Tārīḫ-i Nādirī - The History of the Life of Nader Šāh

NO characters are more conspicuous in History, or excite greater admiration in the generality of readers, than those of celebrated Warriours and Conquerors: we suppose them to partake of a nature more than human; we deck their statues and pictures with Laurel; and we dignify them with the name of Great; though, perhaps, if they were stripped of their bright arms, and devested of their pompous titles, we should find most of them to be the meanest and basest of mankind. This infatuation arises, partly from the deplorable servility of our minds, and our eagerness to kiss the foot which tramples on us; partly from our ascribing to the superiour force and abilities of One Man that success, in which chance or treachery have often a considerable share, and which could never be obtained without the united effort of a multitude; and partly from our mistaking the nature of true Virtue, which consists, not in destroying our fellow-creatures, but in protecting them, not in seizing their property, but in desending their rights and liberties even at the hazard of our own safety. Many Roman Generals, who had neither valour nor prudence to recommend them, have procured the honour of a Triumph for victories gained by their officers; and Cicero, in his speech for Marcellus, ventured to depreciate the glory of Cæsar himself, by asserting, that a commander receives no small assistance from the courage of his men, the advantage of his situation, the strength of his allies, and the plenty of his provisions: but Fortune, he adds, claims the greatest praise in every prosperous achievement, as military actions owe their chief success to her favour^*.

Power is always odious, always to be suspected, when it resides in the hands of an individual; and a free people will never suffer any single man to be more powerful than the Laws, which themselves have enacted or confirmed: but no kind of power is more licentiously insolent than that, which is supported by force of arms. It was this, which enabled Marius and Sylla to drench the streets of Rome with the blood of her most virtuous citizens; a consciousness of superiour force gave CæÚsar spirits to pass the Rubicon, and oppress the liberty of his country, which the profligate Tyrant Octavius finally extinguished with the same detestable instrument: and the insatiable avarice of Princes, joined to the pride of conquest and the love of dominion, has filled the world with terrour and misery, from Sesostris who invaded Africk and Europe, to the three mighty potentates, who are ravaging Poland. How much more splendid would their glory have been, if, instead of raising their fame on the subversion of kingdoms, they had applied their whole thoughts to the patronage of arts, science, letters, agriculture, trade; had made their nations illustrious in wisdom, extensive in commerce, eminent in riches, firm in virtue, happy in freedom; and had chosen rather to be the Benefactors, than the Destroyers, of the human species!

These sentiments, which, as nothing can prevent my entertaining them, so nothing shall prevent my expressing as forcibly as I am able, were sufficient to have deterred me from ever attempting to write The Life of a Conqueror; unless it had been for the sake of exposing a character of all others the most infamously wicked, and of displaying the charms of liberty by showing the odiousness of tyranny and oppression: but a circumstance, which it will be proper to relate from the beginning, induced me to depart from my resolution, and hurried me from the contemplation of civil and pacifick virtues to the more dazzling, but less pleasing, scenes of victories and triumphs.

A great northern monarch, who visited this country a few years ago, under the name of the Prince of Travendal, brought with him an Eastern manuscript, containing the life of NADER SHAH, the late Sovereign of Persia, which He was desirous of having translated in England. The Secretary of State, with whom the Danish Minister had conversed upon the subject, sent the volume to me, requesting me to give a literal translation of it in the French language; but I wholly declined the task, alledging, for my excuse, the length of the book, the dryness of the subject, the difficulty of the style, and, chiefly, my want both of leisure and ability to enter upon an undertaking so fruitless and so laborious. I mentioned, however, a gentleman, with whom I had not then the pleasure of being acquainted, but who had distinguished himself by his translation of a Persian History, and was far abler than myself to satisfy the King of Denmark’s expectations. The learned writer, who had other works upon his hands, excused himself on the account of his many engagements; and the application to me was renewed: it was hinted, that my compliance would be of no small advantage to me at my entrance into life, that it would procure me some mark of distinction, which might be pleasing to me, and, above all, that it would be a reflection upon this country, if the King should be obliged to carry the manuscript into France. Incited by these motives, and principally by the last of them, unwilling to be thought churlish or morose, and eager for the bubble Reputation, I undertook the work, and sent a specimen of it to his Danish Majesty; who returned his approbation of the style and method, but desired, that the whole translation might be perfectly literal, and the Oriental images accurately preserved. The task would have been far easier to me, had I been directed to finish it in Latin; for the acquisition of a French style was infinitely more tedious; and it was necessary to have every chapter corrected by a native of France, before it could be offered to the discerning eye of the publick; since in every language there are certain peculiarities of idiom, and nice shades of meaning, which a foreigner can never learn to perfection: but the work, how arduous and unpleasing soever, was completed in a year; not without repeated hints from the Secretary’s office, that it was expected with great impatience by the Court of Denmark. The translation of the History of NADER SHAH was published in the summer of the year seventeen hundred and seventy^*, at the expense of the translator; and forty copies upon large paper were sent to Copenhagen, one of them, bound with uncommon elegance, for the King himself, and the others, as presents to his Courtiers.

