these ambitions were cut short ! " Young Edward owed also a great deal to his Mother. The love and sympathy between her and him were very real. His 6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. delight from earliest years was to share with her his growing literary interests. Possibly later Oriental tendencies may have had their start in the nursery from his mother's knees and the patri- archal tents of Genesis. His mother used to tell us younger children how our elder brother almost taught himself to read by his Bible. When very young he would sit up on his high chair by the table, and spell out the Scripture story, word by word : ' When — Isaac — was old — and — his — eyes — were dim — so that — he — could — not see.' She had been, in her own school days, sent to be educated in Evangelical Clapham, and there, as in her SuiFolk home, was brought up amidst strict religious influences. She always desired University distinction for him, and possibly clerical life. From a girl she was a careful reader. Edward learned from her his life-long habit of making extracts, notes, and copious analyses of whatever he read. She had been accustomed in her father's house to the use of a good library, and had known how to use it. She had a fair share of accomplishments. She had a genuine taste for Poetry, and on occasion had some skill with her own pen in verse-making. (In fact, a volume in MS. ot poems on domestic and familiar subjects of her experience was one of the treasures amongst the family records written for her children.) Her criticism of art was discriminating and suggestive, and she attained to some success with oil-colours in her landscape sketches. Thus her intellectual tastes and pursuits were ever a leverage and a leaven amongst her children. It was natural that her prescience should not fail as to the unusual powers of her eldest son. In him especially her motherly faith had its reward, but it was equally distributed without partiality amongst her children. A clergyman of Ipswich in early years enquired of her about her Edward, ' How is your wonderful son ? ' The good mother replied, ' Which do you mean } I have three wonderful sons.' " With the parents must be mentioned a favourite Aunt, the mother's younger and only sister, Elizabeth Byles. She was the heroine of our boyhood. In summer afternoons, she and her father and brother used to ride from the Hill House to Wherstead, and Foxhall, and Coddenham, and all the pretty country round Ipswich in turn. This dear Aunt, then in her active earlier womanhood, took great delight in making us children happy, and in helping us in her delightful ways mentally and physically. She encouraged Edward in his horsemanship, and this stood him in good stead afterwards in India. She was fond of the French light literature, then coming into fashion for French reading, and encouraged Edward to read Dumas's stories, Guizot's historical I FIRST LEANINGS TO PERSIAN 7 volumes, and the French poets with her. What splendid Scrip- ture questions she could set us, so stimulating to searching the sacred writers, and which we all in turn so coveted for our Sunday evenings at home in childhood." There was one other influence on Cowell's early life that ought at least to be mentioned. Allusion has already been made to his mother's cousin, Barnard Byles. This relative was one of Cowell's first links with literary aspira- tion and success. Cowell used to tell with interest how this cousin got up at the Hill House at 5 o'clock in the light mornings to read Blackstone's Commentaries, before his day's duties in Mr. Byles's office in the town began. Cowell confessed to this as a helpful precedent and a stimulus to himself in his own early studies. With the Hill House there was too a link with the East in the occasional visit there of Dr. Mill, of Haileybury, a pioneer of Oriental literary pursuits, a distant connection of his grandparents. There was a fair library in Ipswich, containing many old and valuable books, in rooms over the old Town Hall, called the Ipswich Literary Institution. There Cowell used to spend many of his leisure hours. Some two years before he left school, when he was not much more than fourteen years of age, he found there the works of Sir William Jones. He has told us himself that it was these works which first really awoke in his mind an interest in India and the East, that he owed the bent of his life to a Latin treatise on Arabic and Persian poetry. There were two volumes of Sir W. Jones's books that particularly attracted him, the sixth containing the Commentarii, and the ninth con- taining a translation of a Persian Poem, the Sakuntala, or the Fatal Ring. These he took home with him and read in the early mornings of the summer of 1841, his days being given to Latin and Greek at the Grammar School. After a careful study of these works, he was fortunate enough, by the aid of Mr. Levett, the Librarian of the Literary Institution, to find amongst Sir William Jones's books a Persian grammar. In his address to the Royal 8 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. Asiatic Society in i SgS,'' Cowell mentions the joy of finding this Persian grammar. From it he tells us he soon learned the character, and, with the aid of a glossary at the end, began to study the anthology of beautiful extracts by which Sir W. Jones illustrates his Rules. In October of the same year Macaulay's brilliant essay on Warren Hastings was published in the Edinburgh Review. This Cowell read with much interest, but what he best remem- bered in connection with that number was that in the list of new publications at the end there was advertised the first edition of Professor H. H. Wilson's Sanskrit grammar. He tells us that " I saved up my Christmas boxes and purchased a copy for my own. Of course I found Sanskrit too hard, and so the book had to lie on my shelves as a hope and incitement for the future, but I returned meanwhile to my Persian and worked on as well as I could by myself at the Shamamah and Hafiz^ The Librarian at the Literary Institution further aided him by introducing him to Major, afterwards Colonel, Hockley, a retired Bombay officer, settled in Ipswich. Major Hockley was in his way an enthusiast who knew Persian and probably Arabic also, and stimulated by CoweU's youth and zeal continued to read Persian with him for some years, and helped him to master the language. The latter especially tells us that they read Jami's Yusaf-ixvdi Zulaikha together. CoweU's father died on May 8th, 1842, and 'as he was the eldest son it became necessary that he should at once leave school, enter the counting house, and learn to carry on as best he might his father's business as a Merchant. When he left the school he was only a little over sixteen years of age, and his chief companions in the First Class (it was before the days of Sixth Forms) were his lifelong friend, George William Kitchin, and Charles Edward Ely. The former, who was nearly two years CoweU's junior, had entered the school in the autumn of 1837 and left at midsummer 1842 to join King's CoUege School in 1 CoweU's speech on receiving the gold medal, p. 379. I SCHOOL FELLOWS 9 London. Cowell and Ely were much of an age and had been at the school some time before Kitchin joined. The three were there together, however, for nearly five years, and in all examinations retained the same relative position, coming out in the order of Cowell, Kitchin, and Ely. Ely died in India in 1851. In Cowell's home letters from India in the early sixties he aUuded to some of his old school-fellows : "August 20, 1 86 1. Don't you remember Charles Edward Elfs animated account of his trip to Assam ? " " November 7, 1863. I wonder where my old class and form mate, Tom Beckham, is. He and I, though so very different, were always great friends. I used to admire his daring, and that redeemed his bad qualities in my young eyes. The last thing I heard of him years ago was that he was in New Zealand ; I wonder whether he is there now, and if so whether he will have any part to play in this sad struggle.^ However, he may be dead by this time, as it is many years since I heard of him. I believe the old hero to Charles Henry and me, Wildig, is in India some- where, but I have never heard of him. I should like to meet him some day." He also makes mention of several other school-fellows, Edgecombe Chevallier, John Head, William Drage, Charles Keene (of Punch renown), H. E. Keene, Mercer (now a Major-General), William Purcell and J. E. Peacock. I believe also that Meredith Townsend, whom Cowell knew afterwards in India, entered the school just before he left. None of them, however, were in the same class. One of these school-fellows writes his recollection of Cowell in those early days : — • " He was a very studious boy and a favourite with the Head Master. He was fair-complexioned with a bushy head of hair, for which he was known by the sobriquet of ' Badger.' " Another correspondent has given his recollection in graphic terms of the classic fight in those far-away school ' The Maori war. lo LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. days between William Pur cell and Charlie Keene, which ended in the discomfiture of the latter. Cowell's studiousness found a vent in these early days in writing a little magazine, which he got various members of his family to subscribe to. Several numbers were produced, and one of them has come to my hands. He named it The Ipswich Radical Magazine and Review. Vol. I., No. 3, August lo, 1 841, pp. 49-72, New Series, is the number before me, and its contents were, Lucian's True History, p. 49, Greek Romances, No. 3, p. 55, and Demosthenes de Corona (a part translated), p. 67. Cowell's first mentioned and greatest friend, George Kitchin, had a most distinguished career. He obtained a Double First Degree at Oxford, and occupied a position of great prominence in that University, and in succession was appointed to the important posts of Dean of Win- chester and Dean of Durham. With reference to these early days, the Dean kindly writes : — " Our friendship goes back to the days when we were at the old Grammar School together under Dr. Ebden. During the latter part of our Ipswich schooling we used to spend many hours together reading all sorts of books in the house in St. Clement's Street. I owe to him my taste for Literature, as distinct from school learning — though naturally enough, I (two years his junior) could not come up to him in any way. He was also a boy of singular purity and goodness of character — indeed, all his influences were on the side of good. — Always short-sighted, he was of no use for games. " I shall never forget the heroic way in which, after his father's death, he set aside his beloved language-studies and took to the counting house. — Few young fellows have ever denied themselves so nobly as he did — for he had no notion of business, and consoled himself as best he could with his books in the evenings." The Dean's testimony with regard to this almost tragic crisis in Cowell's life is most valuable, appreciating as it does the immense sacrifice that he was apparently making of his most cherished tastes and inclinations. It is not I EARLY LETTERS ii probable, it is hardly possible, that he made a good man of business, but he entered upon his work conscien- tiously, and with the aid of a Confidential clerk, he set to work to learn his business, and he did his best to keep things together for some seven years, until his next brother had been trained and was thoroughly competent to take his place. Before beginning his early letters, mention of his first holiday out of England must not be omitted. " I shall never forget," he says in a much later letter, "a short visit I paid to Guernsey and Jersey and the coast of France, with Uncle J. Byles and Aunt Ella, in July, 1843, "^y first trip out of England. I enjoyed it immensely ; the bays,, the cliffs, the druidical remains were all enchantment to me ! These islands are the sole remnant of William the Conqueror's Normandy." The following extracts from some of his letters, all of which were written to his friend George Kitchin in the years 1844—7, when he was eighteen to twenty-one years of age, will best show what he was doing in his non- business hours or in the lull of business, and to some extent the direction of his reading and studies. The letters have been most kindly lent by Dean Kitchin. " [March, 1 844. J .... I have seen another language I am mad about. The Provencal Dialect in which are written some most exquisite poems, see the last month's number of Frazer. I am now reading in French Gil Bias — what splendid fun it is ! You must come down for one poor week at least and read some of that Mattre Rahelais with me. I have actually seen a catalogue of 300 of Southey's books. I intend buying a copy of Ronsard, the very one he used in composing The Doctor, with his notes, &c. Is not this very jolly ? . . . ." "April I, 1844. I duly received your note yesterday, and am bien oblige by your prompt and persevering trials after my books ; they ought to have been successful. Deis aliter visum est. I have read these last few days two very fair books of our old friend Nonnus. It really is the strangest compound of truly Homeric grandeur with truly idiotic Robert Montgomery-like bombast and unmeaning fine phrases. What does he mean by talking of the 12 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. deXXij6K Xewv k.t.\. And yet he describes a warrior as mowing down the harvest of war, \ijia .... "jroXefiijia fiaicpa Oepo^oav. Compare our Gray, who, in a translation from the Welsh ( — oiiter — let me observe, I must learn Welsh ere many winters have flung their snows over my head. — Very beautiful n'est-ce pas ?) says : — ' As the flame's devouring force ; As the whirlwind in its course ; As the lightning's fiery stroke, Glancing on the shivered oak ; Did the sword of Conan mow The crimson harvest of the foe ! ' " Query, is this really the Welsh poet's idea or Gray's interpola- tion ?— Q.E.D. " You talk of a beautiful shop where you saw Dante, Ariosto, &c., somewhere in the Strand. Next time you go there just ask about Bojardo and Dulci' s JIdorganti Magg'iore. Talking of Dulci, voila his description of Alando's lament over his horse, done into English by mer The translation follows in twenty lines. " I fear my translation does not convey half the exquisite pathos of the original, however I can claim one merit — of being nearly word for word. I have got nearly half way in Ariosto's second Canto in my translation. I can manage the Ottava rima stanza now tolerably well. I wrote a 1 00 lines one evening. I intend reading Tacitus through next. I read in one of the Reviews that it is one of those dark pictures of mankind and this world that make our very hearts ache to read them. We seem to find our- selves in a dark cloudy region in the midst of the dark gnarled wood of our life (as Dante says), where no ray of sunshine ever pierces the gloom, and dark shading ill seems to track us on every side. How different to old Homer, in whose eyes all nature seemed to laugh pleasure and joyance in one vast ocean of delight, with the avr/piOfJiov jeXaa^fia KVfidrav. " I read, yesterday, in Jeremy Taylor a fine idea, ' that the roll- ing of the heavens above us — what was it but the turning of the spindle round which the thread of our lives is twined ? ' Is not this a splendid new thought ? I think I shall force you to reply to my host of letters ere long." On June the i oth he writes : — " .... I have been perfectly revelling in Demosthenes lately. Oh, is he not most glorious } Who can duly appreciate the swell I VISIT TO CARLYLE 13 of emotion which an Athenian must have felt when he heard the Orator thus appeal to his haughty nationality ? " [Here follows, clearly and beautifully written, a long passage in the Greek, beginning : rt ttjv iroXiv and ending — Bo^tj'; ^riv.] " Then he goes on with the soul-rousing bit, 'and surely no one for an instant would dare to say that in a man bred at Palla, then a nameless and contemptible village, it was seemly there should be such greatness of soul as to long after the sway of the Hellenes, but that in you, who are Athenians, who every day, in every word that ye speak, in every sight that ye see, behold the monuments of the valour of your ancestors, that in you, I say, there should be found such cowardice as of your own accord voluntarily to abandon the liberty of the Hellenes to Philip.' Oh ! is not this almost super- human ? " I finished the Antigone the other day — I like your translation very well, but I think you chose rather too sublime a chorus. Try the pretty one that the chorus sings about Bacchus before the dyyeXo'i comes in at the end. The one you chose is almost too fine for English to equal. You could do better with Sophocles in his softer moods. Comprenez-vous ? " "Ipswich, July 29, 1844 .... Voila ! a splendid blot or rather galaxy of blots to begin my splendid copperplate ! I really am at a loss how sufficiently to repress my admiration. I called on Professor Forbes, he is a short man, at any rate nothing above the very middle size ! He is very pleasant and promised to give me a. copy of his Persian grammar which is now in the press ! Was not this famous ? I read an Ode of Hafiz with him, and stopped rather more than an hour. " The next morning I went to Chelsea and called on Mr. Carlyle. He always spends the morning alone, and the servant told me he was then visible to nobody. I sent up my card and he told me he should be at liberty if I would come at 2 o'clock. I did so and spent a delightful half hour with him. We had a joli talk about Norse and German, &c. He recommended me to leave old Norse and apply myself to studying German. But much as I like Mr. Carlyle I like (I fear) my own way better, and being very obstinate and withal very mad at present about the Norse, I have got my grammar on my table, and shall I dare say go on with it. " Professor Forbes told me I should find but little real difficulty in Sanskrit when I had got over the threshold. Is not this delightful intelligence ? I feel 1,999,999,999 minds out of 2,000,000,000 to begin. Shall I ? Think of the Ramayana, which he says is not at all difficult ! ! — E.B.C." 14 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. "Ipswich, August 19, 1844 .... I received your letter the other day and merely write now to beg and pray of you to come and stay one week at least. I have been disappointed in having some College friends, so indeed I can by no means let you oiF. Come then bonis auspiciis and let us commence a glorious cam- paign together in a most amusing book I have got, viz., Merlin Coccaius Macarnnica, or the ever memorable adventures of Prince Baldus and the giant Fracassus, written in Italian and Latin Macaronic verses. Ou iil vous plait nous pouvons commencer ensemble le livre immortel de vieux Maitre Francois Rabelais, purifie et expurgate [y a-t-il un tel mot ?) par moi-meme} You must there- fore arrange your affairs so as to give me a week at Michaelmas." "Ipswich, November 4, 1844 .... I don't know exactly which of us is in debt about letters, however I suspect I am the culprit, so here then comes an apology and a letter to balance the account. As for apology I must say with old George Withers 'Take it and read who like, the rest may choose,' and so you may take this letter without an apology, for an you don't, you won't get one. "I am at present immerged into an indefinite aireLparov ireXayo';,^ of Metaphysics, and am worrying myself with Thomas Aquinas, Sextus Empiricus the doubter and some others of the old fathers, and fools such as Duns Scotus (whence comes dunce). Cum multis aliis quae jam perscribere longum est. . . . Have you donned the academic cap and gown yet ? And if you have what have you been reading in Greek and Latin ? Be sure you write soon." "March 8, 1845. Are you dead or living? or are you between these two states of being that Rochester calls ' Is and is not, the two great ends of fate ' ? Are you like Aeneas and ■n-oXvTpo'7TO<; ^ Ulysses gone to pay a visit (spend the Easter vaca- tion) with Cerberus, Tantalus, and Ixion ; To help the latter to a good turn ? Or are you busy at Latin and Greek and Hebrew ? Pray write by return and tell me. I am now learning, what do you think ? Sanskrit ? No ! Norse ? Yes ! I have begun with great spirit and am reading Lodbrog Guida, or the death song of Lodbrog the hairy-breeches or pantaloon warrior. . . ." "April 3, 1845. ... I thank you for your letter which I received this morning. I am glad you liked Southampton I merely spent half a day there once, but I thought it a very nice ' This book was in Cowell's library with paper pasted over the expurgated sentences. 