English scholar, born in Suffolk; at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1830, he formed close friendships with James Spedding and Thackeray, and afterwards was on intimate terms with Carlyle and Tennyson; his life was quietly spent in his country residence in Suffolk, varied by yachting expeditions and visits to London, where he made the round of his friends; his first book, "Euphranor," a dialogue on youth, appeared when he was 42, "Polonius" followed and some Spanish translations, but his fame rests on his translations of Persian poetry, and especially on his rendering of the 11th-century poet, Omar Khayyám (1809-1883).