What marks of distinction I have since received, and what fruits I have reaped for my labour, it would ill become me to mention at the head of a work, in which I profess to be the Historian of others, and not of myself: but since an advertisement has appeared on this subject in the publick papers, which is notoriously false in every article, and casts a most unjust reflection upon an amiable monarch, it seems a duty imposed upon me by the laws of justice and gratitude, to print at the end of this Volume the honourable testimony of regard, which his Majesty Christian VII. sent publickly to London, a few months after He had received my work, together with my letter of thanks for so signal a token of His favour; and I cannot, certainly, be charged with want of respect to the great and illustrious Personage, to whom that royal Epistle is addressed, since it was not sent in a private manner, but openly and in the eyes of the world; and a copy of it was even delivered to me, after having passed through several hands. Nothing more remains to be said on this subject, but that the worthy and excellent man, who was my sole guide and adviser in this affair, and to whom I opened my thoughts in my familiar letters with the utmost frankness, having retired from the office which he then held, I am left at perfect liberty to relate the whole transaction, without a possibility of giving offence to any one living; especially since I have not suffered his name to be made cheap, by mentioning it in any part of the narrative.

This was the circumstance, which induced me, against my inclination, to describe the Life of a Conqueror, and to appear in publick as an Author, before a maturity of judgement had made me see the dangers of the step, which I was inconsiderately taking; for, I believe, if I had reflected on the little solid glory which a man reaps from acquiring a name in literature, on the jealousy and envy which attend such an acquisition, on the distant reserve which a writer is sure to meet with from the generality of mankind, and on the obstruction which a contemplative habit gives to our hopes of being distinguished in active life; if all, or any, of these reflections had occurred to me, I should not have been tempted by any consideration to enter upon so invidious and so thankless a career: but, as Tully says, I should have considered, before I embarked, the nature and extent of my voyage; now, since the sails are spread, the vessel must take its course^*.

It may perhaps be expected, that some account should here be given of the Persian History, which I was thus appointed to send abroad in an European dress, with some remarks on the veracity and merit of its Eastern Author; but, before we descend to these minute particulars, it will not be foreign from the subject of the present publication, to enquire into the general nature of Historical composition, and to offer the idea, rather of what is required from a perfect Historian, than of what hitherto seems to have been executed in any age or nation.

CICERO, who was meditating an History of Rome, had established a set of rules for the conduct of his work, which he puts into the mouth of Antonius in his treatise on the accomplished Orator; where he declares “the basis and ground-work of all History to depend upon these primary Laws, that the writer should not dare to set down a Falshood, nor be deterred by fear from divulging an interesting Truth; and that he should avoid any just suspicion of partiality or resentment: the edifice, he adds, which must be raised on this foundation, consists of two parts, the relation of things, and the words in which they are related; in the first, the Historian should adhere to the order of time, and diversify his narrative with the description of countries; and since, in all memorable transactions, first the counsels are explained, then the acts, and, lastly, the events, he should pronounce his own judgement on the merit of the counsels; should show what acts ensued, and in what manner they were performed; and unfold the causes of all great events, whether he imputes them to chance, or wisdom, or rashness: he should also describe, not only the actions, but the lives and characters, of all the persons, who are eminently distinguished in his piece; and, as to the words, should be master of a copious and expanded style, flowing along with ease and delicacy, without the roughness of pleadings at the Bar, or the affectatation of pointed sentences^*.”