2 Untried sea. •* Much-travelled. I SECOND TRIP ABROAD 15 clean town. You do me very great injustice in saying I don't like scenery except in books. I am very fond of really fine scenery such as one finds in Scotland, but I can't bear what I call ' cubs ' instead of ' lions^ I hate little humbugging scenery — such as one would call in Latin ' bellus^ Do you know what Martial says ? ' ^ui semper bellus, Marce, pusillus homo est.'' And another thing is I have one of my odd notions (hobby-horses) about travelling, viz., that unless the scenery is very fine indeed, travellers' descriptions always exaggerate and surpass the original. I know I found it so in France, and the scenery about the far- famed Loire. . . ." "Ipswich, September 25, 1845. ... I sit down to write you a long letter as you ask, and will not spend a line about apologies, but plunge at once in medias res. We have had a most glorious tour, I never enjoyed anything so much. We went to Ostende first, thence to Brussels, thence to Cologne, thence up that prince of rivers, the Rhine. I think I liked this as well as any part. Its banks are very fine, bold rocks and black mountains covered with old ruined castles, and then a sudden turn brought us upon quiet vineyards and meadowlands and cornfields sweeping away in the distance, with villages and peaceful cottages peeping through the trees, while through the woods we saw glimpses of the road as it swept along the banks. The view of the river as it opened upon us in front was often superb. We seemed shut in by the bleak wall of black rock like a lake, while the lofty heights threw their shadows over the waves. The whole river seemed enchanted ground, every castle had some wild legend of the days gone by — I seemed in a perfect wilderness of romance. We went up the Rhine as far as Mayence, and thence we went by railway to Frankfort, a very fine old city, full of fine old houses, built in the old fashion with high gable ends turned towards the street. We went thence to Heidelberg and saw its glorious castle, now in ruins. I had read so many novels lately about Heidelberg that I really seemed to know the place. The streets, the houses, and people seemed all familiar to me. We then went to Carls- ruhe, a fine town with nice clean wide streets — it is built in the form of a fan, and all the streets diverge from the palace like the sticks of a fan. " We then went to Stutgard and thence to Ulm, where we saw the Danube, and thence by Augsburg to Munich. Munich I liked very much — its streets are wide and its public buildings superb. We visited the palace, which is splendid, the stateroom has its floor all inlaid with gold and marble. We visited also the galleries of Sculptures and Paintings. There is a most noble 1 6 LIFE OF PROFESSOR CO WELL chap. collection of Paintings. I really did for once feel enthusiastic in art. I for once did really begin to see that painting is a kind of Poetry. There was one picture by Claude that really haunts me now. I can see it, whenever I choose to shut my eyes, with its exquisite sunset. It represented a sunset by the seashore, and the air and clouds and distant sea had all that rosy golden hue which they have sometimes on a very, very calm clear summer evening, while the lazy becalmed waves seemed really to be dashing up against the shore and break at the foot of a beautiful ruin of a Grecian temple. I felt quite bound to it as it were by a spell. I went to look at it again and again, and returned to it once more before we left the gallery. Raffaelle, Rubens, Correggio, and even my old favourite Salvator Rosa seemed nothing after Claude. " I have not time to write more, so I will conclude now and send you a further account some time next week." "Ipswich, April 23, 1846. ... I have been reading lately a very great deal of our old friend the Greek ' Doctor ' old Athen- aeus ; and I read about an old grammarian named Didymus who wrote so many books that he was called /3i/3Xio\ddr]i; ^ because he could not remember the names of his own books ! You will think I am in his condition — I have certainly been reading a most fearful number of books lately — I will only just mention a few. In Latin, Tacitus (which I think more and more splendid the more I read of him), Valerius Flaccus and Plautus (of whom I have read four or five plays). — Of the Fathers, St. Augustine and Irenaus — of the Schoolmen, Lanche — of Greek, the Odyssey, Athenaus and Plato — of Italian, Ariosto — of Persian, Haji% and Nizami — besides the Sanskrit Grammar and some twenty English books, Arnott's Chemistry and Natural Philosophy among them. Besides I have an intention dimly ' looming ' in my brain of attacking Algebra once more this summer every morning before breakfast (I am an early riser now and have been all this year) and reading up to Newton's Principia ! ! Wonders (you will say) never cease. " I shall be delighted to see you staying here during the summer. Pray come and we will read some of the divine Plato together. Plato's Symposium and Republic I have been reading lately and I think them most splendid. Plato was certainly the grand master mind of antiquity and he towers over all the rest and on his lofty Alpine head rest some herald streaks of the light of the Sun of Revelation that was so soon to rise upon the world in Bethlehem. He really does seem to anticipate the Bible and particularly the ' Book forgetting. I HIS ADMIRATION OF PLATO 17 New Testament. He says Love is the ferrier (6 fropO jJ-evuiv) between God and man, and bears the sacrifices and prayers of the one and the answers and blessings of the other. Is not this a foretaste of St. John's ' Gcd is Love ' ? " If you send me a long letter soon, I will send you a long letter full of Plato, for I never read any author that came home more to my very deepest heart than Plato. Oh ! Socrates was a dear old fellow, so brave, so strong in head and heart, so good, so kind, so everything that a Christian ought to be. Well might Ficinus say ' Vita Socratis imago seupotius umbra Vitae Christianorum.' Good-bye. I hope to have a long letter from you soon. E. B. Cowell." " Ipswich, May 29, 1 846. . . . You will be sorry to hear that I have lately lost my youngest sister. I don't know whether you remember seeing her when you came and stayed with us. She died of hooping-cough about a fortnight ago. We all miss her very much. She used sometimes to come to me when I was reading Persian books, and used to like to say the words after me, and I had taught her some of the letters and she knew them perfectly and could spell some of the Persian words ! She was not quite five. I often think of that story of Bitcas and his brother in Herodotus, It is always best to die young, though I suppose it is not best that we should always think so. " I sent you a letter some time ago and haven't had any answer ! What are you doing now ? I am reading Plato still and Lord Bacon's ' De Augmentis Scientiarum! What a splendid world of thought old Socrates leads one into ! I am perfectly astonished to find how his mind embraces everything. People tell us that the present school of German mysticism (Goethe, Kant, and Carlyle) is a new thing — but I was reading the Philebus and the sixth of Repul>lic^a.nd I find that the germs and root of Kant's idealogy are there ! I read a marvellous bit that enfolds the doctrine of the Trinity ; he says throughout all nature and in God too unity becomes plurality, and plurality unity — ev ea-rl TroXXa koI ttoXKo, ev. — Then there are such splendid myths and allegories ! ! What do you think of the following ? Iris, you know, was the daughter of Thaumas, and Plato says continually that Philosophy is the Iris, or messenger, that comes from God to man ; and one of his people in a dialogue says ' this matter makes me wonder ' Oavfia- ^ecv, and then Socrates says so solemnly and beautifully /LLoXa yap ^Ckoao^ov TOVTO TO irdOo'i, to davfid^etv. Ov jap dWr) if)i\oao(^la<; dp')(r] fj avTT] kol eoiKev 6 ttjv Ipiv ©avfiavTc; eKyovov Pantagruel, IV, 13. 26 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. much that is just and fine, particularly towards the end. Literally translated, it is as follows : — ' The heavens are a point from the pen of God's perfection ; The world is a bud from the bower of his beauty ; The sun is a spark from the hght of his wisdom, And the sky is a bubble on the sea of his power. His beauty is free from the spot of sin. Hidden in the thick veil of darkness, He made mirrors of the atoms of the world. And threw a reflection from his own face on every atom I To thy clear-seeing eye, whatsoever is fair, When thou seest it, it is a reflection of his face ' " Surely there is something beyond mere Oriental bombast in this ; Coleridge has an idea very like that at the conclusion. [Here follows the Persian text of the passage.] "Ipswich, April 14, 1845." Short articles appeared in Wades London Review ; one on "Rabelais" in April, 1845, one on "Persia and her Poets," in January, 1 846, and another on Longus (Daphnis and Chloe) in February and March of the same year. In the first of these articles he states that " Many persons are not aware that in Rabelais' strange book can be found by far the grandest passages of French prose. Many of his serious sentences rival Bacon." The first striking article by Cowell appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine of December, 1846, on " Homeric Influence in the East ; or some remarks on a passage in .Sllian." It is headed with this sentence : " Aristoteles maintient les paroles d'Homere estre voltigeantes, volantes, mouvantes, et par consequent anim^es." Rabelais, IV. 55. Much had been written on the influence which the Homeric poems had exercised upon the mind of Europe, but little attention had been paid to the question, how far that influence had extended to the East. The object of the paper was to show how largely the gigantic epics in the ancient language of India had been so influenced. " The resemblance," he says, " pervades not only the outward but even their inner character, and appears no less in the thoua;hts I PERSIAN LEGEND IN ATHENiEUS 27 and manners of the age that they reflect than in the incidents and style. On opening the Mahabhdrata or Shahnamah we seem to be reading an Oriental edition of Homer. The simple majesty of the Greek wears indeed an Oriental dress (like Themistocles at the court of Persia), but the general lineaments are too alike to be passed over unnoticed. There are especially many passages in the Shahnamah (as we shall shortly prove) which, to use a trite Latin word that once contained a beautiful thought, cannot be other than an ' adumbratio ' of the Iliad^ as its memory floated dim in the popular traditions." The passage from NXvax\ which he accepts as a partial solution of the difficulty is translated : " The Indians have translated Homer into their native language, and not only they sing his poetry, but also the Kings of Persia, if one may believe the historians." The article goes on to show that Themistocles resided at the Persian Court, and learned their language thoroughly in a year, and that he might have spread the fame of the Iliad if it were unknown before ; and if once the national bards learned to recite any of its episodes, it might be easily conceived that they would mould the character of all their future songs after them. The resemblance of the Shahnamah to the Iliad in style is touched upon, and examples are given, together with a long translation of the story of Sohrab. In the July number of the same Magazine of the following year, 1847, there is another article, "Some remarks on a Persian Legend in Athenasus." His former paper appeared to throw light on a part of the romantic literature of Persia as preserved in the national epic of Shahnamah in which is preserved, as in a Mausoleum, all that the nation knows of its ancient history. In con- tinuation of his desire to show how Greek writers throw light upon those Oriental works, he gives the following translation of an extract from Athenaeus, the bearing of which on the Persian epic he thinks has never been noticed. He adds that probably most of the Shahnamah legends might be identified and proved, in a similar manner, if time had spared us more of the Greek authors on Persia. The following almost identical legends, the one translated 28 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. from the Greek of Athenaeus, and the other from the Persian of Firdusi, were printed and buried in the Gentleman s Magazine so long ago that it will not be uninteresting to call them to recollection and reproduce them here in evidence of Cowell's early recognition of the relation between them. He tells us that in the thirteenth book of his " Deipnosophists," Athenaeus relates the following story from the twelfth book of Chares of Mitylene's history of Alexander : — "Zariadres was the younger brother of Hystaspes, and both were fair ; and the tradition amongst the people was that they were born of Venus and Adonis. Hystaspes ruled over Media and the country below it, and Zariadres over the country above the Caspian gates as far as the Tanais. Now Omartes, the king of the Marathi, a tribe beyond the Tanais, had a daughter named Odatis ; and the legend runs that she once saw Zariadres in a dream and fell in love with him ; and the same thing also happened to him. And for some time they continued thus, deeply loving each other from the image in the dream. Now Odatis was the fairest of all the women in Asia, and Zariadres too was fair ; but on his asking her in marriage of her father, Omartes would not consent, as he had no other child but this one daughter, and he wished to marry her to someone of his own people that she might be ever near him. And not long afterwards Omartes summoned all the noblemen of his kingdom and all his friends and relations and made a marriage feast, but he told no one who it was that was to marry his daughter. And at length when the feast was at its height he called Odatis into the hall and said to her in the hearing of all the guests, ' O my daughter Odatis we are now making thy marriage feast ; look round therefore on the guests and view them all and take a golden cup and fill it, and give it to him whom thou wilt choose as thy husband ; for his wife shalt thou be.' And she then looking round upon all, walked slowly away, longing to see her Zariadres. For she had previously sent a message to him, how that her marriage was about to be solemnised. And he happened at the time to be encamped by the Tanais ; and immediately on hearing it he left the army secretly and set out with his charioteer, and after driving hard over more than 8oG stadia he reached the city by night ; and on drawing near to the place where the revel was held, he left his attendant with the chariot hard by and marched I SHAHNAMAH form of the legend 29 boldly in, having put on a Scythian dress. And on his entering the hall he beheld Odatis standing by the cup-board {tov kvXi- Keiov) and weeping bitterly as she slowly lifted the cup ; and standing close by her he said in a low voice, ' O Odatis, I am come as thou badest — I, thy Zariadres.' And she turning round and beholding the fair stranger, so like him whom she had seen in her dream, joyfully put the cup into his hand ; and he, seizing her in his arms, bore her away to his chariot and fled. And the ser- vants and handmaidens who knew of their love stood silent ; and when the father ordered them to speak they said that they knew not whither she was gone. And this their love is known amongst all the dwellers in Asia — and greatly indeed do they prize it ; and they sculpture it on their temples and palaces — aye, and even in their own private houses — and many of the nobles call their daughters Odatis after her." It would have been sad, Cowell says, if this well- known legend had perished, but it had been preserved in the national poem of Persia, with wonderful exactness considering the vicissitudes to which it had been exposed. Every trace of the old ballad-literature of Persia was believed to have been destroyed by the Mahometans after their conquest of the country, until in the reign of Mahmoud of Ghazni, an old chronicle was discovered (compiled by the order of Yezdjird, the last king of Persia) which preserved these ballads in a prose form, as Pictor and Cincius preserved those of ancient Rome. Firdusi was employed to remodel them into a poetic form, and this he has done in his Shahnamah, in which great epic the story took the form of which the following is Cowell's translation : — " How GusHTASP Wooed His BRmE. "The King of Riim cast about in his mind, That since his daughter was now of age, Since she was now tall of stature and ripe for marriage. It was time that he gave her away to a husband. He resolved that he would gather an assembly at his palace Of all his wise nobles and counsellors ; There should meet together all his friends and chiefs. And all his mighty men proved in war. In her father's palace that moon-faced maiden Was to come forth to that assembly, seeking a husband, 30 LIFE OF PROFESSOR CO WELL chap. And her maidens were to stand round her on every side, So that no man might see her face. Now in the chambers of this mighty king Lived three daughters all like roses in spring ; Fair in stature, and countenance, and manners, Fair, too, in judgment, and modesty, and virtue. And the eldest of the three was Kitaiyun, And wise was she, and glad-hearted, and happy. And one night Kitaiyun had had a dream, — She had seen in her sleep 'a land of sunshine. And a band of chieftains were gathered there In a bright cluster, like Pleiades ; And amongst them all was a stranger, A wanderer, all desolate and alone. His stature like a cypress, and his face like the moon, And he sat on the ground like a king on his throne. And she dreamed that she gave him a garland And he gave her another, full of colours and scents, in return, — And in the morning, when the sun came forth, The nobles all awoke from their sleep, And the King called a great assembly together. Of all who were valiant and illustrious ; And with joy did they hasten to the assembly, And they called the fairy-faced princess in. Kitaiyun came with her sixty attendants, And she held a bunch of fresh narcissus in her hand. And she walked along, and sadness crept over her, For not in that assembly was the man of her choice. And she turned away from the hall and went back to her chamber. Walking slowly and weeping, with a longing heart. Night came, and the ground grew dark like a raven's wing, Till once more the sun lifted his head from the mountains ; Then the king commanded that all the youths in his kingdom, High and low, should meet at his palace, That all should come in assembly there. Till his daughter found a husband to her heart. And when the news spread through the city. To the nobles and the high and the low. All turned their faces to the palace of the King, All blossoming with the colours and sweet odours of hope, And the good husbandman ^ said to Gushtasp, ' Why dost thou sit in obscurity here ? Go, thou may'st see the palace and the court. And perhaps thy spirit may lose its load of care there.' And when Gushtasp heard this, he rose and went with him. And he came in haste to the palace of the king. And he sat down in a corner apart from the chieftains. He sat full of sorrow and with a wounded heart. ' Gushtasp had fled from his father's kingdom, who had continually shown a great partiality for his children by another wife ; and Gushtasp and his brother Zarir (Hystaspes and Zariadres) had received many proofs of it ; the former therefore left the country and fled to Riim, and lodged there with a poor husbandman. . KITAIYUN AND GUSHTASP 31 The attendants came forth with cheerful looks, And Kitaiyun, and her rose-cheeked handmaidens ; And she slowly walked around the hall, With the counsellors behind her, and her maidens beore. And when she beheld Gushtasp at a distance. She exclaimed, ' My dream has returned out of darkness ! ' And she called the young man before her, And placed her crown on his happy head. When the wise Vizier beheld what was done, He turned and hastened at once to the King, And cried, ' She has chosen a man from the crowd, In stature like a tall cypress in the garden, With a cheek like the rose, and broad shoulders ; All who look on him behold him with wonder : You would say that he was a son of heaven ; But I know him not, nor who he is.' The King replied, ' God forbid that my daughter Should bring disgrace on her noble race. If I give my daughter to an unknown fellow like this My head will lie down low in dishonour ! Go take her and him whom she has chosen, too. And strike off their heads in the palace.' The Vizier replied, ' This must never be done, For too many of the nobles were present before thee. Thou badest thy daughter choose her husband. Thou saidest not that she was to choose a king. She sought for one who might please her heart ; For the sake of Heaven strike not off her head. Such has been the custom of thy ancestors, The custom of those mighty and pure-hearted heroes ; Through this hath thy kingdom been established. Seek not to break thine oath, nor wander in an unknown path of error. When the King heard these words he changed his purpose, And he gave his peerless daughter to Gushtasp ; But he said to her, ' Go with him such as thou art. Never shalt thou have treasure, or throne, or sceptre from me.' When Gushtasp beheld this, he marvelled greatly. And he prayed in heart to the Maker of the World. And he turned and said to the maiden, ' O thou, who hast been brought up in softness and luxury. With a rank so lofty and a crown thine own. Why hast thou made choice of such a wretch as I ? Thou hast chosen an outcast, and if thou livest with him. Thou wilt find no treasure, but a life of woe. O seek one of thy equals, amongst these noblemen That thy father's face may look brightly on thee once more.' Kitaiyun answered, ' Thou knowest me not, Repine not at the decrees of heaven ; If I am contented to share thy lot. Why should'st thou talk of a crown or throne ? ' Slowly then walked out of her father's hall Kitaiyun and Gushtasp, with many a sigh, And they came to the house of the husbandman, And sat them down there, unseen and unknown." 32 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. Some thirteen or fourteen centuries had passed since that ballad first telling this beautiful story was sung, but Firdusi the Persian poet found the materials as fresh and living as ever, and the similarity of the names and many of the incidents leave no doubt as to the identity of the stories as told in the two ancient languages. Another point of great interest is the idea that Gushtasp is Darius. If this is not fully true it is certain, as Cowell says, that much of their history is identical. Cowell has himself told us that the first long article that he even got printed was one on " Persian Poetry " in the Westminster Review of July, 1 847, when he was only in his twenty-first year. The book that he reviewed was the Rose Garden of Persia, by Sadi, and the opening sentences of his article may well be quoted here to show the warm and vigorous grasp of his subject that he had already obtained : — " No nation in the world, we believe, has ever produced so many poets as Persia. By far the greater portion of her literature is in verse, and the longest life could scarcely read through the never ending series of manuscripts that contain it. But happily for human patience her writers are not all first rate. Even more than the usual proportion are worthless, and a selection that would include the best, and a course of reading that would embrace their works, are by no means unattainable. Among the multitudes that ' lisp in rhyme ' she has produced many that it is impossible to read, but she has also produced some that would be an honour to any age or clime. The names of Hifiz, Firdusi, and SAdi are well known in this country ; and, as usual, the public mind in its strong rough way has managed by a kind of intuition to lay hold of the best. Time is just, and in the long run we can trust the ' common sense of most ' in everything." The article, which is charming from its sanguineness and the freshness of youth, is a long one and showed great industry in the number of passages Cowell had translated into English verse, some of considerable length. Here is a short one, a translation from Firdusi, of one of his sweetest descriptions of a night scene over a battlefield : — I THE MESNAVI 33 " The bright sun sank down into the ocean, And the black night followed in haste ; The stars came forth like flowers, and the heaven was like a garden ; The Pleiades were like a moth, and the moon was the lamp." Cowell makes the following pertinent remarks on this : — " A Persian mind imbued with these favourite superstitions feels the full force of the allusion, and to him it is a symbol of beauty ; and to appreciate Persian poetry aright it must seem so also in our eyes. Why is it not as good an illustration as Tennyson's ' fire- flies tangled in a silver braid,' as he describes the Pleiades in ' Locksley Hall ' ? In some respects Firdusi's simile is better, because a sv^arm of fire-flies has no particular association connected with it, while the Persian simile to a Persian audience (and Firdusi wrote for no other), abounds with such associations and recalls a hundred pleasing memories along with it." Cowell then goes on to give his opinion of the Mesnavi, a long poem in six cantos by the poet Jelaleddin. It is, he says, a remarkable production of the Eastern mind. It is full of tales and apologues in longer or shorter form, containing either jokes or more or less pathetic tales, or even splendid allegories. Here is one of the stories as told in the article : — " There is a story told by Jelaleddin, probably founded on some old Jewish legend, which describes a shepherd coming to Moses and offering to be his servant. ' Where dost thou live that I may be thy slave ? I will mend thy garments and adorn thy head ; or if sickness come nigh thy tent I will nurse and love thee like thy very self.' Moses rejects the suppliant as unworthy of his notice, and God's voice is heard from heaven rebuking the prophet's pride, and reminding him that all his talents were from above and were only lent to him for the good of the world and the relief of man's estate. If our space allowed it we could quote largely from this fine old story, as it is told in Jelaleddin's best manner." I will complete my notice of this first article by inserting one of the longer translations in it. But before doing so I will interpolate an extract from one of D 34 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. FitzGerald's letters ^ to Cowell as it criticises the article and especially the Mosaic legend just quoted : — [Jan. 25, 1848.] " I liked your paper on the ' Mesnavi ' very much ; both your criticism and the Mosaic legend. That I may not seem to give you careless and undistinguishing praise, I will tell you that I could not quite hook on the latter part of JVloses to the former ; did you leave out any necessary link of the chain in the hiatus you made ? or is the inconsequence only in my brains ? So much for the legend ; and I must reprehend you for one bit of Cockney about Memories rosary at the end of your article, which but for that I liked so much. So judges Fitz-dennis ; who, you must know by this time, has the judgment of Moliere's old woman, and the captiousness of Dennis. Ten years ago I might have been vext to see you striding along in Sanscrit and Persian so fast ; reading so much ; remembering all ; writing about it so well ; and I know that it is my vocation to stand and wait, and know within my self whether it is done well." The remark