SOURCE: Walker, Hugh. “The Turn of the Century: New Influences.” In The Literature of the Victorian Era, pp. 444-526. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910.

In the following excerpt, Walker praises FitzGerald's Rubáiyát for capturing the essence of the original better than any other (more faithful) translation of it.

There is no man in recent literature more difficult to ‘place’ than Edward FitzGerald. His position is unique. Professedly only a translator, he was in reality an original poet as well, ranking, in respect of power, after only a very few of his contemporaries. “An eccentric man of genius,” it was his whim or his peculiarity to mask and disguise his gifts; and only a few of his friends completely penetrated the veil which, consciously or unconsciously, he threw over himself. His diffidence partly concealed his genius even from himself. He was conscious of power to do as well...