If we form our idea of a complete Historian from these rules, we shall presently perceive the reason, why no writer, ancient or modern, has been able to sustain the weight of so important a character; which includes in it the perfection of almost every virtue and every noble accomplishment, an unbiassed integrity, a comprehensive view of nature, an exact knowledge of men and manners, a mind stored with free and generous principles, a penetrating sagacity, a fine taste and copious eloquence: a perfect Historian must know many languages, many arts, many sciences; and, that he may not be reduced to borrow his materials wholly from other men, he must have acquired the height of political wisdom, by long experience in the great affairs of his country, both in peace and war. There never was, perhaps, any such character; and, perhaps, there never will be: but in every art and science there are certain ideas of perfection, to which the works of human genius are continually tending, though, like the Logarithmick Spiral, they will never meet the point to which they are infinitely approaching. Cicero himself, had he found leisure to accomplish his design, though he would have answered his own idea in most respects, would have been justly liable to the suspicion of an illiberal bias in relating the history of his own times, and drawing the several characters of his age.

The very soul and essence of History, is Truth, without which it can preserve neither its name nor its nature, and with which the most indifferent circumstances in a barren chronicle are more interesting to a sensible reader, than the greatest events, how copiously or elegantly soever they may be described, in a romance or a legend: yet it is strange, that, of so many Histories, ancient or modern, European or Asiatick, there should be so few, which we can read without asking in almost every page, Is this true?

History, in its original state, was, probably nothing more than the bare relation of publick events, which were digested in the form of Annals, like the life of Tully by Fabricius: we are assured that this was the case in old Rome^*; and it seems, indeed, in all ages, to be the wisest, as well as the most useful, method of writing history, unless the facts were more diligently examined and more fairly represented, than they appear to be in most productions of this nature. Among the Greeks, Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Epimenides, and among the Latins, Cato, Pictor, Piso, are said to have written without affecting any ornament, or aiming at any other merit than that of a nervous brevity. HERODOTUS sent abroad his nine books with the advantage of a more polished dress: there is a noble simplicity in his diction, to which the open vowels of the Ionick dialect greatly contribute, and many of his narratives are extremely pleasing; but his accounts of the Persian affairs are at least doubtful, if not fabulous; and he followed his Egyptian guides with an implicit confidence, not scrupling to relate a number of facts, which he could never have verified, if he thought they would improve the manners, or gratify the curiosity, of his own inquisitive nation. THUCYDIDES added stronger nerves to historical composition; his facts are in general authentick, his observations deep and sagacious; but his language is abrupt, obscure, and sententious, particularly in the speeches, which, though they abound with wise maxims and exalted sentiments, bear all the marks of labour and stiffness, and have not even the air of probability, since it is impossible, that many of them could have been comprehended by a popular audience. What Thucydides wanted, namely, a simple and graceful style, XENOPHON possessed in an eminent degree: nothing can equal the sweetness and delicacy of his language; but that sweetness itself is hardly consistent with the gravity of his subject, and all his pieces, if we except that on the Expedition of Cyrus, in which he was personally engaged, have more liveliness of imagination than depth of judgement, and display more of the scholar and moralist, than of the statesman and orator. The sentiments of Thucydides, expressed in the style of Xenophon, would have approached very nearly to that idea of perfect History, which we have just delineated; but it seems to be wisely ordained by nature, that no single man shall excel all others in every great accomplishment, lest he should be tempted to fancy himself a being of a superiour order, and should exert his talents to the ruin of his fellow-creatures. Of all the Greek Historians, POLYBIUS was, perhaps, the gravest, the wisest, and the most faithful; but his language is even harsher than that of Thucydides; and, in the few books which remain of his excellent work, we are at a loss to discern the taste and elegance of Scipio and Lælius, by whom he was assisted.