about Memories rosary which FitzGerald criticises in this letter occurred in another article. The longer translation which I select from the article as most interesting in itself as well as a type of the style and manner of several of the others was then in seventy- two lines. I give, however, a copy which was written out by Prof. Cowell as late as September, 1902, which contains only sixty lines. I have, however, restored the twelve lines omitted for the sake of completeness. It is called The Persian Apologue of the Merchant and his Parrot. " A parrot belonged to a merchant sage, A beautiful parrot confined in a cage ; And one day the good merchant's fancy planned A journey of trade to far India's land. He bade all his servants and handmaids come, And he asked them what gift he should bring them home ; And each servant and handmaid with thanks confessed What gift it might be which would please them best ; To his bird then he turned and said smilingly, ' And what Indian gift shall I bring for thee ? ' > Letters atni IJtcrarv Remains of Eihvard FitzGerahi bv W AIHk Wright. Vol. I. ' ^ i^.rtiais THE MESNAVI 35 The parrot replied, ' When thou goest thy way And beholdest my fellows as there they play, Oh, give them my message, and tell them this — Let them know from me what captivity is ; Oh tell them, " a parrot, a friend of yours, Who has danced with you in these happy bowers, Has been carried away by ill fate's design And now is confined in a cage of mine ; He sends you the blessings that love should send. And he prays you to think of your absent friend," He says, " is it right I should pine, alas ! While you dance all day on the trees and grass ; Is this to be faithful in friendship or love, — I here in a prison and you in a grove ? Oh remember our union in days gone by. And send me some help in captivity." ' The merchant set out and his way pursued Till he came at last to an ancient wood On the borders of Ind, where in summer glee The parrots were dancing from tree to tree. He stayed his horse as he past them went. And gave them the message his parrot had sent. When one of the birds, as the words were said. Fell off from its branch to the ground as dead. Sore lamented the sage as the parrot fell, ' God's creature is slain by the words I tell. Yon parrot and mine were noX friends alone. Their bodies were two, but their soul was one. This tongue of mine is like flint and steel. And all that it utters are sparks which kill.' So he went on his way with a heavy heart, And traded in many a distant mart. And at length, when his traffic and toil were o'er, He returned to his welcome home once more. To every servant a gift he brought. To every maiden the boon she sought, And the parrot too asked, when his turn was come, ' Oh, where is the gift thou hast brought me home ? ' "Twas a bitter message,' the sage replied, ' For when it was given thy companion died ; ' And the parrot as soon as the words were said. Fell off from his perch to the floor as dead. When the merchant beheld it thus fall and die He smote his head with a bitter cry ; ' Oh my sweet-voiced parrot, why fallest thou low. My faithful partner in joy and woe ? Oh alas ! alas ! alas ! too soon A deep cloud of night has veiled my moon ! ' Then out of the cage the bird he threw And lo ! to the top of a tree it flew. And while he stood gazing with wondering eyes. It thus answered his doubts, and removed surprise : — ' Yon Indian parrot appeared to die. But it taught me a lesson of liberty. D 2 36 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL ch. i That since 'twas my voice which imprisoned me, I must die to escape, and once more be free.' It then gave him some words of advice ere it flew. And then joyfully wished the gopd merchant adieu ; ' Thou hast done me a kindness ; good Master, farewell ! Thou hast freed me for aye from the bond of that cell ; Farewell, my good Master, for homewards I fly., One day thou shalt gain the sa?ne freedom as I.' " Cowell had, as we shall see in the next chapter, been for some time working at Sanskrit, although it is believed that his systematic study of the subject under Professor H. H. Wilson did not really commence until 1851. His remarkable industry prevailed, and he must also have profited by his frequent visits to that Professor at the India House, for in October, 1848, there appeared a long article signed (C.) in the Westminster Review on " Indian Epic Poetry " (Sanskrit). I shall have to refer to this article again. But meantime it is interesting to discover how it was that Cowell came to select this particular Review for his first important essays in literature. He himself teUs us this in a most interesting letter ^ of as recent a date as June 15th, 1902, written after reading Mrs. Fawcett's most fascinating life of Sir William Molesworth. The memoir, he teUs us, carried him back to his boyhood when he was a vehement " Radical " (like his father), and made Grote and Molesworth his two heroes. His father had always subscribed to the London Review, and subsequently on its change of name to the Westminster Review, and he remembered, as I also re- member, those books on the shelves in the Library of his Ipswich home. It was natural then that he should try to find a place for his first articles in a magazine with which he was so familiar. This interesting letter shows also that the book which inspired it reminded him how in his schoolboy way he had followed Mr. Grote after that term. He says : " I was carried away from Politics by the far more vehement enthusiasm for Classical Literature, and then from 1843 for Persian, just as Mr. Grote retired from Parliament to bury himself in his Greek History ! " ' This letter is printed in Chapter IX. CHAPTER II ENGAGEMENT AND MARRIAGE LIFE AT BRAMFORD 1845 1850 It is remarkable that in none of Cowell's letters that have come into my hands is there a single word with reference to his engagement and marriage. In the many letters written to his most intimate friend, George Kitchin, which have been preserved, and some of which were printed in the previous chapter, there is no allusion to either. At this distance of time when one has to trust to the recollections of survivors it is difficult to obtain details of events which became so far-reaching and potent in shaping his future career. There is little more than the simple history that by a Mr. Thomas Leech, a relative of Cowell's grandfather's second wife, he was introduced to John Charlesworth, a young man about his own age who had been at a private school at Ipswich, and was then an undergraduate at St. John's College, Cambridge. Thomas Leech and his friend Samuel Clarke, both under- graduates at Cambridge, came in the year 1 843 to stay at the St. Clement's house in Ipswich, and during the visit Cowell took his friends for a ramble to Bramford, a picturesque village three miles from Ipswich, and always a favourite walk in those far-away schooldays. On nearing their destination they were minded to call upon their college friend, John Charlesworth, and proceeded to take Cowell with them. On passing over Bramford 38 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. bridge, across the river Gipping, the party met, I had almost said accidentally, John Charlesworth and his sister Elizabeth, and thus Cowell and his future wife met and were informally introduced to each other, and walked together to the home of the Charlesworth family. The Rev. John Charlesworth was Rector of Flowton, near Ipswich, and resided in the neighbouring pretty village of Bramford. The sons were, Samuel, who received a legal training but afterwards gave up the law and took holy orders and became, in succession, Rector of Limpsfield, and Rector of LImehouse in East London ; Edward became famous for his geological researches and died Curator of the Museum at York ; and John, above mentioned, who died in September, 1846, soon after his ordination to his father's curacy at St. Mildred's, Bread Street. The daughters were Elizabeth Susan and Maria Louisa, who were both clever and remarkable women. Maria became known later, and achieved great success, as the authoress of children's books. The most successful and best known of these were Ministering Children and England's Yeomen, charming books which found their way into the religious homes not only of England but of all English-speaking people, and were translated into French, German, Italian and Spanish. She died in 1880 at the age of sixty. Elizabeth, in whom we are most interested, was the elder daughter. She was fascinated at once by the shy, quiet, intelligent student to whom she had been introduced as described. The first meeting between Edward CoweU and Elizabeth Charlesworth took place, as we have seen, on the picturesque bridge over the River Gipping at Bramford, and there could not have been a lovelier scene for so happy a romance. That the admiration was mutual was evident to all who saw them together, unobtrusive and retiring as was the deportment of both. One who was then a young friend of Elizabeth's writes her recol- lections that one evening when she was staying with the Charlesworths, " the young student came ' promiscuously ' 11 HIS ENGAGEMENT 39 and stayed supper, and at once I was sure who he was, though no demonstration that I detected was made on either side. Nor did I tell my friend that I knew, nor did she make any remark to me about the unexpected guest, who I need hardly say did nothing to put himself en evidence. Thrilling as was the interest with which I found myself in the same room with him, I was unable to perceive anything but an unobtrusiveness amounting to shyness." The same correspondent adds that the court- ship " went on for what seemed to me a long time before it was recognised by her father and became an engage- ment accepted by him." " From Elizabeth herself I knew of the strong affection she entertained for the young student, when it was a hope rather than a certainty that it was returned. During that period I enjoyed the most \sic\ of personal intercourse I ever had with her before her marriage." No engagement was entered upon or recog- nised by the families until the autumn of 1845, when a definite engagement was announced. I remember well the excitement and almost consternation that the announcement of Cowell's engagement produced upon us youngsters when the senior amongst us, who was still nearly four months short of his twentieth birthday, had thus early succumbed to what appeared to us boys as an unexpected and unwarranted attack upon his freedom, a feeling which was probably increased by the knowledge that Elizabeth Charlesworth was more than fourteen years his senior. All prejudice was at once overcome, however, when we had the happiness and gratification of being introduced to the gracious and agreeable lady who after- wards became a sister and cousin amongst us. Her bright intelligence, her sympathy with young people, and her desire always to inspire in us the highest aim and an ardent desire to succeed in its fulfilment, added a power to the more mature mind and gave her a great influence over us, the effect of which it would be difficult to exaggerate ; indeed it is quite impossible to measure it at this remote distance of time. 40 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. Cowell had from the first felt that at the meeting on Bramford Bridge he had met the sharer of his future life. If any addition were needed to the halo of romance which surrounded this remarkable engagement, it would be the fact that Edward FitzGerald, who was so Intimately connected with Cowell's career, was himself a great admirer of Elizabeth Charlesworth. He had known the Charlesworths for some years, and amongst FitzGerald's letters ^ there are some to Mrs. Charlesworth written in 1 844. Mr. W. Aldis Wright tells us that FitzGerald was collecting information for Thomas Carlyle on the subject of Cromwell's Lincolnshire campaign, and the letters show that both Mrs. and Miss Charlesworth were collecting records and traditions and submitting them to FitzGerald's criticism. In one of his letters to Mrs. Charlesworth he says : — " I received your last packet just as I was setting ofF for Suffolk. I sent part of it to Carlyle. I enclose you what answer he makes me this morning. If Miss Charlesworth will take the pains to read his dispatch of Gainsborough Fight, and can possibly rake out some information in the doubtful points, we shall help to lay that unquiet spirit of history which now disturbs Chelsea and its vicinity. Please keep the paper safe : for it must have been a nuisance to write it. Boulge, May 7/44." Long before the date of this letter Miss Charlesworth used to go and stay with the Bartons and the FItzGeralds both at Woodbridge and Boulge, and explore all that pleasant neighbourhood in drives and rambles. To the end FitzGerald's published letters abundantly show a discriminative admiration for her mental ability and her charm of character," some of which will be quoted 1 Letters of Edward FitzGerald. 2 Vols. Lend., 1894. Edited by W. Aldis Wright. ^ FitzGerald took great interest in the charming little pieces of poetry written by Elizabeth both before and after her marriage, and often suggested alterations which occurred to his critical sense, emendations however that were by no means always accepted. Her little poems, many of which had appeared in various magazines, were published in II HIS LADY AND SANSKRIT 41 in their proper place. It is certain, however, that if there was any feeling of more than admiration, Edward FitzGerald never expressed it, and there would have been no evidence at this time of any decided preference had he not remarked, when Cowell announced his engagement in his presence, " The deuce you are ! Why ! you have taken my Lady ! " At the time of CoweU's engagement, he had made up his mind to commence in earnest the study of the Sanskrit grammar, and under the influence of this deter- mination it was characteristic of the man that his new love could not be allowed to interfere with the old. He forthwith invented a new way of courting. He persuaded his lady to learn Sanskrit and indulged his love of the latter in teaching it to her by letter. They two may therefore be said to have commenced Sanskrit together. Some of the letters remain which bear testimony to the unique use that was made of this engaged time. They must of course be sacred, but a few extracts from them may be permitted, as they tell so faithfully and well the charming character of the man and how concurrently, if not equally, his Lady and his Sanskrit shared his love. [No date.] " I am writing upon the Sanskrit book, and my eye rests on the word ' aranya,' and this I must send as our first lesson. I always feel such a ' reverential awe ' when I think or hear or read of anything connected with the word ' forest.' As far as I can trace the feeling back, it arises from reading in childhood a passage that used to fill me with such a haunting feeling, almost amounting to terror — it was in Pilgrifri's Progress, where Christian parts from his two companions at the foot of the hill of Difficulty, and then go their different ways. And Bunyan goes on, ' And I saw that one went into a gloomy forest which opened into a plain where were many mountains, and he stumbled and fell and rose no more.' I have many a time read these words in the nursery, as dusk was coming on, till I felt afraid. But to return, I suppose it is this that gave me the feeling of awe which haunts me now whenever I hear anything about the word ' forest.' " 1839, under the name of Historical Reveries, by a Suffolk villager. A later edition with additions was published by Seeley and Co., in 1891, under the name oi Leaves of Mejuory. 42 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. [No date.] " I have been thinking that it would be stupid work to send Longus to the December number of Wade just at the close of the year — it will be much better for January to begin a new one. I have resolved therefore on making one for this month about Rabelais, and have done some deal of it to-day. Longus will come out with more eclat perhaps at the beginning of a new volume and year (He sends the Sanskrit vowels.) Did you ever see such dreadful letters. I am sure you have had enough of it for to-night. At any rate .... Excuse my scrabbings, for Sanskrit letters are the worst I have ever yet seen." [No date.] " I sent to Wade last night the poem about miracles." " Nov. 7, 1845. What do you think I have been doing ? I, the grave ' philosopher.' I hope you won't despise me or laugh at me, but I the grave Sanskrit learner have j ust been playing ! Maurice has had his little cousin come to play with him and / — alas I ! have been blind man in a game of blind man's bufF. I am sure our friend Aulus Gellius, if he were here, could never get over it ! " Do not try to learn too much at a time. We have all our lives before us to learn Sanskrit, and let us therefore ground ourselves well. I know nothing is lost by that, though you may seem to spend a long time and make but little progress. Yet you know what you have learned, and have it at your fingers' ends." "Nov. 15. I sent ofF Longus and Rabelais I am going to give you a Sanskrit lesson, a long one too, so, ' good friend of mine,' let us forget for awhile ' rhyme ' and ' reason ' too, and fancy ourselves two Hindoos of the olden days under the banyan trees, or palms, before Alexander invaded India." " Dec. 3. Last Christmas Day I first read our Sallust — first found out that the powers of bodies are bodiless — first made the acquaintance of his dear little book which we both are so indebted to. Perhaps next Christmas Day we may find out something new in this piece of Jimi The more I think of that piece, the more I wonder that Persia could have produced any- thing so like Emerson where Emerson is truest and greatest ' Every earthly veil is a veil of thi! beauty, every fate that moves the heart of man is a veil of this.' This sentence seems to me wonderfully deep. It seems related to that piece of Sallust, ' the powers of bodies are bodiless,' because everything that hath ever taken deep hold of the heart of man must, according to Sallust, do so by an invisible bodiless influence which Jimi would call the II THE SANSKRIT LESSONS 43 spirit of beauty. However, be this as it may, Jami is most magnificent." "Jan. 13, 1846." (He sends a translation of a poem by Jdmi) : " Thou hast filled all my heart with the treasures of lore, Let my tongue pour forth gems from that infinite store ; Thou hast opened me Nature's rich casket, thy hand Spreads my fame and my glory like musk in the land. Let my pen then drop jewels in every line. And cover my book with a glory divine. In life's tavern alas ! all is empty and vain, I hear not the sound of a heavenly strain, My friends have drunk wine and departed and gone. They have emptied the tavern and left me alone, They have left me to sorrow, have left me to grief. And the goblet affords me no means of relief The Saki no longer pours wine in the bowl ; Yet wherefore should anguish lay hold of my soul ? Come Jdmi, arouse thee, and prelude no more. Bring forth all the treasures thou hast in thy store." " I have sent you quite an Oriental letter this evening. I hope you will make it out and like Jami. Remember, I have been quoted in Eraser on account of my extract from Jami ! . . . . " You may expect ere long (for it isn't begun yet — but it has been running in my head before breakfast to-day) a wild, dreamy poem about the old world fulfilling its young dreams. So you may be thinking about it." "Jan. 14." (He sends the Sanskrit consonants.) "We find a demon on the threshold here too. We have vanquished the other demon that we met with. The contractions, the vowels, and Ksh, we must hope that love and industry can conquer this too. .... Remember, we have a real difficulty, a crowning one {real in Spanish means ' royal ') (ought I not to be more serious, more like a grave pedant in thus coming to this terrible point ?).... We shall find Sanskrit hard and harder, but nothing ever worth getting was attained without toil and trouble .... And the Ramayana and Kalidasa ought not to be read by everybody ; let them be read only by those who, like us, hope to spend life in quiet, silent, unknown study, and living over again the silent years of the once so busy and loud Past I like Sanskrit more and more. I never thought I should get on so well. . . ." "Jan. 16." (After notes about Sanskrit vowels.) "This is a kind of dry-as-dust letter about words and gerund-grinding, but this gerund-grinding must seem important to us or we shall not , learn it." "Jan. 17." (Explaining how the labials are formed, by moving 44 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. the lips.) " It reminds me of years and years and years ago, when I was a little boy at school, and when I used to be very naughty and talk in school hours, and I found out that the master could never see me talking unless when I pronounced these very labial letters, and therefore I used to avoid them in my conversation to my neighbours, lest my lips should move and betray me. " May God teach us more and more that all knowledge and learning and talent without His blessing to be on them, and the love of Him to be in them, are worse, oh ! far worse than idle lost gifts, they are curses." "Jan. 19, 1846. I have actually this afternoon made out a line of the Nala and parsed it grammatically, applying the grammatical rules. Are we not getting on ? Sanskrit really, I believe, is not so hard as people make out." (Asking her not to work too hard.) " Remember, if we know Sanskrit ten years hence, it will be quite time enough — there need be no hurry about it. " As you must remember, / can say in languages ' my superior years ' (souvenez vous), as Sanskrit is the ninth language I have learned, including English. I find that if you ground yourself well it will spare you great trouble at the last." "Jan. 26. I have been getting on with Sanskrit lately, you will forgive my haste I know, and my getting a little before you, but I have learnt the first declension perfectly." "Nov., 1846." (With the ninth declension). "And when this is learned, and the appendix too, I wish you joy .... as having really entered the temple of Sanskrit. The vestibule is passed and the temple arches over us ! Allons ! " " Dec. 4, 1846. I hope now to be able to do one of Augustine's [sermons i] for you perhaps I have got a ' very wild ' sea- weed ready for you when it is earned I am glad you have got Mr. Barton's book — be sure you do as I told you, and put it at the bottom of these seaweeds of mine, as the foundation on which they all rest, figuratively and literally ! " By-the-bye, I remember, and singularly enough never recol- lected till this moment, that Mr. Ebden knew Prof. W. [ilson], and he could get me introduced to him if ever I went to Oxford." "Feb. 20, 1847." (At the end of a long paper on Sanskrit verbs.) " Here ends my first ' fytte ' ; my vestibule into the dark and mysterious ' Elephanta Cave ' of Sanskrit conjugation : here are the dim niches and columns, which lead the way to the During the last year of the courtship Cowell used on most Sundays to translate and send by the evening's post a translation of one of St! Augustine's Sermons. II TRANSLATION FROM ATHEN^US 45 romance within, where Vyasa and Valmiki and Kalidasa hold their high discourse. The way is dark, where'er we gaze, And dimly do our torches blaze, Throwing a faint and fitful glare On many a niche and mouldering stair, And in each columned avenue Heavy and low Time's wind blows through ! Beneath us rest the bones of sages. Above us tower the thoughts of ages ; Sages and ages both wee past, Yet still their works, like shadows, last. And though their deeds have died away, Their words of power shall live for aye ! " You must remember Tasso's words : — ' Nello Scuolo'd'Amor eke non's'apprende ?' " They then begin Johnson's Selections from the Maha- bharata, and at the end of his translation of the first he writes : — " The first selection conquered Cingile tempera floritus Suave olentis Amaraci." Whilst these two were learning and reading Sanskrit together, Cowell made other translations which he laid at the feet of his future