A TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, WHOSE EARLY APPRECIATION OF THE GENIUS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD WAS THE CHIEF STIMULANT OF THAT CURIOSITY BY WHICH HIS NAME WAS DRAWN FROM ITS ANONYMOUS OF HONOUR WHICH IT NOW HOLDS, THIS EDITION OF HIS WORKS IS DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR. BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE. DWARD FITZGERALD, whom the world has ED already learned, in spite of his own efforts to remain within the shadow of anonymity, to look upon as one of the rarest poets of the century, was born at Bredfield in Suffolk, on the 31st March, 1809. He was the third son of John Purcell, of Kilkenny in Ireland, who, marrying Miss Mary Frances Fitzgerald, daughter of John Fitzgerald, of Williamstown, County Waterford, added that distinguished name to his own patronymic; and the future Omar was thus doubly of Irish extraction. (Both the families of Purcell and Fitzgerald claim descent from Norman warriors of the eleventh century.) This circumstance is thought to have had some influence in attracting him to the study of Persian poetry, Iran and Erin being almost convertible terms in the early days of modern ethnology. After some years of primary education at the grammar school of Bury St. Edmunds, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1826, and there formed acquaintance with several young men of great abilities, most of |