That forced and stiff kind of writing, than which nothing can be more odious in History, was designedly adopted by SALLUST, and seems inexcusable in a man of his rank and knowledge, who lived in the very age of Cicero: the same abruptness and obscurity may well be pardoned in TACITUS, who flourished when the purity of the Roman language had declined with the Roman liberty; but the defect of his style prevents us from considering him as a consummate Historian, though his wisdom and penetration would otherwise give him a just claim to that title. It is not easy to conceive what the Ancients mean by the lactea ubertas of LIVY: in many parts of his work he shows great candour and judgement; but his language is not remarkable for ease or copiousness, and it was below a writer of his genius to relate all the superstitious and incredible fictions, which were invented only to please the people of Rome, by ascribing the foundation and support of their City to the interposition of the Gods.

The writers of Lives, as Plutarch and Nepos, belong to a different class: Diodorus the Sicilian, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, were rather scholars and antiquaries, than masters of political knowledge; and the later Greek Historians, Appian, Dio, Herodian, and the rest, can hardly be supposed to stand the test of Cicero’s rules, by which even Thucydides and Polybius have been declared imperfect. It would far exceed the limits of a prefatory discourse, if we attempted to examine by these laws the many Historians, who have related the affairs of their respective states, in the various dialects of modern Europe, Italian or Spanish, French or English: some of them are grave and judicious, some bold and impartial, others polished and elegant; but none of them seem to have possessed all those qualities, a perfect union of which is required in the character of a finished Historian.

The History of Florence by MACHIAVELLI, how beautifully soever it may be written, must necessarily be liable to suspicion from the known principles of its Author; and the work of GUICCIARDINI, who bore an eminent part in the actions which he relates, is not, I believe, considered by the Italians themselves as a model of fine writing.

M. DE VOLTAIRE seems to bear away the palm of History among the French: his style is lively and spirited, his descriptions, animated and striking, his remarks, always ingenious, often deep; and, if some trifling errours are discovered in his writings, we are willing to excuse them, when we reflect, that he is not only the best Historian, but the finest Poet also, and the greatest Wit, of his nation. He appears to be unjustly charged with embellishing his pieces at the expense of Truth, and with relating facts which he had not examined: this may, perhaps, be the case in one or two instances; but his Life of Charles the Twelfth gains fresh credit every day, and his account of Peter the Great was extracted from the most authentick materials: it was, indeed, the necessary fate of any author, who should write the lives and adventures of those two singular Princes, to pass rather for the compiler of fables, than for the relater of real events, till time should confirm the truth of the actions recorded by him. It may be thought arrogant in a foreigner, to criticise so great a writer in the article of style and language; but it seems to me, that his periods are not sufficiently expanded: he describes a battle, and discourses on the fate of kingdoms, in the diction of an Essay; and frequently huddles the most important remarks into the compass of a short sentence; so that the perpetual return of the full pause makes his language often dry, abrupt, and difficult to be read aloud without a fatiguing monotony. There are as many different kinds of style, as there are different subjects: that of an essay should be light and elegant; of a letter, lively and familiar; of an oration, copious and elate; of a moral discourse, grave and solemn; but that of an history ought to be smooth, flowing, and natural, without any graces but perspicuity: yet most authors form a way of writing peculiar to their own taste and genius, which they use indifferently on all occasions; thus Voltaire is equally gay, equally polished, whether he writes upon History, Criticism, or Philosophy. His distinguishing excellence is Wit; which, however, sometimes gets the better of his judgement. Wit is never displayed to advantage, but in its proper place: it has often a great effect in controversy; it may even be admitted into an essay; it is the charm of conversation, when it rises naturally from the subject, without seeming to be prepared: but it should be wholly banished from historical composition, and solemn speeches; since nothing can be more absurd, than to discuss the weighty points of legislation and politicks in a string of conceits and allusions. It suited the Roman Orator’s purpose, in his defense of Muræna, to make the judges merry at the expense of the accuser, Cato; whose Stoical principles he rallies with infinite humour; but we meet with no examples of this kind in the Catilinarian or Philippick Orations, when nothing less was concerned, than the destiny of the whole Empire: thus in the relation tion of common occurrences, if they happen to be of a ludicrous nature, there cannot be too much brilliancy and liveliness; but humour should no more find its way into an historical piece, than into an heroick poem; and all our veneration for the genius of Milton will not make us excuse the impertinence of his jokes in his battle of the angels. I dwell the longer on the absurdity of ill-placed Wit, because all the works of Voltaire are tinctured with it^*; and he cannot give an abstract of the Newtonian philosophy, without interspersing it with strokes of humour. On the whole, however, Voltaire is one of the most agreeable writers in the world, and has brought his native language to the greatest elegance, which it seems capable of receiving.