wife. There was one from Athe- naeus which she especially treasured, on which she wrote, "translated by Edward, February 2nd, 1845." This copy in Cowell's own handwriting is now in the Cambridge University Library : — Oh holiest Health, all other gods excelling. May I be ever blest With thy kind favour, and in Life's poor dwelling Be thou, I pray, my constant guest. If aught of charm or grace to mortal lingers Round wealth or kingly sway, Or children's happy faces in their play. Or those sweet bands which Aphrodite's fingers Weave round the trusting heart. Or whatsoever joy or breathing space Kind heaven hath given to worn humanity — Thine is the charm, to thee they owe the grace ; Life's chaplet blossoms only where thou art, And pleasure's year attains its sunny spring. And where thy smile is not, our ioy is but a sigh. 46 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. I will venture to give extracts from two other letters of Cowell's during these courtship days. Miss Charlesworth was an exceedingly clever woman. Her reading had been wide. She was conversant with Latin and Greek. She had got as far as Conic Sections in mathematics, and she had, as we have seen, published anonymously a volume of poems. It is not surprising, then, that she thoroughly appreciated her student lover, and he in his turn loved to confide to her his inmost thoughts with regard to the subjects of his reading. " Ips. May 22, '47. I put your two flowers in the dialogue or Plato that I am reading — the ' Phaedrus.' I am going to translate some of it for you. I find that in a myth which Socrates tells in it are to be found those lines which Emerson quotes in one of his Essays, and which often have made me wonder where it could possibly come from. I wonder whether you remember the bit. It struck me very much. It was this. Emerson says, 'I hear always the law of Adrastera. That every soul which had acquired any knowledge of truth should be safe from harm until another period.' I had been expecting to find this in the wild myth at the close of the Republic, ^and I was disappointed to find it wasn't there ; and I began to fancy that it must be in some one of those wild mystical odes of Schiller or of Novalis. However, I was quite startled this evening by suddenly coming upon it in the midst of a very wild myth in the ' Phasdrus.' I was so pleased to find it. You can't think (or rather you can think, and nobody in the world can think so well) how pleased I was. I never dreamed of its being in the ' Phaedrus.' I enjoyed your account of your time at Blackheath. I liked so to hear of your looking out upon those woods, and Hesperus shining over them, and about your bringing the Mahahharata. I like to think that you carry it about as I have done ' Ariosto.' " "Ips. July 6, '47. I read a letter or two of Pliny's to-day. You know I am very fond of his letters, partly because I like the name Pliny from my reverence of the elder Pliny, paitly because I like this Pliny himself, for his style is exquisitely polished, and he is one of those real gentlemen who carry a kind of dignified ease wherever they go, and partly because Pliny was the bosom friend of our Tacitus. Tacitus would not write his Annals until he had quite assured himself that Pliny would not do them for Tacitus really considered himself inferior to him. It reminds one of Boccaccio and Petrarca in the ' Pentameron.' Do you re- II COWELL QUOTES AUSONIUS 47 member how Boccaccio constantly confessed his inferiority to his friend, and never suspects that his ' Decameron ' stands higher in point of genius than a million sonnets ? I enjoy so very much the letters from Pliny to Tacitus. I always think it strange to read the letters of such an old time as that. It seems to call up the old present from the dead and daguerreotype its evanescent expres- sions and features, the passing nuances that flit over society and are hardly ever caught by the grave eye of history. . . ." The following letter from Cowell to Miss Charlesworth stands out separate from the Sanskrit letters. It was written soon after their engagement was acknowledged, and must be given in full, as it is evidently in reply to some expressed scruples in reference to the disparity of age between them. It gives us the keynote of his future homelife, delightfully meeting the scruples with the deter- mination of bridging over the gap with a perpetual youth of heart and mind : — "Ipswich, Dec. 18, 1845. lam so delighted with your letter that I cannot help sending a line in answer. Oh, darling, I do so rejoice that God did give you that light heart, so that you might always be a girl in heart if not in years. Don't you remember those lines of Ausonius^ — ' And may never, oh never, that morning arise When either shall learn to repine, Or I shall no longer seem young in thy eyes. Or thou lose the girlhood in mine.' " You need never fear being ' too old for my companion ' — we will go through life, not moping and sorrowful, always counting up our years and thinking of ' forty' and 'fifty ' like other people, because we won't grow old in heart. I dare say ten years hence my hair will be gray, because one of my so-called sorrowful (so- called, not really) notions is that nature is never cheated. As Emerson says, man's life is but seventy ' sallads ' long, grow they swift or grow they slow ; and if people will begin living their duplex life early (as I may say, without vanity, I have done ever since I was seven years old), if they begin this early, nature is not cheated, and life, after all, is only seventy ' sallads ' long. ' Better fifty years of Europe, &c.' 1 Ausonius, Epig. XIX, To his Wife. ^8 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. " What I was going to say is that we must go through life just as we are now. I shall never grow different to what I am now, because I know I am years older in the desengafio^ than other people of my age, and you must keep with the same girl's heart. Why should we change ? We don't care for the things that make other people grow cross and old — poetry (the poetry as exemplified in life, in the harmony of religion, the rhythm of good actions and quiet domestic life), poetry, I say, can be a fountain of perpetual youth to us, and our hearts and minds shall never grow old. The heart is the thing of importance. Many people grow old in heart and become narrow-minded, cross and selfish — but we never, never will. Do you see what I mean 'best treasure this life hath ' ? " I am writing very badly and hurriedly, but you must excuse it." Soon after Cowell became acquainted with the Charlesworths, Mr. Charlesworth was appointed to the Rectory of St. Mildred's, Bread Street, in the City of London, a living then, I believe, in the gift of Dr. Charlesworth, of Lincoln, or of some friend of his. This was at the end of 1843. The family did not at once remove to London, but Mrs. Charlesworth and the daughters kept on the little house at Bramford for some time. When they did settle themselves at 14, King Street, Finsbury Square, and afterwards in Bread Street Hill, the Bramford house was let. We shall see, however, that later in the winter of 1 847, after they were married, the Cowells chose for their abode the same little house which naturally had considerable attractions for both of them. The Sanskrit lessons, therefore, that were conveyed by letter were delivered first at this same Bramford house and subsequently at the houses in King Street and Bread Street Hill. The marriage took place very quietly at St. Mildred's on October 23rd, 1847. No one of Cowell's family was present, as Mr. Nathaniel Byles, his mother's father, had died just a month before. This was a sufficient ' A Spanish word, meaning " the detection of error." The first evidence of a knowledge of Spanish. II THE BRAMFORD HOUSE 49 reason for having the wedding as quiet as possible, and of course it was much more in accordance with Cowell's tastes and wishes. The Register was signed by Mrs. Cowell's brother, Samuel, and two of her cousins, Richard and Maria Beddome. The honeymoon was spent at Dover in continuing the study of Sanskrit, and in reading together Johnson's Mahabharata selections, a fact which he tells us in a note on the title-page of the grammar. These are really the only records of the marriage that we have. Meanwhile Cowell's kind and indefatigable mother was getting ready for them the Bramford house, the little home they both loved so well, and which lived in their memories to the end. The recollection of it was cherished by Edward FitzGerald almost as much as by the Cowells, and yet it was only occupied by them a little more than three years. A passing description of the house may not be out of place. It stands back a little from the road, giving space for a small garden in front, in which there were usually a few shrubs, the most conspicuous of which was a tree usually called a monkey puzzler, araucaria imhricata. The tree- still stands before the house, grown far too big for the little garden. There was then some room for a few flowers, and in spring and summer the garden was brightened with varieties of colour. The house was a plain one, with cream-coloured stucco, and containing seven rooms besides the kitchens, and with the front door in the middle. Over the front of the house was trained a luxuriant japonica, whose bright red blossoms in early summer formed the distinguishing feature of the little house. " It did one good To pass within ten yards when 'twas in blossom." ^ There was also a fruit-garden at the back, and a field in which there were usually some cattle feeding, and in spring abundant buttercups and daisies, a truly pastoral scene. ^ Coleridge. 5° LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. Here it was that the Cowells made their home until they left for Oxford in the beginning of January, 1851. Here it was that Mrs. Cowell dispensed her bounty and sympathy amongst the villagers in time of sickness and trouble, kindness which was much missed after their departure. Many a time did we boys walk over from Ipswich to see them in their Bramford home, always welcome and always interested in the books which were already rapidly accumulating and which afterwards became at Oxford, in India and at Cambridge so prominent a feature of their house. Our memories go back not only to the house at Bramford, but also to another pretty Suffolk village close by, called Elmsett. Here Maria Charlesworth had a room, which she often occupied, and in which most of her books were written, in an old farmhouse, one of the many halls abounding in the Eastern Counties, inhabited by a yeoman family of the name of Stern. Here there was a large family of sons who, as in the good old days, used to do much of the work of the farm — men of sterling worth and good physique who used to play different musical instruments and take charge of the musical portions of the service in Flowton Church when Mr. Charlesworth was Rector there and long afterwards. We boys took part in many a picnic there with the Cowells on summer half-holidays, visiting Miss Charlesworth and participating in the good cheer of the hospitable Sterns. We carried away a vivid recollection of this family and farmhouse, where the men of the party were full of life and vigour, and drank beer at the meals at which more ordinary mortals consume tea or coffee. This was and is a common custom in the country, but one that appeared then to us unusual. Another thing that we ever remembered of those early days was the existence in the immediate neigh- bourhood of a calcareous spring, which interested us exceedingly, and which we called a petrifying well. We used to deposit various vegetable things, and among them always a bird's nest, where they were exposed to the con- II PROGRESS IN SANSKRIT 51 tinual drip of the water, and find them again a year later entirely changed to a calcareous friable condition, or in the case of pieces of wood completely indurated and petrified. The very characteristic family of the Sterns furnished Miss Maria L. Charlesworth, Mrs. Cowell's sister, with the characters and facts for her book, England's Teaman from Life in the i gth Century, published in 1 8 6 1 . Of Cowell's letters which were written during the Bramford period some have already been given taking us to the end of 1847. They are now continued in the present chapter, and will tell in his own words the direction and character of his literary work in that quiet retreat. All the letters are, as before, addressed to his great friend, George Kitchin, with the exception of one to his mother : — " Jan. 29, '48. I haven't written to you ror a long time, for I seem to have so little time ; but I hope you have been going on with good omens, &c. I suppose you have been studying deeply lately. I have been going on 'swimmingly' in Persian and Sanskrit at odd intervals, and have read a great deal of my old dream of Ramayana. I like it intensely, and I read a few weeks since a most glorious bit about the descent of the River Ganges into the world. What do you think of the following description of its falling from the holy mountain Himeval upon the earth ? /think it is most splendid. ' With the meeting troops of divinities and with the splendour of their armaments The cloudless sky shone as with an hundred suns, With the porpoises and fishes dancing in their falling play The air was coruscated as with lightenings, And with the white foam of the water spreading in a thousand directions, And with the flocks of water-fowl, the sky seemed filled with autumnal clouds.' "There, I think that is a most splendid bit, and one worth mastering Sanskrit to get at. " Have you seen the great Professor ? You know who I mean — the great Professor Wilson — and have you attended any of his lectures ? " I suppose you have seen Carlyle's new batch of Cromwell letters, and the ' row ' he has got into with the Athenaum respect- ing their authenticity and genuineness. E 2 52 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. " I have been reading, lately, Schlegel's lectures on ' Dramatic Art.' They have been published by Bohn in a most beautiful volume for three and sixpence, and they are well wrorth studying. I am sure that you w^ould like them if you haven't yet read them. Bohn is publishing a very nice series of such volumes and a very nice series of translations of Bede and Robert of Ma Imes bury, 2inA all those other old chronicles to wrhose names I look up with so much veneration. You know that ' ignorance is the mother or veneration,' and I own it is so in the present case. I always mean to study them some day. Alas ! how large the world of literature is ! ' Hta brevis ars longa ! ' I shall never read half the books that I mean to read — and yet how wide is the difference between learning and growing ! Montaigne says well that we heap up book-learning but neglect to make it our own — we are only brave and heroic in aphorisms and sentences, not in deeds and in our lives. He says we are like the man who went and warmed him- self at his neighbour's fire, but he brought none of it to his own home, and he therefore returned shivering as before. " You see I am saying all this against myself. I plead guilty to the whole charge as much as anybody. My favourite Jelaleddin says that we are all like bottles whose bodies are full but whose lips are dry ! " Let me hear from you soon. You know I like to hear of how you are getting on and what you are reading. Don't forget that you are to come and stay with us in our quiet home at Bramford. i want you to come and see my quiet life there. I have fulfilled all my dreams, and can do what many, perhaps most, cannot do — rest in content. I write occasional articles for the Gentleman s Magazine, PeopWs yournal, &c., and read Sanskrit and Persian and Greek. So I send you a carte blanche invitation — come when you like — you shall have a free and undisputed right to my little dressing-room, which I am going to make the 6fx,(pa\6^ of the whole world (to make a Pindaric metaphor) this spring ! I shall hide myself under the shadow of this gigantic metaphor and conceal my finis!— E. B. C." "Bramford, March 21, '48. ... I hope you haven't rorgot your promise of coming to see us at Easter. Elizabeth and I are anticipating your coming very much, and I hope you will come as early as you can. You shall have a room to yourself for your studies, and you shall bring down as many boxes of books as you like, and I will promise you the unlimited use of my library, Sanskrit and all ! Perhaps I shall be able to introduce you to Edward FitzGerald while you are here. I know you will like 11 THUCYDIDES 53 him. Have you seen Tennyson's ' Princess ' ? It is the strangest medley you ever saw, but full of beautiful bits. " I suppose you have celebrated the fall of Louis Philippe in hexameters ! Will there be a prize poem on the subject ? I go on writing for the GentlemarCs Magazine, and I send you a rough proof-sheet (as I corrected it) of an article on our mutual friend Athenesus — in next month's number. I don't want the proof back again, and you may keep it ; only you must excuse my not send- ing you a better copy. I have offered Bohn (who is publishing a classic series) a translation of Athenaus — only this is sub rosa — don't mention it to anybody. I don't know if he will accept — he is considering the matter. I sent him a specimen. " I have discovered a new Romaic translation of the Mahahha- rata. Fancy a Greek edition of a Sanskrit book 1 I think about an article thereon for the Westminster, but I don't know if ' thought will palsy action ' here, as it often has done. " I am writing at the counting-house ; and as this is Tuesday I must cut my letter short, but let me hear from you soon. If Elizabeth knew I was writing I am sure she would send a message to you. Let me hear all about your studies and prospects — ^you know every detail is interesting to me. Good-bye ! — Yours sin- cerely, E. B. CoWELL." "Ipswich, May 8, 1848. ... I am in the fourth book or Thucydides, but I have read some deal of the Ramayana. You were quite right that I shouldn't be able to withstand Sanskrit attractions, if you were not there to help the Greek ! We have splendid weather now, and Bramford looks beautiful ! I am thinking of reading another play of Aristophanes, as I shall read him simultaneously with Thucydides as I reach up to the eras of the plays — by way of comparing the Greek Punch with the Carlyle. " I have found in Thucydides the reason why he brought in the Persian ambassada in the Acharnians. Just at that time a Persian ambassada had been caught in Thrace on his way to Lacedaemon and brought to Athens, and they had read his letters, after some difficulty, in the Assyrian tongue. I think that this explains the fun of bringing in the mock Persian words. I dare say you knew this before, but I did not." "July 28, 1848. ... I quite enter into your views about Germany and German. It is a very useful language, and I must learn it some day. I am reading Sophocles. I have finished Thucydides, and then I read through Xenophon's Hellenics, i.e., his continuation of Thucvdides. And now I am refreshing myself 54 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. with the Attic Bee. I have read all his plays over except the Trachiniis, and I think I shall read that next week. I am quite delighted to find how my Greek wakes up to all the niceties of the language and the canons, &c., which I feared I had torgotten. I have written a long article in the Gentleman s Maga%ine about my favourite Persian book yellaleddin, and the Morning Chronicle reviewed my article favourably. I sent an article on Sanskrit poetry the other day to the Westmimter. The editor hasn't decided yet whether it will appear this next quarter. " My Sanskrit studies progress very favourably, and I hope to discover plenty of new things. I read through the two books ot Arrians History which relate Alexander's invasion of India, and I got several very interesting glimpses at India's then condition through this medium. I am thinking of reading Herodotus next and of finishing the Odyssey — you will finish it long before me. I don't like hurrying through the Odyssey ; it is so delicious to take it and read a book or two and then lay it down again till the fit reseizes you. I liked your observations about it very much and read them to Elizabeth. " Your scheme or spending eight weeks in the Rhine land will do you good, and you will come back ready for a fresh dive into the deeps of Greek and Latin. I wish you a happy tour." "Ipswich, May 2, 1849. Your beautiful present arrived quite safely, and I need hardly tell you how very much I liked it. It was really very kind of you, and I shall keep it among my most valuable Kei/iriXia ; and not less shall I keep the Latin inscrip- tion 1 which accompanied it. I shall fasten it into the book itself and thus link them together as you and I are. I shall attack German this summer, and you may expect a Nibelungen Lied mania ere long. " I have this week begun your tavourite Aristotle, and I really like the first book of the Ethics very much. I shall finish it to- day. There are some beautiful ideas even in him. That piece about an Iliad of misfortunes being unable wholly to destroy the ' Inscription in the Nibelungen Lied : — EDOUARDO B. COWELL. Pueritiae conjunctissime ; Juventutis fralerno labore, iisdem studiis peractae, hoc monumentuni posuit ; Perennis amicitiae ; Societatis ad extremam pennansurae vitam, hoc pignus dedit. G. W. KlTCHIN II GREEK PHILOSOPHY 55 evBaifiovla of the good man quite woke up my enthusiasm. I mean those lines in the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics ' Ta 06 /leyaXa /cat iroXXd yiyvo/Meva fiev ev fMaKapicorepov tov ^iov TTOirjaei .... dvairaXiv Be avix^alvovTa OXi^ei Koi 'Kvfiaiverai to fiUKapiov {Xinra^ re yap iin4>epei ical c/jLiroSi^ei, TToXXat? ipepyeiaK;) ofiax; Be, Kal ev TOVTOof AIAAAMHEI TO KoXov eireiBav epr] ti<; eu/coXco? TroXXa? kuI fieyoKat; dry^ta?, fx,r) Bi dvaXyqalav aXXa Kal yevvdBa^ 0)v Kal .... fieyaX6-jrvy(^o<;.'