322
��NOTES BY THE WAY.
��of publication in addition to the literary and artistic work which he had done without charge from the very first.
Omar Ebsworth closed his published work on our Ballad history
Khayyam. with a Valediction from FitzGerald's 'Omar Khayyam.' In a letter to me of the 1st of July, 1906. he writes :
" There are many among us Omarists who are inclined to love FitzGerald's earlier edition, 1859, in its readings and simplicity, though it fell dead on the public and ' wasted ' ; but the differences betwixt it and the later versions being enormous, the safe way in the collective edition of 1889 (Macmillan's) was adopted, and it was reprinted distinct in good equal type.
" Nine stanzas appear in the 2nd edition only, reprinted on pp. 301, 302. Eds. 3 and 4 seem to be the same textually.
When you and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last !
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds As the Seven Seas should heed a pebble-cast.
Yet ah ! that Spring should vanish with the Rose ! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close !
The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah ! whence and whither, flown again, who knows ?
Yon rising moon that looks for us again, How oft hereafter will she wax and wane !
How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same Garden and for one in vain.
And when Thyself with shining foot shall pass Among the Guests star-scattered on the grass,
And in thy joyous errand reach the spot Where I made one turn down an empty glass. Tamam.
��Ebsworth's
' Cavalier
Lyrics.'
Mentions his friends.
��John Payne Collier.
��Ebsworth's affectionate nature caused him to dedicate sections of the Roxburghe Ballads to his friends, and when he published ' The Cavalier Lyrics ' for private circulation in 1887, he " steps aside to greet his friends," mentioning their names with kind comments. Among them we find William Bell Scott, the surviving younger brother of Ebsworth's early instructor, Dr. Grosart, James Cartwright, James Gairdner, the Bullens, Bertram Dobell, Matthew Arnold, William R. Wilson, W. J. Fletcher, Edward Bond, Stein- man-Steinman, and W. M. Wood of Hertford, " King of Readers." The names of those who had passed away include the veteran Shakespearian critic John Payne Collier, with whom for years Ebsworth had had most pleasant correspondence until Collier's sudden blindness. To Ebsworth's great grief, he received the follow- ing letter, dated Riverside, March 8, 1882 :
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