The English historians are not to be read without caution: CLARENDON himself is often liable to exception both in sentiment and style; and our language, indeed, was never entirely polished till the present century. I avoid touching upon the works of living authors; lest, in my very preface, I should violate a fundamental law of History, by incurring the suspicion of prejudice for a particular nation, or affection for particular men; but another law obliges me to declare, that there are historians now in Britain, whose writings have sufficiently proved, that if their subjects were equal to their talents, they would be able to contest the merit of veracity, judgement, and elegance with the Ancients themselves. That perfect liberty, which forms the very essence of our constitution, makes it unnecessary for an English historian to flatter any potentate or statesman upon earth; and our language, though inferiour to the Greek and Roman, will not yield the prize of energy, variety, and copiousness, to any modern idiom whatever.

If all the histories of Europe are deficient in one or other of the articles, to which we may reduce the rules of Cicero, we cannot hope to find this ideal perfection in the numerous compilations, with which the world has been pestered since the revival of letters, and for which we are chiefly indebted to our neighbours, the French. Those who judge the most favourably of these works, must allow them at least to be useless; for to what purpose are so many of our years spent in studying the languages of old Greece and Rome, unless it be to read the ancient compositions in their original beauty, and to draw our knowledge from those sources, whence all modern learning was derived? It were happy, if nothing could be objected to these elaborate volumes, but their inutility; they deserve, I fear, an heavier censure; since it is certain, that they help to multiply errours, and abound in fables, which the wisest of the Ancients would have exploded, and many of which they really did explode, when they were poured into Greece through the strainers of the Egyptians. It is agreed by all writers, that nothing can be so rash, nothing so far removed from the dignity of a wise man, as either to profess what is false, or to assert what has not been sufficiently examined by him^*: yet one would think, that the very reverse of this was established as a maxim by those, who sit down to compose the history of ancient Empires. At first one is apt to suspect, that these compilers are a set of Wits, who agree among themselves to impose upon the common sense of mankind: some of them tell us, that the Aristophili were a people of the higher Asia; some place Laosthenes and Amyntas among the Kings of Assyria; and others assure us, with a provoking solemnity, that Cyrus, before a certain battle, ordered his soldiers to sing an Hymn to Castor and Pollux; as if the Assyrians were acquainted with Greek names, or the Persians with Grecian deities; a multitude of these ridiculous blunders occur in almost every page of our pretended ancient Histories; but on a more intimate acquaintance with these writers, we discover them to be any thing rather than Wits, and find that their ignorance can be surpassed only by their dullness. The truth is, to write an history, and to repeat what others have written, are tasks of a very different nature: we might find many Rollins in every hamlet; but nature produces only a single Tacitus in a course of ages. We have already shown what a number of rare talents are required in an historian; but a compiler may succeed to his best wishes, if he have but tolerable eyes, and a great share of patience, and, above all, if he be fortunate enough to be endued with a total want of judgement and fancy.

Whatever errours may have been multiplied in ancient history by the folly or credulity of some authors; it is certain, that the malice or flattery of others has introduced as many into the modern. A volume might be filled with the contemptible mistakes or wilful misrepresentations of facts, which abound in the history of Europe for the two last centuries. Let us turn our eyes to Asia: what a multitude of improbable stories have been spread over our part of the world, concerning the manners, the laws, the religion of the Mahomedans! Euthymius accuses them of adoring the morning star under the name of Cobar; which is a palpable lie, arising from the ignorance of the writer, who heard the criers on the mosques calling the people to morning prayers by the words Allah Acbar, or GOD is the most High. Such a calumny may be pardoned in so obscure an author, whose credit cannot mislead many readers; but a scholar, and man of the world, like Grotius, ought to have blushed, when he talked of a steel coffin at Medina, suspended in the air between two loadstones of equal force.