^ I think this a glorious piece, and I don't wonder that Aristotle has been such a name of power in the world. Only think of his having exercised as much influence amongst the Arabians as among Europeans. When I have finished the Ethics I shall go through them a second time. " I finished Pindar the other day, and I am glad I have done with him. I dare say I shall never read him through again. Some of his fragments are very fine. I have brought my Pindar in with me to-day on purpose to copy you out a few lines which pleased me very much, and perhaps you do not know them. They are a description of Spring. . . . "I think I shall study a good deal of Greek philosophy this summer — Plato and Aristotle will be my companions in my daily walks to Ipswich. But I am afraid metaphysics and philosophy are an unsatisfactory kind of study : there is no certainty possible in them, and you never can find any opinion advanced without there being as many valid arguments to be urged^ar as against it. I fancy the Germans have pursued them to their furthest verge, and shewn (unconsciously to themselves) that they lead the traveller no whither. They deal with words, not things, and there is no solid substratum oifact to build upon. " Theology has been called 'portus et sabbatum omnium human- arum contemplationum ' ; philosophy never can be either. I think that dying speech of poor Aristotle a dirge on all philosophy, 'Anxuis vixi — dubius morior,' and yet this anxious and dubious mind has 1 Mr. C. W. Moule, of Corpus Christi College, a brother Fellow of CowelPs, has most kindly furnished me with a translation of this elevated passage of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I. lo, quoting it from the beginning : — " Now among the many things that take place by chance and differ from each other in magnitude, the small pieces of good fortune, and similarly of the opposite kind, clearly do not change the balance of one life : while things great and frequent, if they turn out well, will make the life-time more blissful, .... and if contrariwise, they crush and spoil its bliss ; for they bring in pains and hamper many mental activities. But yet even in these circumstances moral beauty shines through ; when a man bears with good temper many and great misfortunes, not from in- sensibility, but because he is generous and great of soul." 56 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. formed millions of others who maintained his doctrines to be certain and infallible. " Well — I have sent you some of my cobwebs — through them at any rate Pindar's fragment SiaXd/iirei., like a bluebottle in a real cobweb ! "Elizabeth is delighted with the Nibelungen — we shall read the modern copy this summer I hope, and spell out the Chaucerian original next year. It will not be harder than Rabelais' old French when one knows German thoroughly. I am going on very well with my Arabic. I am reading the old poets before Mahomet." " December lO, 1849. ... I have not heard from you for such a long time, and when you wrote last you promised to come and stay a few days at Christmas with us. I hope you won't break your promise. We shall be so very glad to see you, and I want to read another Greek play — Aristophanes, for instance — and I can always read him better with you. I have been reading my favourite Herodotus through again this autumn, and I have enjoyed it very much. I have found some curious discoveries about Herodotus and the remote East, which he talks so won- deringly of, which I will show you when you come. " I saw Carlyle the other day, and took him my translation of the Sanskrit play which I had begun for him when you were with us. I have been reading some deal of Sanskrit and Hebrew this summer, and the latter I should especially like to perfect myselt in. I fancy I shall soon be tolerably perfect in the long-desired and once dreaded Sanskrit. I have lately read through a play by one of their difficult authors, and I made it all out pretty well except a few lines here and there. I have also begun German lately, but I haven't read any of the Nibelungen yet. I have read several of Uhland's beautiful poems, and have been very much dehghted with them. They have a deep tenderness which I admire very much — they seem tolerably easy in their lano-uaf^e and generally worth reading. " I am going to send you in this letter a German song by Voss which FitzGerald and Tennyson delight in, as being one of the most perfectly Greek things modern days have seen. It is half allegorical, representing Greek literature as a vine given by Dionysius to the poet, which the latter plants for his own solace in the evil days and forlorn circumstances which surround him. It is indeed a charming poem, and I should like you, some future day to turn it into Greek Alcaics, after the manner of old Alcaus himself, whose fragments it somewhat in truth resembles. I found a little cluster of Alcsus' fragments the other day in II LETTERS 57 Athenaus^ whom I travel lazily through still. It was page 430 in Casaubon's edition. There was one line which I admired very much, ' ripo<; dvde/jioevTO^ iiraiov ep')^ofMivoio,' which reminded me of that reading of one of Horace's odes to Chloe, beginning ' Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloe.' The common editions have : ' Nam si mobilibus vitis inhorruit Ad ventum foliis, aut virides rubum Dimovere lacertse, Et corde et genibus tremit.' " Some MSS. read much more poetically, and I think with great chance of being right, considering how Horace imitated Alcaeus repeatedly : ' Nam, si mobilibus veris inhorruit Adventus foliis, &c., &c.' ' Veris adventus ' would correspond very exactly to ripo<; ip')(ofievoio. " Well, let me hear your plans about Christmas, and bear in mind in forming them how very much pleasure we shall have in giving you a hearty welcome to our little nest at Bramford. My books await your arrival, particularly Aristophanes, over whose pages I glance languidly unless you are near to rouse me up. I shall try the Nibelungen very soon, and tell you how I get on with it. I am reading about Etrurian tombs in lighter hours — how very interesting the accounts about them are." To HIS Mother. "Ipswich, Feb. 20, 1850. You will see by the address of my letter that we are home from our journey. I think Maurice enjoyed it very much. He will give you the details of his adventures, I dare say, and I need not repeat them. He owes George Kitchin a great many thanks, for we find that the order for being allowed to rub brasses in Westminster Abbey is very difficult to be procured, and one of Mr. Beddome's sons has been long anxious to get one but has not yet succeeded. I am glad you are enjoying Clevewood.^ I suppose spring is beginning to show signs of its approach — as the old Greek poet says, ' You hear the 1 In Gloucestershire, the residence of Cowell's Uncle and Aunt, Mr. and Mrs. F. Fox-Byles. (The Aunt Ella before mentioned.) 58 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. footsteps of the oncoming Spring.' We found, when we got home on Monday, the snowdrops, aconites, and primroses peeping from the ground to welcome our return. Bramford looks very lovely. . . . "I had some delightful hours in the East India Library in Leadenhall Street, and I formed quite an acquaintance with Professor Wilson, whom I have so long known and reverenced in his books. He was very kind to me, and actually has lent to me for a month one of the most valuable Sanskrit MSS. in their magnificent library. I saw several thousands of Sanskrit MSS. in that long delightful room, and I used often to go and write and read there. I took Elizabeth to see the Museum. They have several exceedingly interesting things there — among others, a book in Tippoo Sahib's own handwriting — the journal of his dreams and their interpretation. Then they have his copy of the Koran, and also the very copy of the Koran on which Surajah Dowlah swore to the treaty which he made with Clive. " I saw Mr. Hickson (the editor of the Westminster) one day at the Publisher's ; he happened to be there when I called, and he gave me an order for another article on Sanskrit Dramatic Literature. " The English book which I am reading to Elizabeth is some of the closing chapters of Gibbon, on the appearance of the Turks on the Stage of Europe. Public interest is turned towards Turkey, and I felt a wish to know how they came to obtain their footing in Turkey. I expect we shall see the downfall of European Mohammedanism as a Government, either this year or the next, and I shall like to have a clear picture in my mind of the beginning of the empire that I may be able to add it to the present picture of its fall, and so form a complete whole. It will be very curious if Popery and Mohammedanism fall together just as they rose simultaneously. Mahomet's flight from Mecca was A.D. 622, and the date of the assumption of the Papal title and power is about 15 years before that." "Ipswich, Feb. 28, 1850. I am sorry to say that Sophocles somewhat languishes, but I have done something in it for you. I have been much occupied of late with some troublesome business that has taken up my time and thoughts and kept me in London several weeks. I spent several days in the East India House Library and saw much of dear old Professor Wilson, and he lent me a very valuable Sanskrit MS., which I brought home with me. I met with a cheap tattered copy of his valuable (Sanskrit) Dictionary which is out of print, and I have had it bound, and I fiiUed up the few pages that were wanting from the Professor's II PRAKRIT 59 own copy, which he lent me for the purpose.^ I found him very kind, and my reverence and veneration for him are very much increased. When do you go up for your degree ? I hope to get the Electra and Tyrannus done for you, but my time is too much busied to allow me much Sophocles. In June I hope to bring Elizabeth for a day or two to Oxford, on our way to Gloucester- shire, and you and I must have a hunt over the Oriental MSS. in Oxford. Send me at your earliest leisure your remarks on my list overleaf, that I may write them in my copy and settle all the doubts and anxieties which Sophocles always raises in my mind. " It was very kind of you to get Maurice that order to West- minster Abbey. He found it very useful, and he spent many an hour over the brasses." " Bramford, April 23, 1850. You must not think my silence lately has 'proceeded from indolence, but I have been very busy. I have had a long article to write for the Westminster against time, on the Hindu drama, and that has occupied me very much, and then I have written a paper for the Gentleman' s Magazine^ and am now in the middle of another. Then I have been very busy learning Prakrit, a later and very interesting dialect of Sanskrit. I have had Lassen's grammar of it lent to me from the magnificent library of the East India House, and I have been daily employed in copying out all that I think useful. I have a hope of perhaps distinguishing myself by Prakrit. I have found a Prakrit MS. in the East India House Library which has never been edited. I mean to try and read it when I next stay in London, and, if it is good poetry, I shall try and edit it. But these things yet 6e5)v ev ^ovvaai Keivrai. " I shall have you much in my thoughts next week.- I sincerely wish you all possible success, and I have little doubt you will succeed. It will give me a strange feeling to read in the lists that my old schoolfellow, with whom I even did equations and Euclid and read French and Greek plays, has risen to the highest academical honours and carried off a Double First ! " We hope to put our plan ot visiting you in execution. Edward FitzGerald has half promised to come with us. I should like you so to know him, he is a man of real power, one such as we seldom meet with in the world. There is something so very ' This Dictionary is now in the Library of Girton College with four insertions of four pages each of beautiful copies written by himself of the missing pages. 2 His friend George Kitchin was going in for his final examinations. 6o LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. solid and stately about him, a kind of slumbering giant, or silent Vesuvius. It is only at times that the eruption comes, but when it does come, it overwhelms you ! " "May 8, 1850. I fully meant to have sent you a letter yesterday, but I was too busy. I don't believe a bit that you broke down. I feel sure you got on well, and I shall look with great interest and expectation to see the lists. But I suppose you will know some time before the lists are out. Do let me know all about it. I spent last week in London, and went several times to the dear old East India House Library and saw the great Professor. I found he went down last Thursday to Oxford. I suppose that his examination of somebody for the Sanskrit scholar- ship comes on. Do you know him by sight ? He has a very fine-looking old scholarly face, and Sanskrit sounds very grandly in his sonorous voice. " When does your Mathematical Examination come on ? You will feel relieved, I should fancy, after it all, when all is fairly over and you can look back on it in the calm still light of the Past. I have been reading a little German lately, a little of Uhland, and I bought a Sanskrit play with a long German preface, which I read with some considerable labour, and all the notes are also in German, which will be very good exercise for me. I wish I knew German well. I feel more and more that it is so pre-eminently worth knowing. " I had your answer to my questions in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus all safely. I think we seem generally to agree in our interpretations. How have you succeeded in Sophocles ? What piece did they give you ? When you can get me an exami- nation paper, do send one to me. I shall so very much like to see it. " I hope our promised visit to Oxford will duly come into effect. If Mrs. Charlesworth be not well enough, Elizabeth and I shall come alone. I shall enjoy a few days with you there very much. It will be quite delightful. " I saw in London a book which I am going to read some day (not buy), published this year in Oxford — Casaubon's Diary on Ephemerides. You know my love for Casaubon, partly for old Athenaeus' sake ; and the few glimpses I got of the contents ot the book seemed very pleasant. There were various little glimpses of Casaubon at his study, working away for ever, day and night, at his folios. Well, good-bye. Let me hear soon about your examination. Elizabeth and I feel the greatest interest about it." "May 27, 1850. I am indeed delighted to congratulate you 11 OXFORDWARDS 6i on your success.^ I felt little doubt that you would win a First Class in spite of your doubts in your last letter. I am very delighted, and Elizabeth too. We think of coming to you next week, say Wednesday, but any day will suit us, either next week or the week after, so don't hurry over your Winchester visit. We shall be impatient to know about the Mathematical Examination." For some time Mrs. Cowell had been pressing upon her husband the importance of an University training so essential for a reputation in scholarship, and the following letter shows that Cowell was beginning to consider the step of going to Oxford. "July I, 1850. . . . We had a delightful stay at Bourton, and I enjoyed being at the little inn very much. I read and walked and did just as I liked. I should have been only hampered if I had been staying at any friend's house, so I resolutely refused all invitations. I read several of Pindar's odes. . . . We then went on to Cheltenham, but I was called home on business, and passed hastily through London, and so I had no opportunity of looking out for Beowulf for you, but I shall be on the look out here for it. I shall write to Smith about it, or else employ Read. " .... At present my mind is not decided, but still (like the drawbridge in Marmion) it ' trembles on the rise ' towards Oxford. I am much obliged to you for sending me the new Statutes. I don't think I quite understand them throughout. ... I still tremble about my ultimate success. I know my Latin and Greek composition would be so difficult to get up. Indeed, I should not mind difficulty, for I generally like diffi- culties — but I fear here there is almost a physical impossibility. Still my mind does really turn towards Oxford, and I am certainly wavering thitherward — but yet it seems to me such a serious step that I am like the hymn : ' And stand lingering on the brink And fear to launch away.' I can feel sure or nothing but my own perseverance — my memory, insight, and accuracy all seem to me so problematical ^ George Kitchin's name appeared in the First Class at the Classical Examination, and a few weeks later also in the First Class at the Mathe- matical Examination ; a Double First Degree that was big with fate for Cowell, 62 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. that I feel in a mist as bad as Dante's Selva Selvaggia. Still, after all, I would desire to leave it entirely to God to direct as He thinks best, and I cannot but think I can trace His leading in several very singular apparent openings for me in that direction which have happened to combine in various ways just at this very present time. My mind was before this fairly settled and content, and if He has chosen by the leadings of His Providence to unsettle me, perhaps I can recognise His will. " You will see by all this how my mind is poised. I shall begin working at Latin prose this week, and see how I get on, and whether any, the faintest glimmer, of former knowledge returns. " If I decide on coming, should I not come next October, for I cannot but think, considering my age, the sooner the better ? " "Ipswich, Aug. 28, 1850. . . . We shall both be so very pleased if you will bring Mr. Burfield with you, when you come at Christmas. I only wish he could have seen our lovely village when it is in its beauty during summer. In winter it wears a sombre air, which looks morne to those who know it not in its prime of brightness. " I suppose we shall not be at Oxford then, but it is not certain. I shall matriculate in November, and not reside until after Christmas, if I can't let my house, but if E. F. G. should take it at Michaelmas, as he half or, rather, one-tenth thinks of doing, you may find us at Oxford when you return, but I don't think that is very likely. You see I talk of matriculation and residence as of settled thing ; but I cannot, nevertheless, help shrinking and shuddering on the brink. I feel deeply that my character might be so well described in Gibbon's words about himself: ' I went up with a degree of erudition, which might have puzzled a doctor, and a ^degree of ignorance which a schoolboy might have been ashamed of.' This it is that 'sickles o'er the native hue of resolution,' and makes one pause. Alas ! that while the soul pauses, the world does not pause, nor does time, nor does eternity. " I have been reading Cicero's Tusculan Disputations and Horace's Epistles and Satires, and the first book of Thucydides — the two latter with very great care, and I think profit. But much of my time has been spent in Algebra, which I have been toil- somely endeavouring to revive, and succeed therein tolerably well. I find by the new Statutes one must know something of Algebra, which at the bottom of my heart I am truly glad of, for I have a great love for Algebra under a thick crust of outward dislike or distaste. " . . . . You have heard, I dare say, that Fenwick has resigned II ALGEBRA AND EURIPIDES 63 the Grammar School Mastership — Mr. Rigaud, a Double First, has been appointed his successor. I expect he will do great things for the school. I hope we shall be at Bramford at Christmas. I shall so enjoy a visit (a last visit there !) from you." "Sept. 26, 1850. I have been intending to send you a few lines every day, but every day's engagements have prevented me. I began a Latin letter, which must stand over until some other time. I mean to send you another letter in a day or two — in the meantime I want an answer to the following particulars : Dr. MacBride in his last letter says that I can matriculate any Thursday in November, &c., but I want to know whether any baptism certificate is needed. " I am at present paying more especial attention to Latin com- position, and daily, or nearly so, doing exercises in re-translating, &c., and to Algebra, which I find I have sadly forgotten ; how- ever, by the help of a little cousin of mine,'^ who has a decided genius for Mathematics, and has gone through both parts of Colenso, I have recovered my memory as far as Equations, and I hope to get through Colenso's first part by Christmas. "What play of Euripides shall I have to read for my littlego ! Any I like, or some one in particular ? I quite agree with your remarks about him as a poet — it is just as you say. Carlyle says the greatest minds are always unconscious, and I think one sees this so remarkably in iEschylus and Sophocles. They throw themselves so absorbingly into their characters that everything seems real and solid in their fancy-created world, we forget the artist in the creator, and everything seems to stand out alive. Now, in Euripides one always sees, or thinks one sees (which is nearly the same thing in judging great works of art — we don't even ' seem to see ' in the greatest) his self-consciousness at work, and this is destructive to the noblest kind of poetry. Still, I love Euripides — his pathos goes home to the heart in the most won- derful way, and really seems to warm his creations with human blood in their veins. Some things in his two Iphigenias will live in my memory as long as I live. " I was deeply interested in all you said in your last letter but one, about your future. ... I can fully feel with you in all your feelings, and glad indeed shall I be, if our friendship, begun when we were both so young, rises into the things of eternity as well as those of time, and if during the years we spend together at Oxford, ^ Mr. Herbert Cowell, who went to Oxford before Cowell left and became a distinguished member of the Calcutta Bar. His mathematical genius descended to his eldest son, Mr. Philip Herbert Cowell, who was Senior Wrangler in 1892. 64 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. common faith comes to deepen our sympathies and extend them more and more to the things unseen. I sometimes, though very dubiously, think of what my future may be, — perhaps I may end my days in a little village rectory, and find there that real useful- ness has more of happiness in it than all the dreams of the poets of a hundred lands. How little we know our future, and how well we may trust Him, who does. I often think of All's proverb, ' Perplex thyself not, with seeking after thy lot ; — thy lot is seeking thee as fast as the years can bring it.' There is real valuable matter in this, if we hold it fast from sliding into blind aimless fatalism. " I am very fond of Cicero's philosophical books, his orations I detest. One page of Demosthenes seems to me finer than all the flowery rhetoric of Cicero. In his philosophical books we get him at his best in every way, — very little of his vanity and not much of his rhetoric. . . ." " October 25, 1850. ... I will let you know when I come up to matriculate. I have been reading my favourite Acharnians very carefully this week; I have taken it in the course of my reading of Thucydides; when I get through to the third book I shall read the Knights. I have learned up all the words, making a list of them as I went on. I have only two things to ask you about, which will indeed show you I have been pretty careful or should hardly have observed them. ... I hope you will send me all your difficulties in Hebrew. I shall enjoy being of any use to you there. I am so glad you have re-begun it. How goes on Anglo-Saxon ? I have not forgotten my old promise about Beowulf. How the time seems to thaw between Bramford and Oxford — four months seemed solid ground — the short time now sometimes startles me when I think of my wants and deficiencies. However, I think I grow more hopeful." A letter from his friend, George Kitchin, to recom- mend Cowell's going up to matriculate in the second week of November instead of the first, gave the reasons for this, and ended with some remarks which are so germane to the burning subject of this group of letters, and reciprocate so fully all Cowell's deepest feelings which the prospect of his going to Oxford had aroused that they naturally find a place here. "Christ Church, Oxford, October 27th, 1850 .... I feel continually how much I shall rejoice in having you here in Oxford, II FITZGERALD AND BRAMFORD 65 and I am particularly glad when I think how, though it seemed what circumstances had marked out, as with the hand of destiny, two very different courses of life for us, friendship has with a strength greater than that of circumstances, snapped the cord which sundered us, and has brought our paths in life together again. For I really feel that our friendship, and my Degree, were the only causes which could have certainly decided you to come to Oxford ; and it is amongst the happiest thoughts which the Class Schools of June, 1850, bring to my mind, when I am tempted to think about them, that my labours were not merely crowned then with a temporary success ; but did really affect my dearest friends as well. " It is enough to re-establish one's faith in our humanity to think that the acts of one friend so powerfully affect the other. It is in marvellous ways that men's relations are intertwined even on this earth. And what are the mysteries of our connection with the souls of just men in the Triumphant Church, and with the Blessed Angels, and with the most Holy Spirit of God. We live not for ourselves, but for many others, not now, but for the future and for ever. May our friendship be lasting also, and built up in the sure faith of Jesus Christ. — I am, your's affectionately, G. W. K." Edward FitzGerald was a frequent visitor at Cowell's Bramford home. He often stayed there several weeks at a time, and together they devoured Greek plays and Greek history. A portion of an interesting letter^ from FitzGerald to CoweU, to which Mr. Aldis Wright gives the date [1848], shows well that he was still the recipient of FitzGerald's confidences in his Greek reading : — " I do not know that I praised Xenophon's imagination in recording such things as Alcibiades at Lampsacus ; all I meant to say was that the history was not dull which does recall such facts, if it be for the imagination of others to quicken them ... As to Sophocles, I will not give up my old Titan. Is there not an infusion of Xenophon in Sophocles, as compared to .