allowing its Point of View. I doubt you
will repent of ever having showed me the Book. I should like well to
have the Lithograph Copy of Omar which you tell of in your Note. My
Translation has its merit: but it misses a main one in Omar, which I will
leave you to find out. The Latin Versions, if they were corrected into
decent Latin, would be very much better. . . . I have forgotten to write
out for you a little Quatrain which Binning found written in Persepolis;
the Persian Tourists having the same propensity as English to write their
Names and Sentiments on their national Monuments. {2}

* * * * *

In the early part of 1859 his friend William Browne was terribly injured
by his horse falling upon him and lingered in great agony for several
weeks.

_To W. B. Donne_.

GOLDINGTON, BEDFORD.
_March_ 26 [1859].

MY DEAR DONNE,

Your folks told you on what Errand I left your house so abruptly. I was
not allowed to see W. B. the day I came: nor yesterday till 3 p.m.; when,
poor fellow, he tried to write a line to me, like a child's! and I went,
and saw, no longer the gay Lad, nor the healthy Man, I had known: but a
wreck of all that: a Face like Charles I. (after decapitation almost)
above the Clothes: and the poor shattered Body underneath lying as it had
lain eight weeks; such a case as the Doctor says he had never known.
Instead of the light utterance of other days too, came the slow painful
syllables in a far lower Key: and when the old familiar words, 'Old
Fellow--Fitz'--etc., came forth, so spoken, I broke down too in spite of
foregone Resolution.

They thought he'd die last Night: but this Morning he is a little better:
but no hope. He has spoken of me in the Night, and (if he wishes) I
shall go again, provided his Wife and Doctor approve. But it agitates
him: and Tears he could not wipe away came to his Eyes. The poor Wife
bears up wonderfully.

_To E. B. Cowell_.

GELDESTONE HALL, BECCLES.
_April_ 27 [1859]

MY DEAR COWELL,

Above is the Address you had better direct to in future. I have had a
great Loss. W. Browne was fallen upon and half crushed by his horse near
three months ago: and though the Doctors kept giving hopes while he lay
patiently for two months in a condition no one else could have borne for
a Fortnight, at last they could do no more, nor Nature neither: and he
sunk. I went to see him before he died--the comely spirited Boy I had
known first seven and twenty years ago lying