An historian, who is obliged to rely upon the veracity of other men, and cannot say with Æneas, Quæ ipse vidi et quorum pars magna fui, must be very diligent and circumspect in weighing and sifting his authorities, unless he have a mind to propagate errour, instead of establishing truth, and to obtrude upon his reader a set of fables, which the factious or envious invent in all ages, and which the ignorant or malevolent are always ready to circulate. His caution must be still greater, when he records the events of very distant nations; since we have no small difficulty to learn the true state of those occurrences, which pass around us every day; and it generally happens, that, the more intimately we are concerned in any transaction, the more mistakes we find in the publick accounts of it. Men are often at a loss to give a perfect relation of actions, over which they presided in person; as Pollio detected several errours in a narrative, published by Cæsar, of a battle, in which Cæsar himself commanded; or, to speak of our own times, as Adlerfeld, in his description of Schullembourg’s passage over the Oder, disagrees in many points from the description given by the General himself.

The History, therefore, of those events, which happen in remote countries, can hardly fail of being erroneous; for, in general, we are forced to depend upon reports of reports, echoed from the ignorant natives to inquisitive travellers, and brought by them to Europe decorated with a thousand ornaments: and even if we study the languages of those nations, and read their own Histories, we are commonly deceived, either by the zeal or malignity of the authors. The following example will confirm and illustrate this observation.

There are two celebrated histories of the Life of Tamerlane, one in Persian, the other in Arabick, both of them written with all the pomp and elegance of the Asiatick style: in the first, the Tartarian Conqueror is represented as a liberal, benevolent, and illustrious prince; in the second, as deformed and impious, of a low birth and detestable principles. It seems difficult at first to reconcile this contradiction; but the difficulty vanishes, when we learn, that great part of the Persian History was composed under the inspection of Tamerlane himself, and received only the polish of language from the pen of Ali-Yezdi; and that the Arabian author bore the most inveterate hatred against that monarch. The story of the iron cage, in which Tamerlane confined Bajazed, is generally treated as a fable upon the authority of the very learned M. d’Herbelot; who asserts, that it is not mentioned by the Arabian Historian, though he omits no opportunity of debasing the moral character of his Hero: this argument would, perhaps, be decisive, if it were founded upon true premises; but unfortunately, in the thirteenth line of the two hundred-sixty-eighth page, the Arahian expressly affirms, “that Tamerlane did enclose his captive Ilderim Bajazed in a cage of iron, in order to retaliate the insult offered to the Persians by a sovereign of the lower Asia, who had treated Shapor, King of Persia, in the same manner; that he intended to carry him in this confinement into Tartary, but that the miserable prince died in Syria, at a place called Akshebr.” This fact is not the more true, for being asserted by Ebn Arabshab; but it seems strange, that the judicious M. d’Herbelot should have overlooked this passage, and should speak so positively of a book, which he had read with so little attention: nor is the point itself of any great consequence; but it may show, how cautious we should be, in relying upon the authority of illustrious names.

In this obscurity of human affairs, nothing remains for a wise historian, but to confine himself to great and notorious events, in which the true and incontestable part of all History consists; for, whenever he descends to particular characters, and minute descriptions, or attempts to relate the very words, and unfold the sentiments, of princes, he will run into wildness and uncertainty, and lead his readers into a kind of fairy land, while they expect to be conducted through the paths of real knowledge. Since in History, as in Philosophy, we can only catch the general and striking features of Truth, it is a folly to deck her picture with our own imperfect colours, and to dress up a phantom of our imagination instead of a reality.

There are a multitude of historical pieces in the Persian, Arabian, and Turkish languages; some of which are tolerably authentick, all curious and entertaining, but very few written with taste or simplicity, and none, which answer in any degree to the Ciceronian idea of perfection: they contain, however, the best materials for an History of Asia from the age of Mahomed to the present century, and the completion of such a work, if any man had leisure or courage to undertake it, would greatly enrich our European literature.