^schylus, — a dilution ? . . . A dozen lines of iEschylus have a more Almighty power on me than all Sophocles' plays ; though I would perhaps rather save Sophocles, as the consummation of Greek art, than jEschylus' twelve lines, if it came to a choice which must be lost." ' Letters and Literary Remains of Edward FitzGerald, W. Aldis Wright. Vol. I, F 66 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. Towards the end of this Bramford time, in 1849, Edward FitzGerald began with the help of Cowell to learn Spanish. In a letter to F. Tennyson in the following Summer, he tells us what progress he had made : — "August 15/50. I have begun to nibble at Spanish : at their old Ballads : which are fine things — like our, or rather the North Country old Ballads. I have also bounced through a play of Calderon with the help of a friend ^ — a very fine play of its kind." CoweU wrote several interesting articles during the Bramford period after his marriage, and the variety of the subjects shows the breadth of his work. The first appeared in January, 1848, in the Gentleman s Magazine. The subject was the Hepameron of Marguerite de Valois, a collection of stories in imitation of Boccaccio's far-famed work, possessing however some merits of its own. The stories are fascinating and are strung together much in the same way as in Boccaccio's Decameron and in Landor's delicious Pentameron,and their very names make these books attractive almost before one has read a line of them. Cowell gives the plan of the Heptameron, abbreviated from the long introduction, and finishes up with the ninth novel of the second day, which he thinks one of Margaret's most pathetic stories, and as it is short I will give it in full : — " In the time of the Marquis of Mantua, who had espoused the sister of the Duke of Ferrara, there lived in the duchess's house a poor damsel named Pauline, who was so loved by one of the gentlemen of the marquis, that the fervour of his love astonished everybody, since being so poor, and such a pleasant companion, he ought' to have sought for a wealthy bride, but it seemed to him that all the world's treasure lay in Pauline, and he should have all in having her. The marchioness, desiring that Pauline, by her favour, should get a richer husband, tried to prejudice her against him as much as she could, and continually hindered their speaking to each other, and remonstrated with them, saying that if they married, they would be the poorest and most miserable couple in Italy. But such reasons as this could not enter into the gentle- 1 El Magico Prodigioso. The friend was Cowell. More Letters of Edward FitzGerald. Macmillan, igor. II STORY FROM THE HEPTAMERON 67 man's head. Pauline on her part dissembled her love as much as she could, but she thought of it not a whit the less often. This acquaintance continued a long while, with the hope that time might at length bring them some better fortune. It brought, however, a war, in which the gentleman was taken prisoner, together with a Frenchman, who was as much in love in France as he was in Italy. And when they found themselves companions in misfortune, they began to discover their secrets to each other : and the Frenchman confessed that his heart was as much a prisoner as his friend's ; but he refused to name the spot. As, however, both were in the service of the Marquis of Mantua, the French gentleman soon discovered that his companion loved Pauline, and for the friendship that he bore to him he counselled him to drive it from his thoughts. This, however, the Italian affirmed to be beyond his power, and if the marquis would not give him his mistress as a recompense for his long and faithful service, he declared that he would become a cordelier, and would henceforth serve no other master but God. This his companion could not believe, as he saw no mark of religion in him at all, unless it were his love for Pauline. " At the end of nine months the French gentleman was released, and by his good diligence he obtained his companion's liberation too, and he exerted all his efforts to persuade the marquis and marchioness to consent to Pauline's marriage. But they continued to remonstrate on the poverty of the match, and at length they forbade him to speak to her any more, in order that absence and impossibility might drive the fancy from his brain. When he saw that he must obey, he asked leave from the marchioness to say one adieu to Pauline, since he was never to speak to her again. This was granted, and forthwith he addressed her thus : — ' Since, Pauline, heaven and earth are against us not only to hinder us from marrying together, but (which is still worse) to deprive us of seeing or speaking to each other, and our master and mistress have given us such strict injunctions respecting this, they may with good reason boast that with one word they have wounded two hearts, whose bodies henceforth can do nought but languish, and thereby they prove that pity or love never entered their bosoms. Well, I know that their aim is to marry us into some wealthy connections, for they know not that the true riches lie in content ; but they have done me such evil and wrong that I can never serve them any more. I believe that if I had never spoken of marriage, they would not have been so scrupulous about preventing our intercourse ; but I assure you that I would rather die than ever sully the pure love with which I have wooed F 2 68 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. you. And since I cannot endure this if I see you ; and if I see you not, my heart (which cannot continue empty) is filled with despair, which would lead to some unhappy end, I am resolved to devote myself to religion ; not that I am ignorant that men can be saved in all estates and conditions, but that I may have more leisure to contemplate the divine goodness, which I trust will pardon the faults of my youth, and change my heart to love spiritual things as I once loved temporal. And if God vouchsafes to me to attain this heavenly knowledge, my labour shall be incessantly employed in praying to God for you. And I entreat, too, that you, in consideration of the firm and loyal love which has been between us both, will make mention of me in your orisons, and pray to our Lord that He will give me as much constancy when I see you not, as He hath given me content while I saw you. And since I may never hope to kiss you as a husband, let me at least give you one last kiss as a brother.' Poor Pauline, who had always been very guarded towards him, seeing him now in the extremity of sorrow, and considering the reason- ableness of the request, flung her arms round his neck, and wept with such bitterness and earnestness, that words, feeling, and strength all failed her, and she fell fainting in his arms ; and pity for her sorrow, combined with his love and sadness, made him to do the like, until one of her companions thus seeing them fall, called for help, and by dint of remedies restored them to them- selves. Then Pauline, who had desired to dissemble her affection, was covered with confusion to see how she had betrayed her feelings ; but pity for her poor lover partially served as an excuse. But he, not bearing to say that word 'adieu,' for ever, rushed away, with his heart and teeth so compressed that, on entering into his room, he fell upon his bed like a lifeless corpse, and passed the night in such piteous lamentations that the servants supposed that he had lost all his friends and relations and all that he could esteem precious on the earth. In the morning he commended himself to our Saviour, and divided his few possessions among his servants ; and then, taking with him a small sum of money, he told them not to follow him, and went alone to the monastery to demand the proper dress, and resolved that he would never wear any other. The prior, who had seen him at other times, at first thought it was a jest, for nowhere in the country was there a gentleman who smacked less of the cordelier, since he possessed all the good graces and virtues that could be desired in a chevalier. But after that he had heard his speech, and seen the tears runnino- down his face in streams (knowing not from whence the spring arose), he received him kindly. And soon afterwards, seeing tha't n STORY FROM THE HEPTAMERON 69 he persevered, he gave him the proper dress, which he took writh great devotion. And the marquis and marchioness were informed of this, and at first could hardly believe it, Pauline, to disguise her love, dissembled her regret as much as she could, so that everybody said that she had soon forgotten her loyal follower's great affection ; and thus five or six months passed without her making any other show. " At length she was one day shown a song which her old lover had composed soon after he took the cordelier's dress, and when she had read it through, being alone in a chapel, she began to weep so bitterly that she made the paper wet with her tears ; and had it not been for the fear of showing her affection more than became her, she would have gone immediately into some hermitage without ever again seeing any creature in the world ; but her prudence constrained her to dissemble for a while, and although she had made a resolution to leave the world entirely, yet she still feigned the contrary, and she changed her countenance so often, that when she was in company she was utterly diiFerent to herself. And she carried this resolution in her heart five or six months, appearing even more joyous than usual, until one day she went with her mistress to church to hear high mass, and as the priest, deacon, and sub-deacon came out of the vestry to go to the great altar, her poor lover, who had not quite finished his year of probation, served as acolyte, and bearing the two' canettes in his hands covered with silk cloth, came first with his eyes fixed on the ground. And when Pauline beheld him in this dress, whereby his beauty and grace were rather augmented than diminished, she was so astonished and troubled that, to conceal the cause of her changing colour, she began to cough. Her poor lover, who knew the sound of her cough even better than that of his monastery's bells, durst not turn his head, but as he passed before her, he could not keep his eyes from following that path which they had so often traversed. And as he looked piteously on Pauline he was seized with such a heat that he felt almost dead, and while he tried to conceal it, he fell down at her feet. The fear, however, which he had lest the true cause should be known, made him pretend that the pavement of the church had occasioned his fall, which in truth did happen to be somewhat uneven in that spot. " And when Pauline knew that the change of his dress had not changed his heart, and that it was now so long since his entering the monastery that everybody thought she had forgotten him, she resolved to put into execution her long-cherished desire, that the end of their friendship should be alike in habit, form, and manner of life, as they had once lived in one house under the same master 70 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. and mistress. And as she had already four months before arranged all that was necessary for her entering a convent, one morning she asked leave of the marchioness to hear mass at Saint Claire, w^hich she granted immediately, as she knew not the object of the request ; and as Pauline passed by the cordeliers, she asked the porter to call her old lover to her, though she mentioned him only as her relation. And when she saw him in a chapel alone, she said : ' If my honour had permitted me as soon as you, I should have taken the veil long ago, and not have waited till now ; but having destroyed by my patience the suspicions of those who would rather judge ill than well, I am resolved now to adopt the manner of life and dress that you have done without any fiirther inquiry. And if it be well with you I shall share it with you ; and if it be ill with you, I would not be exempt : for by what path you enter into Paradise, by that would I wish to follow ; since I am sure that He who is alone the true, perfect, and worthy love, has drawn us to His service by our mutual and honourable love, which He will turn by His Holy Spirit entirely to Himself; and I pray that we may both forget the old body which perishes and is born from Adam, to receive and be re-clothed with that of our heavenly bridegroom.' Her lover was so glad and overjoyed to hear her pious will that he wept for gladness ; and he fortified his heart as well as he could, telling her that since he could never have aught of her in this world except her voice, he esteemed himself most happy in that he lived in a place where he could always see her again, and where they should always be the holier for the sight, living as they did a life of love, with one heart and soul drawn and led by the goodness of God, Who they prayed would ever hold them in that hand where none can perish. And as he said this, and wept for love and joy, he kissed her hands ; but she bent her face down to her hand, and they gave each other a kiss of holy love. And Pauline then departed, and entered into a convent of Saint Claire, where she met with a kind welcome, and took the veil. She afterwards sent word about it to the marchioness, who was much astonished, and went next day to the convent to try and turn her from her purpose. But Pauline made answer to her, that though she had had power to deprive her of an earthly husband, she must rest contented with that and not seek to part her from Him Who is immortal and invisible, for indeed it was not in her power, nor in any creature's in the world. The marchioness beholding her resolution, then kissed her and left her with great regret. And Pauline and her lover lived so devoutly and holily there, that we ought not to doubt that He, the end of whose law is charity, said to them at the close of their II FITZGERALD AND THE MESNAVI 71 lives, as He said of old to Magdalene, that their sins were forgiven them, for they had loved much, and that He received them into that world where the reward passes the merits of man." In April of the same year there was another article by Cowell in the Gentleman's Magazine, An Hour with Athenaus, an author to whom he was evidently much devoted. In it he compared the picture, that vista into past years, which Athenseus gives, to a view from the window of a room in which the passing life of the city's street was visible. The busy din of life seemed to wake again as in Tennyson's Day-dream from the sleep of centuries. He thought that the work of Athenaeus stood alone in its class, and that there was no book in the world which resembled it. In it the reader can trace the exact lineaments of the author, and in every page his excellences and his defects blend in most singular confusion. He delights in recording some of the stories and legends which are interwoven with the subject-matter, though often the thread of connection is somewhat slight. But especially does he revel in the more original chapters, where Athenaeus kindles into poetry as he relates old traditions or customs. Amongst these Cowell mentions some beautiful remarks at the close of the eighth book on the ancient customs of libations during feasts. Again in July and August of the same year, Cowell contributed to the Gentleman s Magazine a delightful article on The Mesnavi ofjelaleddin Rumi. Whilst Thomas Aquinas was twisting his syllogisms he little dreamed that " a far greater genius was teaching a far nobler philosophy in the East, building his lessons upon no cunning logic, or dexterous sophism, but on the eternal laws of the universal as enounced in the human heart, or as Rabelais calls it, ' dans I'autre petit monde, qui est I'homme.' This unknown contemporary was Jelaleddin of Balkh in Khorassan. On the strength of this article, Edward FitzGerald was for many years constantly urging Cowell to produce a complete translation of the Mesnavi, the great work of this poet. Some of the extracts from FitzGerald's 72 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. letter that will be given later on will show this, and one can only regret that time was never found for carrying out this reiterated suggestion. Jelaleddin's poetry is fuU of beauty, and it is full of deep thoughts. Cowell says of him : — " As life's sun set on Jelaleddin it rose on Dante, and the incident is not without significance. He was the last great thinker of Asia, the lineal descendant of those ancient Brahmins who thought so deeply in the old centuries, before Alexander's invasion paved a little footpath for history into the unknown recesses of Hindustan. The dawn of European civilisation was breaking, while twilight was setting over Asia, and Dante's voice, like the cry of the dervish from the minaret, woke the sleeping hum of thought and life among the nations to grow only louder and louder, we will hope throughout the whole of Europe's eventful day ! " " The work consists of six long cantos or defters, and each of them contains its quota of stories, and of course its corresponding amount of digressions and comments. Hundreds of fine thoughts lie scattered everywhere in each, with a profusion which none but master minds can afford, and he often flings away an idea in a casual line which a more economical writer would have expanded into a page. The stories themselves are probably derived from all sources, but his manner of treating them is always his own." From the translations I will select three short ones as good examples of the rest : — " Here is a legend, a tradition of some Mohammedan saint : — ' Early one morning he made his ablutions, And he washed his face and hands in the cool water ; Next he washed his feet, and then sought for his boot, But a robber, which he knew not of, was near. The holy man stretched out his hand to seize it. When an eagle suddenly caught it from his grasp. And bore it up like the wind into the air. And out of it, lo ! there fell a snake to the ground ! Yea, a black snake fell from the boot ; And thus the good eagle saved the holy seer. And he brought it back when the danger was o'er, And Mustaphi bowed his head and turned to prayer.' II STORY FROM XENOPHON 73 " Here is a ' winged word ' of his on freewill and necessity : — ' In a thousand things where thy love exercised its will Thou hast felt the reality of thine own power. In a thousand things where thy will had no part Thou hast felt under a secret necessity from God. The saints have their necessity in this life, While the infidels have their necessity in the life to come ; The saints have their free will laid up for them in eternity, While the infidels have their free will in this present world of time.' "Jelaleddin had the Platonic reverence for dreams, and he often expresses his awe at the thought of night, that mysterious shadow which falls on the earth as if daily to remind it of its end, just as the sleep which it brings to man is a mnemonic of his own mortality. Thus in the opening of one of his chapters he exclaims : — ' Every night, oh Sleep, from the net of the body Thou releases! our souls, and drawest pictures before them ; Every night thou releases! them from their cage. And settest them free, with no master or slave. At night the prisoners forget their prisons ; At night the Sultan forgets his royalty, No sorrow, no care, no profit, no loss. And no thought or fear of this man or that.^ " No detached extracts, however, can give any adequate idea of the book, or of the manner in which narrative and moral are blended. I should like to give one of the mystical stories, but they are all too long. In September, 1848, the Gentleman's Magazine had an article on Xenophon of Ephesus. He mentions as the more celebrated of the Greek romancists, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius, Longus, Charito, and Xenophon, and tells us that with the exception of Longus, he prefers Xenophon, who wrote some 400 years before Christ, for his simplicity of style and his genuine pathos. He has translated one of his best stories, and gives it partly abbreviated by him- self, but often in the words of the author, and it is worth transcribing here, though it is somewhat long : — " Habrocomes, the hero, is the only son of Ly corned es, a rich citizen of Ephesus, and he is brought up in all the accomplish- 74 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. ments of Grecian education, and the following is the account of his first meeting with Anthia ; — "About this time a customary procession took place in honour of Diana from the city to the temple, which is about seven stadia distant, and all the maidens of the country had to go in the procession clad in the richest dresses, and all the youths likewise who were of the same age as Habrocomes. And a great multitude thronged to the spectacle both of residents and strangers, for it was an old custom at this festival for husbands to be found for the maidens and wives for the youths. And those who formed the procession went in their ranks ; first went the sacrifices, and torches, and baskets, and incense ; next followed horses, and dogs, and hunting weapons, some in truth seeming warlike, but the most belonging only to peace. And each of the maidens was dressed as for a lover, and Anthia, the daughter of Megamedes and Evippe, both natives of the country, led the band. Wonderful in truth was her beauty, and it surpassed that of all her companions. She seemed just fourteen and her form was in its bloom and her dress and ornaments all contributed to her beauty. Her golden hair was partly braided, but most of it was let loose for the winds to blow it at their will, and her bright eyes had all the fire of youth with all a maiden's timidity ; her garments were purple, girt tight down to the knee, and a fewn's skin was thrown over her, while a quiver hung on her shoulder, with arrows and a bow, and hunting dogs followed behind her. Often times when the Ephesians had seen her at the temple they bowed to her as Diana ; and now when they saw her the multitude shouted, and divers were the voices of the spectators, some in their wonder exclaiming that it was the goddess herself, others that it was some one in her form, and all bowed to her and paid their homage, and called her parents happy, and the general talk of the spectators was of ' Anthia the fair ! ' And after the procession of maidens was past, no one spoke of aught but Anthia ; but when Habrocomes came up with the youths, forthwith, although the spectacle of the maidens had been fair, it was forgotten in the presence of Habrocomes, and all turned their eyes upon him, and all shouted with one voice, ' Habrocomes the fair ! ' And some even went so far as to say what a marriage there might be made of the two, and ere long each heard the fame of the other, and Anthia desired to see Habrocomes, and the cold Habrocomes now wished to see Anthia. " And when the procession was over and all the multitude came to sacrifice in the temple, and when now the procession's order was broken, and men and women and youths and maidens ir STORY FROM XENOPHON 75 were together, then indeed they see each other, and Habrocomes stood fascinated by her countenance and seemed unable to draw his eyes from off her ; and Anthia likewise was caught, and she gazed on him with open eyes, and she would have even spoken if he could have heard. And after the sacrifice was completed they went away in sorrow of heart, and they blamed the haste of the departure, and often did they turn back and look on each other, and all kinds of excuses did they make for the delay. " We have slightly condensed the above, but surely there is a gentle vein of feeling running through it which bespeaks a kindly nature in the writer. Perhaps it was but an imitative feeling, and derived from the pastorals and love-songs of older times, rather than from real knowledge of the human heart ; but this almost takes the place of originality in such times of national calamity and poverty of thought as the later days