FITZGERALD, Edward, English poet and translator: b. near Woodbridge, Suffolk, 31 March 1809; d. Merton, Norfolk, 14 June 1883. At 17 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1830. At school and college he formed several lifelong friendships with men who afterward became celebrated in different spheres, among them being Spedding and Thackeray. At a later period he gained the friendship of Tennyson and Carlyle. His life was passed quietly — almost in retirement in various parts of Suffolk, first at Bredfield, his birthplace, then near Ipswich, where he con tracted friendships with George Crabbe, the son of his favorite English poet, and Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet; and lastly at Boulge Hall and Woodbridge. Books were his chief indoor recreation; out of doors he occupied himself at first chiefly with boating and after ward with his garden. He married in Novem ber 1856 Lucy Barton, daughter of the Quaker poet; but it was an ill-assorted union, and they soon separated. While a man of large and generous impulses he had no liking for the conventional usages of society. Fitzgerald's works are not numerous, by far the most im portant being his celebrated translation of the 'Rubaiyat) (or quatrains) of the Persian semi pessimistic astronomer-poet, Omar Khayyam. His first translation from the Persian appeared in 1856, an edition of Jame's (Salimin and Absal.) Three years later his magnum opus fell on an unregarding public. Declined by Fraser's Magazine in 1858, it was originally published at 5s. and had been relegated to the "penny box" when in 1860 it was discovered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was soon joined by Swinburne in appreciation of the poem. Even
so, it was nine years before a second edition was called for. Fitzgerald took great liberties with his original, picked and chose his material and strove rather to express the atmosphere than to give a faithful translation. In the result, he has rendered both poet and trans lator immortal. Edition after edition has fallen from the press and it would be impossible to overpraise it as a work of literary art. ((De lightful picture follows delightful picture; thoughts that have occupied the world's great est thinkers in all ages are clothed in the finest language; the perfect word falls into the precise place; everything is compact, polished, subtle and magnificent." Other works by Fitz gerald are (Euphranor: a Dialogue on Youth' (1851) ; (Polonius: a Collection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances' (1852); both of which appeared anonymously; (Six Dramas of Cald eron, freely translated by Edward Fitzgerald' (1853) ; and translations of iEschylus' 'Aga memnon) and the plays of Sophocles. Tennyson's poem (Tiresias,) was dedicated to Fitzgerald. Consult (Letters and Literary Re mains of Edward Fitzgerald,' edited by W. Aldis Wright (1889; new ed., 1894); 'Life,' by Thomas Wright (1904) ; 'Variorum Edition of the Poetical and Prose Writings of Fitz gerald,' edited by Bentham (1902-03) ; and 'Edward Fitzgerald,' by A. C. Benson, in 'Eng lish Men of Letters,' series (1905).