We come now, after a long interval, to consider the Persian History of the Life of NADER SHAH, which was translated by the author of the following work. It must be allowed, that his testimony is not wholly free from suspicion; but his narrative must necessarily be more authentick, than that of our travellers, who could not possibly be acquainted with the facts, which they relate so confidently. The Persian historian attended his Hero in many of his expeditions, and was an eye-witness of the actions which he describes: it is probable, indeed, that his attachment to the Deliverer of his country might induce him to paint Nader Shah in brighter and more pleasing colours than he deserved; to cast a veil over the deformities of his character, and to present us only with the beauties of it; but, as the work was finished after the death of the Monarch, and as it passes a very free censure upon the latter part of his life, we may reasonably conclude, that the author delivers his real sentiments, though his veneration for the memory of so extraordinary a man often betrays him into expressions, which border upon the meanest flattery. The Persian language has declined so much from its original purity, that no great elegance could be expected from Mirza Mahadi: the work is genuine, and may be recommended as a curiosity; but I will fairly confess, that, had I been left to my own choice, it would have been the last manuscript in the world, which I should have thought of translating: out of so many Persian books of poetry, ethicks, criticism, science, history, it would have been easy to have selected one more worthy of the publick attention; and the works of Hafez or Sadi might have been printed for half the expense, and in half the time.

I was willing, however, to try, whether this Asiatick history might not appear to better advantage without the stiffness of a verbal translation; with which intent I drew up a short abstract of it in my native language: I stripped the original of its affected flowers and ornaments, and here present the English reader with all the interesting facts in a plain and natural dress; but, in compliance with Tully’s rules, I have in some places ventured to interpose my own judgement upon counsels, acts, and events; have preserved the order of time without anticipation or confusion; and have occasionally interwoven the description of remarkable places; taking care to assert nothing of any moment without the authority of the Persian to support it, and not to run after the false gleam of conjectures and reports, by which most of the writers on the same subject have been led. After all, I am far from expecting, that this little work will give me any claim to the title of an Historian: when I compare my piece, not only with the idea of Cicero, but even with the productions of others, I am like the drop of water, in the fable of Sadi, which fell from a cloud into the sea, and was lost in the consciousness of its own insignificance. The chief merit of the book, if it has any, consists in exhibiting in one view the transactions of sixty years in the finest part of Asia, and in comprising in a few short sections the substance of a large volume. Life is so short, and time so valuable, that it were happy for us, if all great works were reduced to their quintessence: a famous scholar at Leipsick proposed to reprint the vast compilation of M. d’Herbelot enlarged to the double of its present size; but he would deserve better of the learned world, if he would diminish it to a fourth part of its bulk, by rejecting all its repetitions and superfluities.

Before I conclude this preface, it seems necessary to give some account of the two short tracts, which were designed as preparatory to the principal work.

It was thought useful to prefix to the Life of Nader Shah, a succinct description of Asia, and particularly of the Persian Empire, that the reader, upon opening the History, might not find himself in a country wholly unknown to him; and that he might be prepared for the Oriental names, which in such a work could not possibly be avoided, and are not easily accommodated to an Eúropean ear. Many readers are disgusted with the frequent return of harsh and unpleasing names of rivers, cities, and provinces, the very sound of which, they say, conveys the idea of something savage; but they would be at a loss to assign a reason, why the Aras and the Forát are words less melodious than the Dnieper and the Bogh; why the archbishop of Gnesne has a softer title than the Mulla of Ispahan; or why the cities of Samarcand and Bokhara are less agreeable to the ear than Warsaw and Cracow; yet the accounts of the northern kingdoms are read with pleasure, and are thought to abound with a variety of interesting events, while the histories of the East are neglected, and the Asiatick languages considered as inharmonious and inelegant. It must, nevertheless, be remembered, that a great part of Persia, and all Sogdiana, lie in the same climate with Italy and the South of France; and that the people of Asia had among them a number of fine writers, sublime poets, eminent artists, at a time, when our part of the world had neither learning, poetry, nor arts; when the inestimable remains of Menander, Alcæus, Sappho, and the rest, were publickly burned at Constantinople by order of a Greek Emperor; and when the inhabitants of all Europe besides had never heard of Menander, or Alcæus, or Sappho.