of the Roman Empire. Everything had then grown hollow and false ; the Greek and Roman nationality had utterly vanished, though the languages in which they once spoke still survived, and indeed, as respects the former, many a sophist boasted of writing the language of Pericles in almost more than its pristine purity. But though the words yet remained, obedient to the old rules of syntax and prosody, the spirit which breathed them forth was no longer on the earth, and they only lingered like bright icicle ornaments round the human heart, which lay frozen in a winter dearth of all that was great or glorious, and waiting in a mournful torpor for some future spring to recall it to warmth and vitality. " But we return to our author. The lovers returned to their respective homes, and remained for some time without seeing each other, and both through anxiety and care began to lose the bright looks which had once characterised them. At length their parents respectively consult the oracle of Apollo at Colophon, and the god reveals the cause of their alarm, and orders the marriage of their children to be solemnised without delay, after which they were to set out on their travels, where they were to meet with many adventures and perils, but a happier portion was promised them at the end. The lovers are forthwith united and prepara- tions are made for their journey with all speed. " Egypt was the place fixed for their destination, and when the day for their departure arrived, and the ship was about to sail, the whole city of Ephesus accompanied them to the port. . . . And now arose the noise of the sailors, and the cables were loosed and the pilot took his station and the ship began to move ; and a mingled cry came from those on the shore and those in the ship, the former exclaiming, ' O children, when shall your parents see 76 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. you again ? ' and the others replying, ' O parents, and when shall we also, your children ? ' And tears arose and wailing, and each called his relative by name, leaving their names as a ■ kind or memorial behind them. And Megamedes taking a cup offered a libation and prayed, so that those who were in the ship heard his voice, ' O my children, may ye prosper and escape the sad predic- tions of the oracle, and may the Ephesians welcome your safe return, and may ye revisit your own land again in peace, but if aught else should happen unto you be well assured that we shall not survive you ; but we send you forth on your sorrowful but fated journey.' And while he yet spoke the tears stopped his utterance ; and they all returned unto the city, surrounded by their friends, who endeavoured to console them. " Habrocomes and Anthia then proceed on their voyage and touch at Samos, where they sacrifice at the temple of Juno ; they next arrive at Cos and Cnidos and Rhodes ; at the latter place they stop several days and set up a votive offering in the temple or the Sun, with an inscription in verse. They then renew their voyage, 'and at first the wind was fair, and that day and the following night they sailed pleasantly over the Egyptian sea ; but on the second day it ceased, and a calm came on and the vessel lay motionless, and the sailors grew idle and drunken, and now their sorrows began ! And Habrocomes dreamed that there stood over him a woman of more than mortal size, and with an awful countenance, and wearing a purple robe ; and it seemed that she set the ship on fire, and that the crew all perished, and only he and Anthia were saved. And when he saw this he woke in alarm, and the dream filled him with an evil presentiment, and the presentiment was indeed fulfilled. " ' Now some Phcenician pirates in a great trireme had happened to lie at anchor near them in the harbour at Rhodes, and they lay there as if they were merchants, and these learned that the ship was full of gold and silver ; and they resolved to capture it, and kill all those who resisted, and lead the rest away captive to Phoenice, and sell them there as slaves. Having thus determined, at first they sailed quietly, only taking care to keep close to them ; but at last, one day at noon, when the sailors were all scattered about the ship in indolence and drunkenness, and some were sleeping, and others were lying idly about the deck, the pirates suddenly made their attack.' "Of course the vessel is immediately taken, and all on board were either killed or captured, and Anthia and Habrocomes among the rest. On arriving at Phoenice, where the pirates had their chief station, the leader of the whole band, Apoyetus, takes them II STORY FROM XENOPHON 77 both, with their two attendants, Leucon and Rhode, as his own prize, while the remainder of the booty is divided among the company ; and he takes them to his own house, intending to sell them when a rich purchaser appeared. In the meantime, his daughter, Manto, falls in love with Habrocomes, and uses every effort to win his heart, but finding all her attempts fail, love turns to anger, and, like Phaedra in the Greek legend, or Zuleika in the Persian, she accuses him to her father, who in sudden passion throws him into a dungeon. While he is thus imprisoned, Manto is married to a Syrian, and Anthia and the two attendants are given to her by her father as a wedding present ; and thus the husband and wife are parted. " We cannot follow the hero and heroine in the numerous adventures which now befell them, and separated them even further from each other ; but Xenophon displays no little art in filling his story with a busy, but by no means uninteresting succession of events. His heroine glides gently through them all, like a sunbeam through a cloud ; and our sympathy follows all her wanderings. By turns she falls into the hands of robbers and slave-dealers, and kind and cruel masters ; and at one time she is on the point of marriage with Perilaus, the irenarch of Cilicia, from which she only escapes by swallowing what she supposed to be poison, but which happily was only a sleeping potion similar to that which Friar Laurence gives to Juliet. At another time she narrowly escapes being offered up as a sacrifice ; but, notwith- standing all her trials and temptations, her heart remains devoted to her husband, and her faith is never broken for a moment. Habrocomes also goes through a similar round of adventures, but as he soon effects his escape from captivity, they chiefly occur to him in his lone wanderings after Anthia. At last he forms a friendship with a robber chieftain named Hippothous, to whom he mainly owes his final success. The two friends are in the course of the story separated, but Hippothous carries his friend's memory with him, and at last one day he discovers Anthia in the person or a slave girl whom he has purchased in an Italian market, and then they both set out to search for Habrocomes. The remainder of the story is so fiill of gentle pathos and truth to nature that we present a translation of the concluding chapters entire. " ' Habrocomes thus worked for some time in his hard labour at Nucerium, but at last, being unable to bear it any longer, he resolved to embark on board a vessel and sail for Ephesus, and having met with a ship bound thither, he set sail for Sicily, resolving from thence to go to Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes, and thence to Ephesus, and he hoped, too, in the course of the voyage 78 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. to learn something of Anthia. Having put his little property on board he set sail, and coming first to Sicily, he finds that his old friend ^gialeus is dead, and having oiFered libations on his grave, he once more sets sail, and having passed Crete he arrives at Cyprus, where he' offers his prayers to the Cyprian goddess, and thence sets sail for Rhodes, where he disembarks once more and takes up his abode near the harbour. And being now so near to Ephesus, there came over his soul a sad rush of sorrows and cares, and he exclaimed to himself, " I shall come to Ephesus alone, and be seen there with no Anthia by my side, and in utter woe shall I sail my empty voyage, and my story will perhaps gain no credence when she who should be my companion is not there to confirm it ; still will I persevere and go to Ephesus, and raise a tomb to Anthia, and I will bring my tears and libations there till I rejoin her in the grave." Thus musing, he wandered forlorn about the city, in distress of body for his want of provisions, but in far worse distress of mind for want of his Anthia. Now, it happened that Leucon and Rhode (their former attendants, who had escaped from Phoenice and settled at Rhodes) had set up an anathem in the temple of the Sun, near the golden armour which their master and mistress had set up when they first commenced their voyage ; and they had put there a pillar whereon was written in letters of gold concerning Habrocomes and Anthia, and they had written also their own names below. And Habrocomes casts his eyes upon this pillar as he came to offer his prayers to the god. Having read the inscription and recognised his old servants' fidelity, and having seen, too, the golden armour close by, he burst into tears, and he sat down beneath the pillar and wept there. And while he was weeping, Leucon and Rhode came into the temple to pray, as their wont was, and they see Habrocomes sitting by the pillar and looking at the armour, but they recognise him not, and only marvel that a stranger should thus linger by another's offerings. At last Leucon addressed him, and asked him why he felt such an interest in things which so little concerned him, and Habrocomes replied, "These are the offerings of old servants of mine, Leucon and Rhode, and would that I could see them once more with my Anthia." On hearing this, Leucon at first stood speechless with astonishment, but soon recovering himself, he recognised his old master, and immediately he and Rhode threw themselves at his feet and relate their history, and they then conducted him to their house, and took all care of him, and bade him be of good cheer ; but nothing could supply Anthia's loss to him, and everything only reminded him of her more. n STORY FROM XENOPHON 79 " ' But while he thus abode in Rhodes with them, in doubt as to what he should do, Hippothous in the meantime resolved to bring Anthia from Italy to Ephesus, that he might give her back to her parents, and perhaps learn there something of Habrocomes ; and having put all his property on board a large Ephesian vessel, he set sail with Anthia, and having had a pleasant voyage, after a few days arrived at Rhodes while it was yet night, and there lodged with an aged woman named Althaea, whose house was near the shore, and he puts Anthia under her care, and stays there that night, and on the morrow they were preparing to renew their voyage, but they delayed for the: sake of a festival which the whole Rhodian people held in honour of the Sun, and where there was a procession and sacrifice, and a great concourse of citizens. Thither, too, came Leucon and Rhode, not so much for the sake of joining in the festival as in the hopes of learning some tidings of Anthia. Hippothous also came to the temple with Anthia, and as she looked at the votive offerings and remembered the days gone by, she could not refrain from exclaiming to herself, " Oh thou great Sun, who seest all mankind, once I came here in joy and prayed in this temple, and sacrificed unto thee with Habrocomes, and I was called happy ; but now I come a slave instead of a free woman, and woful instead of joyous, and I am returning to Ephesus, alas ! without my Habrocomes ! " As she thought of these things she wept, and she entreated Hippothous to let her cut off some of her hair and ofFer it to the Sun, and at the same time pray for her husband. Hippothous consents ; and having therefore cut off^ several of her tresses and watched her opportunity when the crowd were gone, she hangs them up and writes beneath, '•'■Anthia offers her hair unto the god on behalf of her husband HabrocomesP Having done this, and prayed, she went away. with Hippothous. "'Soon afterwards, Leucon and Rhode, having accompanied the procession, come to the temple and observe the offering, and recognise their mistress's name, and salute the hair and weep at the sight of it as if it were Anthia herself; and at last they wander about, if by chance they may happen to find her. And now, too, many of the Rhodians began to recognise the name and call to mind the former visit and offering ; but all that day they found no trace of her, and Leucon and Rhode returned to their homes and told Habrocomes of the strange occurrence in the temple ; and he was full of doubts and misgivings, but hope nevertheless carried the day in his heart. The next morning Anthia came once more to the temple with Hippothous, as the wind was not fair for their voyage, and she sat again beneath the 8o LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. offerings and wept and sobbed ; and while she sat there, Leucon and Rhode entered, having left Habrocomes in sad spirits at home, and immediately they see Anthia, and ere long they recognise her, and fall at her feet in silence ; and she sat gazing in wonder, for she dare not indulge the hope that they were really her old attendants. After a brief pause they addressed her by name, and they tell her that Habrocomes is safe ; and Anthia on hearing their words could hardly endure the shock, and she sprang up, and fell on their necks, and kissed them, and learned all about her husband. " ' She instantly accompanies 'them to their house, iut the glad news had flown before them, and ere they had proceeded half way Habrocomes comes running to meet them. Our readers may picture the joy which ensues in all hearts, and the shouts of the Rhodians follow the glad party to their home. "'And when it was day, they embarked in the ship, having put all that they had on board,-'and they set sail, the whole people of Rhodes having accompanied them to the shore ; and with them went Hippothous and his friend Cleisthenes, and in a few days they accomplished their voyage and anchored at Ephesus; and the whole city had heard the tidings of their coming ; and when they disembarked, they proceeded at once, just as they were, to the temple of Diana, and oiFered their praises and sacrifices, and they set up their votive tablets ; and after this they go up to the city, where they learn that their parents had died in their absence ; and they build great tombs to their memory ; and there they abode the rest of their days, making their lives one happy festival ; and Leucon and Rhode shared all their good fortune.'" Cowell's second article In the Westminster Review before alluded to appeared in October, 1848. It was on Indian Epic Poetry, and must not be passed over without notice, as it marked the progress that he had already made in the study of Sanskrit, or as it was still called in this article Sanscrit. His opening remarks wiU show the view he took of a language and literature of which he was later to become so great a master. " India has however a literature of its own, in which the Greeks are as little thought of as she is in theirs ; and the discovery of Sanscrit (for such it may be called) has opened an almost in- exhaustible region for the scholar's investigation. In this ancient literature we have the growth of a language in all its stages of 11 CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS 8i development. In the Vedas, or sacred books, we have it in all its roughness and unpolished rudeness, abounding w^ith archaisms and irregularities, which present strange resemblances with the old tongues of Europe ; in the heroic poems of a succeeding age, we find it when it had undergone as little elaboration and improve- ment, for, as Emerson says, ' language is an edifice, to which every forcible individual contributes a stone ' ; and in the dramatic poems (some of which were contemporary with Augustus and Virgil), and in the later epics that followed, we have it in all that extreme elaboration which precedes decline, when the weapon by dint of over polish presents too keen and too fine an edge for the daily requirements of life. There is also in the dramas a continual intermixture of Pracrit, a dialect which sprung out of Sanscrit, just as Italian and Spanish grew out of Latin, — this being the language of the female characters, while Sanscrit is confined to the men. " Now all this had been going on in that very period which we are apt to think served only to ripen Greece and Rome. While Greek was passing from the Homeric dialect to the Attic of Thucydides and Plato, and thence falling into balanced antitheses and sophistries ; and while Latin was slowly escaping from its Oscan nurse, and shaping its sound from the arvales fratres to fit words to be set to the heroic music of Ermius, and passing from thence to the hands of Virgil, who added to it that grace which inevitably precedes and ushers in declining vigour ; while all this was passing, India was witnessing the rise and decline of as noble a speech as these, with a literature entirely her own, exemplifying in itself all those changes which scholars love to trace in the classical languages of Europe." He then describes how full the heroic poems were of long legends, introduced into them whenever there was the slightest opening for them, and making them perfect storehouses of inexhaustible mythic materials. There is great interest in his translations from some of the striking Indian Epics, but they are all too long for reproduction here. In April, 1850, the Westminster Review printed an interesting article by Cowell on Persian Cuneiform In- scriptions and Persian Ballads. It was founded on a Review of the Royal Asiatic Society's papers on " The Persian Inscription at Behistan, deciphered and translated by Major H. C. Rawlinson." This Cowell looked upon 82 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. as one of the most valuable of the many discoveries of antiquity which our age has made. Although these inscriptions on the rocks of Behistun only just served to verify the little we knew conjecturally before, they were still deeply interesting as they were confirmatory beyond all question. They were also intensely interesting in relation to the more poetic accounts of history as enshrined in the epic ballads of India and others that have come down to us. In the Gentleman's Magazine of June, 1850, is a translation of Sdvitri, an historical poem from the Sanskrit. There are two heroic poems from the epic period of Sanskrit literature. The Ramayana, which is somewhat longer than the Iliad and Odyssey put together, is a great epic, the history of Rama ; and the Mahabhdrata, which is more gigantic stiU, but is a huge collection of minor poems rather than one epic in itself. Cowell tells us that, " The author of the MahahMrata is unknown, but he may have flourished about five or six centuries before our era. Vyase, the name of the reputed author merely signifies ' arrangement.' He is probably only a symbolical personage, signifying that at some unknown period the poem was arranged into its present shape. It is not a little remarkable that Homer's name is susceptible of a similar interpretation [ofiov and dpm)" The Sdvitri is one of the marvellously beautiful legends of ancient India which the Mahabhdrata contains. It is too long to reproduce, and a portion would give no idea of its beauty. Cowell says of it that, " Unlike many of the other tales, the Savitri speaks to all human hearts and not merely to those which beat under India's burning skies in the old centuries before Alexander's invasion ; its interest springs from a root, planted deep in the soul of man, far removed from the surface-varieties of race and clime, down in the sacred depths of our nature, where, if anywhere, linger yet the last faint traces of the Divine since the Fall." An article on Hindu Drama by Cowell appeared in October, 1 8 i;o, written just before he went to Oxford. II NEGLECT OF ORIENTAL STUDY . 83 Again the Westminster Review was the recipient of his thoughts. The books reviewed, and it is interesting to quote them, as showing the contemporary work that was going on, were Vicramorvasi, a Drama by Kalidasa, edited for the use of students of the East India College by Monier Williams ; and Mahd-vira-charita, or The History of Rama; a Sanskrit play by Bhatta Bhavabhuti, edited by F. H. Tritten, member of the Asiatic Society of Paris. In this very interesting article Cowell begins by quoting the passage from Sir W. Jones, in which he describes the manner in which he discovered that the Hindus had not only an ancient epic, but also a dramatic literature. The publication of his translation of the Sakuntala of Kdliddsa caused a great sensation in Europe. It was translated into several languages, and acknowledged on all hands to be a delight- ful poem, full of pastoral sweetness and simplicity. " Professor Wilson, in his H'lndU Drama (the second edition of which was published in London, 1835), gave admirable translations of six of the best remaining plays in prose and verse, with notices of all the others ; and various translations and editions of separate plays have from time to time appeared on the Continent. The two works, however, at the head of this article, are the first specimens of the original text which have been published in England, and we trust they will be followed by others. England, in spite of her vast opportunities, has done least for Oriental literature of the learned nations of Europe ; France and Germany have in every department (except lexicography, where Wilson stands unrivalled) left her far behind ; and this reflection is truly humiliating, when one visits the Library of the East India House, and sees the stores of Oriental lore which lie on their shelves, unread and almost unknown. German scholars come over to London, and study the MSS. to correct their own editions ; but hardly a solitary English scholar can be found to avail himself of the treasures which his countrymen have brought from the remote East almost to his very door." Cowell did well to call attention to the long-standing neglect of the study of Oriental literature in this country, a reproach which the publication of Dr. Max Miiller's Rig- Veda under the patronage of the East India Company did G 2 84 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL ch. ii something to remove. Cowell himself was destined in the next half-century to do much to promote and help forward an accurate study of Oriental literature, but the Government of a country with an Oriental population of more than 299 millions is still sadly wanting in any adequate appreciation of the importance of giving greater facilities for obtaining that sound knowledge of Oriental languages and literature, which is essential if we are to retain our Eastern power against countries that are more far-seeing in this respect than we are. In the same article the writer goes on to point out many peculiarities of the Hindu drama, such as, for instance, a character much resembling the Parasite of the Greek and Roman comedy, or the Gracioso of the Spanish. Another peculiarity is the fact that while the heroes speak in Sanskrit, " The women use a different dialect in which Sanscrit appears softened down by a similar series of changes to those which have melted Latin into the modern Italian ; and these dialectical varieties are more or less regular and euphonious according to the rank of the speaker ; the domestics, both male and female, use dialects still more removed from the present Sanscrit." These various dialects go by the name Prdkrit, a word signifying " inferior." It is more than probable, Cowell tells us, that both Sanskrit and Prikrit were co-existent, as spoken languages, for some centuries after those changes had commenced in pronunciation and grammar which produced the later dialect. The article then goes on to describe the earliest extant Hindu play, the Mrichchhakati, or, Toy Cart, and afterwards well shows the spirit of the Hindu drama by giving a trans- lation of several scenes from the Vicramorvasi, which is the history of the love of King Pururavas and the nymph Urvasi, and is written partly in prose and partly in verse in five acts, a number which is somewhat fewer than the average. CHAPTER III OXFORD 1850— 1856 Much of the success of Cowell's career was due to his wife. She was a clever woman, and in the early days of their marriage had the additional advantage of a mind more mature and experienced than her husband's. She was possessed too of a striking personality, a woman's tact, a warm, affectionate nature, a boundless sympathy, with learning and scholarship. With these qualifications she at once obtained a great influence over him and became to a great extent his guiding spirit, a power which he recognised and trusted to the end of her life. She was. Indeed, his good angel, or, if we may adopt the words of Wordsworth : — " A perfect woman, nobly planned To warn, to comfort, and command ; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light." Besides the gifts that I have mentioned, she certainly had those of courage and determination, a wholesome spirit of ambition, and a desire for distinction for her husband, qualities which in him were somewhat deficient. She therefore supplied just the impetus and aim to which he was too often indifferent, and was thus in herself the complete realisation of the complement or helpmeet for her husband. 86 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. With this brief but indispensable appreciation of Mrs. Cowell, I must not omit to mention an important deter- mining factor which had its due weight in originating in her a desire for an Oxford career for her husband. The Rectory of Flowton, which Mr. Charlesworth held before he was appointed to St. Mildred's, was an Evange- lical conservatory, watched over by the Thornton family, and the able and energetic wife whose qualities we have been enumerating had been naturally brought up and trained in accordance with the straightest views of " Evangelicalism," and from the time of their engagement her predominant wish had been that her husband should give up business, go to a University and take Holy Orders. Her husband was strongly imbued with similar views and a religious feeling which, under ordinary circum- stances, would probably have led him to accept con amore such a career of usefulness. The circumstances, however, were not ordinary. Cowell had for some years taken the strongest interest in Oriental languages and history, and as he has himself told us, was wont to indulge in a dream of a professorship and work in India. So distinct and persistent an aspiration could not possibly be ignored, and as time went on his wife's desires were modified and the question of orders was left to later circumstances ; but the determination that her husband should go to a University, and by preference to Oxford, gained strength from oppo- sition. Only a very determined woman would have overcome the many difficulties in the way. It was no light thing, in fact by some it was held to be an act bordering on insanity for a married man to give up business and become an undergraduate when he was nearly twenty-five years of age. Cowell's good mother made no difficulty. She had full confidence in her son's ability and future distinction and kindly promised aU necessary help in his Oxford expenditure ; but it was his want of confidence in his own powers and the absence of any due recognition of them which postponed for some time a decision in the matter. The chief opposition came Ill ATTRACTED TO OXFORD 87 from himself, so modest was his appreciation of his own capacity and chance of success. Whilst this weighty matter was under consideration, CoweU's great friend, George Kitchin, achieved at Oxford the great success of a Double First Degree. We may well imagine that Mrs. Cowell made the most of this success. The presence of his great friend in Oxford had for some time been held up as not the least of its attrac- tions, and now how much that friend had added to his power of attraction by taking such high honours ! And were not similar honours to be obtained at Oxford by Cowell himself ? Mrs. Cowell had not failed to secure the advocacy of Mr. Kitchin towards the decision she so much desired, and there are many of her letters to him still in existence which show the persistency with which she happily pressed forward her views. In one of these, dated July 15, 1850, she speaks of " my overjoyedness at the way his mind seems turning more and more towards the fulfilment of my hopes for him. Certainly your success has had a most wonderful effect upon him ! I believe nothing else and nothing less could have done ! It combines so remarkably with many things in his past and present circumstances all tending to the same result." In the same letter, speaking of CoweU's and her visit to Oxford at Commemoration time to see Mr. Kitchin take his Degree : — " Nothing will ever efface from our minds the memory of that week at Oxford, even if it have no further consequences ; you can hardly think what it was to us to be with you in such a place at such a time ; especially to Edward, whose deep affections concen- trate themselves so strongly upon the few on whom they do rest ; but it does promise to have the most important influences upon our future life, for certainly Edward's mind is more and more settling into the wish to go to college." The following extract of a letter of Mrs. CoweU's to Mr. George Kitchin, dated September 30th, shows that 88 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. her hopes with regard to her husband eventually taking orders were by no means extinct : — " I know not how to write of your reply to me, still less of that to Edward, but you know enough of his reserve to read much of their effect in that admission of his to you in his last, which per- fectly astonished me, as to what he too might one day be. Anything that touches upon his assuming orders has to do with thoughts which, as Wordsworth says, ' Lie too deep for tears.' Anything you can do towards bringing about such a consummation of his studies will, I am sure, be its own reward. He is having the hottest correspondence just now in Latin with E. F. G.,^ and in Persian with Hocklein's Major, as E. F. G. calls him." By this time it was nearly settled that Cowell should go to Oxford, as on October the 14th Mrs. Cowell writes : "I am so glad you are advising Edward to read for honours in algebra. His talent for algebra is proving to be, as I always expected, just like his talent for all other things ; and his love for it also : it is the universality of genius." On the 17th of the same month she writes : — "I am enjoying a foretaste of the happiness of Oxford in having Edward at home now all day for one or two days in every week, and much more at home in almost every day, for Charles Henry is installed in the Counting House. He was rejoiced to have your letter this morning, and if he does not write to you in this I shall steal a fragment of an unfinished Latin letter to you and put it in. How I build upon the development of his great and unknown powers by ' concentration ' at Oxford." On the 28th of October Mrs. Cowell, in her letter to Mr. Kitchin, discusses the question of lodgings and the regret of leaving Bramford : — " Meantime what I want to say is about the lodgings to be chosen there. For a long time I clung to this little Home (which we love so much) as a Home to return to, and was full of thoughts how to keep it on, and have it to return to in Long Vacations. I begin to feel more and more, however, it will be best to take to ^ The well-known initials of Edward FitzGerald. in DIFFICULTIES 89 Oxford as our Home ; that is for Edward's great powers the fitting career ; Suffolk offers nothing in comparison. His dear mother, of course, I would think of before all things, — but then she can better and with more enjoyment come to us in Oxford than we to her here. We must ' burn the fleet,' therefore. Many articles of our furniture we must under any circumstances take to Oxford ; some we love too much, some we want too much, to do without them." A letter from Co well to George Kitchin thanking him for " elucidation of my difficulties " commenced with the following sentence : — "Bramford, Nov. i, 1850. I can only send you a rew lines, but just to say that in consequence of your letter we shall not come up till the week after next." Elizabeth adds a postscript : — "E. F. G. came yesterday, and they have done nothing but read Euripides aloud ever since. Have nearly gone through the Medea, they will finish it to-night. Meantime Edward is hard at work at algebra while E. F. G. is gone for a walk." Eight days later the movement towards Oxford received a check, and Mrs. Cowell for a time was in despair, as will appear from the following sentences from a letter she wrote to George Kitchin on November 8 th. " Edward did indeea tell me about the lodgings and I have been impatient to write to you about them, for I was delighted to find they were in the very place I most wished, that pleasant part of the High Street,^ the only part near enough to Magdalen Hall for Edward — but a heavy gloom has come over our bright prospects, some evil influences are persuading Edward to give up college altogether and trust to Oriental studies alone for a career — and the misery is it is all my own fault, so that I feel almost too ill and out of spirits to write at all, but am anxious to get your help immediately. First, however, about lodgings — it was very kind of you indeed to take the trouble of going and inquiring, and to make that charming little map, — which made me see quite clearly, though Edward, who always says he has no organ of 1 No. 106 High Street, opposite Brasenose College. 90 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. locality, puzzled over it as if it had been a problem .... And now for my story of trouble, all through my own wretched fault ! Edward has always told me not to talk of his going to Oxford, but the time drew so near, and it seemed so certain, that I asked him if I might send word by E. F. G. to Mr. Donne, who, being a great scholar, I thought would rejoice in it, feeling a kind interest for Edward. Par malheur he has taken up very strongly and impressed E. F. G. with it, the idea that all is done and given at Oxford by favour, &c., all Edward could hope for, and that he had far better try for something (of all nonsense to talk !) in the wretched Scotch or London Universities. This is never to be thought of ... . But the mischief of it is that to prove their point they so distort College life, in the dread- fully long letters E. F. G. is rousing up his languid energies to send us, that Edward, who was just beginning, to my heartfelt thankfulness, to rise to the occasion, and really feel the fitness of his tastes and energies for the career before him, is now almost wholly turned back again, and ready to set ofF for Bury, as they want him to do, to talk with Mr. Donne, — and if he does that, I fear, but for God's help, the mischief will be done ! — and that / should have done it ! whose hope and dream has been his Oxford career 1 . . . But we must act, not weep, — as I feel as if I could hardly ever stop from doing. . . ." The letter continues to great length with the object of imploring Mr. Kitchin to write, and pointing out the line of arguments most likely to counteract the opposition of E. F. G. and Mr. Donne. A few sentences, in which she bears tribute to the great powers of her husband, may well be transcribed : — " No one but you and I know what they are ; I doubt \i you know his extraordinary powers of application ; the intensity he is capable of putting forth for the mere pleasure of putting it forth is not to be described, — I never read nor heard nor dreamed of application like it ; he has literally to tear himself from his books at night ! Such a man ought to have the at all events chance of what the advantages of a University may do for him, the unknown power its discipline may elicit ; you and I can see this, — but it is no use saying so to him, — he does not think he is above other men ! . . . "This is taking up your time with a sadly long and very sad letter, but you love Edward too much not to share my Ill DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME 91 anxiety. Your own judgment will know best what to do and what to say to him ; I should say a long affectionate letter appealing more to his heart than his head was best. But indeed I hardly know. E. F. G. may write again, or very probably return here in a day or two. I wrote to try and stop his writing, or using such influence, but quite in vain ; it only brought on fresh arguments." There is no doubt that Edward FitzGerald became strongly opposed to Cowell's giving up his Bramford home and entering upon an unknown career, and that the arguments of E. F. G. and Mr. Donne together brought about a return of Cowell's serious misgivings with regard to the step. The letter which his friend George Kitchin wrote at Mrs. Cowell's instigation is not forthcoming, but it evidently had the desired eiFect and produced the follow- ing letter from CoweU in response : — "Bramford, Nov. II, 1850 .... I was much pleased to have your letter this morning, and feel fully the force of what you say. I do really trust to be with you on Wednesday night to matriculate, — it is a great step and makes me draw my breath in. " I am very busy to-day, but not, I am sorry to say, about Latin composition. I believe a Sanscrit translation of mine is going to be published. At least, a publisher wrote to me for one, — I had one done and I am now finally correcting it for him, so that I really must not say any more, though I could have said much about your letter which I cared about very much." Mrs. CoweU began on the flyleaf of Cowell's a letter which ran on to another sheet and a half. The following extracts from it speak for themselves : — "I am most thankful to you for your letter, and for the promptness with which you acted, which was almost as important as the writing ; for E. F. G. and Mr. Donne are now daily expecting to hear from or see Edward at Bury, and pressing his going over there to argue the point with them, and I have been just able, day by day (Sanscrit and / have, as he is intensely hard at work), to persuade him not to go or write. It was beyond measure important that your letter should arrive before another letter from E. F. G. came, or what would be worse, himself, for 92 LIFE OF PROFESSOR COWELL chap. he was to come to us on his return. It was of great importance, too, that part of your letter about the Professorships not being given by favour at Oxford ; you knew indeed exactly how to write, ill as I had been able to tell you what was wanted. Edward asks if I have fairly represented E. F. G. and Mr. Donne to you, — perhaps not, but you would see that they only meant kindly, and were acting according to their own view like true friends, and are both really men of the highest principle, as far as a man can be, who doubts if Scripture be aftogether the highest guide, — and also men of fine taste and real scholarship ; but they are men totally incapable of appreciating Edward's higher qualities, or your and my views for him. . . . " But, dear George, we must not look upon this anxious battle as won yet ; a great deal depends upon this visit itself; the fact is his passion is Sanscrit — and such wonderful lights upon philology and past history do unfold themselves from the study of that wonderful language, that I cannot but look upon it as one of the richest and most fertile paths a scholar could choose, especially with Edward's wonderful facility of acquisition. Mr. Rigaud ^ (who is very intimate with the Macbrides^^) tells us, laughing, how in the examination for the Sanscrit Scholarship the great business is the reading the lesson, just spelling it out ! — now Edward, self- taught, is in Sanscrit, where a man reading Sophocles is in Greek. I gather my ideas from what I hear from him ; and the Translation he is now about to publish, and which is splendidly done, and will, I do believe, be what Oxford will think no discredit, is of a very difficult and beautiful drama ; his last article in the Foreign ^arterly has made a great impression ; the reason I am troubling you with all this is because it tells upon what is to be done if possible. If I thought he must abandon Sanscrit for Oxford, I should almost think, like E. F. G., he had better cling to it and let Oxford go ; it is too deep in his heart to be torn thence, and too noble and fruitful a study ; but I cannot but believe that a rising Sanscrit scholar like Edward would be welcomed to Oxford, and sanction and encouragement given to his pursuits there, provided, of course, they allowed his giving proper attention to others. . . " We must take into our calculations this passionate devotion to a certainly not unworthy study, so alarmingly too, as it has just shown its power. We must look the thing in thzface^ and see if it would not tell in our favour if the whole truth were known. ' Dr. Rigaud was the Head Master of the Ipswidi School, afterwards Bishop of Antigua. 2 Dr. Macbride was the Principal of Magdalen Hall at Oxford and Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic. Ill MATRICULATION 93 Edward hears of the great want of some real instruction in Sanscrit, for any man who really, through any Indian appointment, &c., does want to learn it ; then, on the other hand, the progress of Sanscrit research is one of the great objects of the Age ; I must believe that learned men at Oxford would meet and welcome thither a Sanscrit scholar did they know about his coming ; you know how much sympathy in these studies is to Edward ; five words of real sympathy in his love for Sanscrit or Arabic would do more than all E. F. G.'s arguing. . . . " Oh ! you have done such good ! ! ! " Cowell went up to Oxford on November 13, and matriculated on the following day. George Kitchin promised to spend part of the Christmas Vacation at Bramford before the home there was broken up, and Cowell wrote thus to him : — "Ipswich, Dec, 28, 1850. I had been expecting to hear from you, and was therefore very glad when your letter really came. We shall be right glad to welcome you when you^^come, albeit your time of coming is delayed ' point after point till on to ' almost the end of the vacation. Thank you for the list of books. They all tempt me, an I could, I should like to have to read them all up. It isn't the reading part of any examination — but the shadow of composition does hang darkly sometimes ! I think that I shall stick to my Alcestis and Hippolytus and Epistles (or Satires) and De Arte Poetica. I don't try Euclid — Algebra I have already worked up pretty thoroughly to the end of Ouad- ratics, which will carry me comfortably through the quantity required for the Little Go. I suppose that I couldn't go in for it in February, which is the date fixed in your paper. I want to have my Little Go over and set to work bravely and earnestly for No. 2." On December 31, 1850, in a letter written from Boulge to F. Tennyson,^ Edward FitzGerald says of the move to Oxford : — " The delightful lady .... is going to leave this neighbour- hood and carry her young husband to Oxford, there to get him 1 Letters of Edward FitzGerald, 2 vols. Edited by W. Aldis Wright. Vol. I. 94 LIFE OF PROFESSOR CO WELL chap. some Oriental Professorship one day. He is a delightful fellow, and / say, will, if he live, be the best scholar in England. Not that I think Oxford will be so helpful to his studies as his counting house at Ipswich was. However, being married, he cannot, at all events, become Fellow, and as so many do, dissolve all the promise of scholarship in sloth, gluttony and sham Dignity. I shall miss them both more than I can say, and must take to Lucretius ! to comfort me. ... I have not seen anyone you know since I last wrote, nor heard from anyone except dear old Spedding, who really came down and spent two days with us, me and that scholar and his wife in their village,^ in their delightful little house, in their pleasant fields by the river side." Cowell's own letters to George Kitchin during this period were mostly written during vacation time. But they are of value as showing his aims and thoughts and happy life, apart from the routine of work at College during his Oxford Terms. "Bread Street, Cheapside, July 31, 1851. I was very pleased to have your letter — it was forwarded to us here from Oxford, which we left a few days after you did. We have been making a stay in London, at Bread Street, and are going ofF to Ipswich to- morrow. I shall make more of a holiday when I get to Suffolk, though in sooth I have not worked myself very hard here. I have been copying in the East India House in the mornings, and I have generally done some trigonometry during the day. Conic sections I have done a little in, but only as far as about co-ordi- nates. I can now understand your old metaphor, which you puzzled me with at Bramford, and which I brought into an article on the strength of your then explanation — about geography and chronology being the co-ordinates of history. I liked the idea very much, and like it the better now that I begin to know something more about them. " You must enjoy the glorious scenery around you intensely — you have the artist's eye as well as the poet's — and deserve to travel in such glorious lands, where Nature reveals herself in her grandest moods. I hope I shall see Geneva some day, but when, I know not, and besides, if I could get so far, I think I should go further in another direction first. " It seemed strange to be in Oxford without you, after having seen so much of you so long, renewing old schoolday times which ' Bramford, near Ipswich, Ill LETTERS 95 seemed to have passed away for ever. It seems very vironderful and dreamlike when I think of Oxford and my present life, and then contrast it with my past. I went near Mark Lane to-day, and felt a joyful feeling of liberty as I thought how quit I was from going there now ! I am afraid I was not cut out to be a man of business, and yet I am not at all sure that it is not a greater (as it certainly is a more useful) thing than being a scholar ! You will think this sad heresy, and so most assuredly would Elizabeth ! " I am so rejoiced to hear you have been so fortunate in your party and your journey. Your men seem the very persons that suit such a thing — enough of similarity and dissimilarity to assimi- late and make each other happy. I can't think how reading can go on within sight of such scenery — how can books compete with mountains, valleys, and lakes ? If I were there I should have to be entirely idle or entirely a bookworm ; I am afraid I could not combine the two. "Maurice was up in London last week and gave us grand accounts of Ipswich, Prince Albert, and the British Association. I found out that Miiller had been asked to take the chair of the Ethnological section, but he could not go. Major Rawlinson was there, and the Chevalier Bunsen. Edward Charlesworth was there, of course, and while he was making a speech, in an argu- ment with Professors Sedgewick and Owen, Prince Albert came in and stayed through the argument. He laid the first stone of Mr. Rigaud's new Grammar School, and it all passed off very well, and poor Ipswich woke up after it was all over and found that it was a dream, and went to sleep again. " How delightful it will be when we all meet in Oxford again, and your mother with us. I am going to spend a few days in Cambridge with Mr. Preston, the Arabic scholar." "Ipswich, Sept. 12, 185 1. 1 do congratulate you on your safe return to old England ; and am truly thankful that your reading party has gone on so well. I am afraid you left Ouchy before my letter reached it. We have been in Cambridge and Bury, and let our time run away there sight-seeing, &c. We don't think of returning to Oxford till the end of this month, so you will not find us there to-morrow. I wish I could be there for an hour or two to give you a bit of a welcome after your absence. However, you must accept the word for the deed, and my letter for my personal presence. " I am amused at your ultra-tirade against the Celts, more violent than even my ideas ever were. You are as bad as Carlyle with his recommended fusillades. I am told that when the Irish emi