The dissertation on Asiatick Georgraphy must, from its very nature, be stiff and uniform. Tully, whose noble style might have given a grace to any subject whatever, had begun, at the request of Atticus, to compose a Geographical Treatise; but he never finished it, because he found it a barren soil, that was not favourable to the flowers of his language^*.

I was very soon aware of this objection; but, as such a work was necessary to my plan, it occurred to me, that the subject would appear less dry, if it were interspersed with anecdotes of Eastern literature, and with summary accounts of the learned men, whom each city of Asia has produced; for a relation of all their sieges and revolutions would have been still more unpleasant, and, in general, the cities of Persia have had the same fortune with the Empire itself. It will be fair to acknowledge, that, in both parts of the Introduction, many passages are borrowed from the celebrated work of M. d’Herbelot; but nothing has been copied from him, which has not also been found in several manuscripts: our materials were taken from the same originals; and it is natural for two persons, who search the same mine, to meet with the same kind of ore. The principal Geographers, whom I consulted, were Abulfeda, and Ulugbeg; the first, a King of Hama in Syria, and the second, a grandson of Tamerlane, who was also an excellent Astronomer, and built a fine Observatory in his imperial city of Samarcand. It is much to be wished, that a correct Map of Asia were engraved, with all the names properly spelled, and the latitudes of the cities exactly marked, upon the authority of these illustrious writers; but such a work would require infinite labour, since a number of manuscripts must be collated, lest the mistakes of ignorant transcribers should mislead the designer of the Map, and the fine art of engraving be applied to perpetuate their ridiculous errours^*. Until some Geographer, equally skilled in the Eastern languages, and in the science which he professes, will supply an able artist with materials to accomplish this useful design, the reader of Asiatick history must be satisfied with the Maps of M. de la Croix, which are inserted in his Life of Tamerlane, and are far the most accurate of any, that I have had occasion to consult; especially in the description of Khorasan, where notice is taken even of the castle at Kelat, so frequently mentioned in the following History. The reader will be candid enough to consider this essay on the Geography of Asia as the sketch only of a larger tract, which, from the very nature of an introductory piece, must needs be superficial and imperfect; for it would be absurd to make any introduction so copious, as to divert the reader’s attention from the work, which it was intended to illustrate.

In the short History of Persia, which follows the chapters on Geography, I pursued, as closely as I was able, the plan of a book compiled by Atticus, which was greatly admired by the Romans, but is now unfortunately lost: it contained an abstract of general History, and exhibited in one view a relation of the most interesting events, that happened in a period of seven hundred years^*. Thus the second part of my Introduction comprises all the great and memorable occurrences in the Persian Empire, from the doubtful and fabulous ages to the decline of the Sefi family in the present century: it was extracted from several Asiatick writers, Mirkhond, Khandemir, Ferdusi, &c. and might have been considerably enlarged, if all the fables and dull events, which are found, it must be confessed, in great abundance in the originals, had been transcribed at full length; but it has long been a maxim with me, that, as nothing should be admitted into History, which is false, how agreeable so ever it may be, so nothing should be related, merely because it is true, if it be not either instructive or entertaining. The dullest records of ancient times should be preserved, that they may occasionally be consulted; but they should be reposited in cabinets and archives: as the old arms and utensils of the Romans are kept in museums for the inspection of the curious, while modern pieces of elegant or useful workmanship are the constant furniture of our apartments, either for our pleasure, our convenience, or our defence. The poetical fables of the old Persians, however curious or amusing, ought not to be mixed, like glittering dross, with the pure ore of true History: but, if some student of Eastern literature would amuse himself with collecting these fables, and reducing them to a System of Persian Mythology, he would greatly assist every learner of the Asiatick languages; who, without such help, must be stopped in every page by allusions to adventures, of which he never heard; since a man, who is unacquainted with the fairies, dragons, and enchanters, so frequently introduced in the poems of Ferdusi; who knows nothing of the griffon Simorg, the speaking horse of Rostam, the dark sea which surrounds the world, the mountain of Kaf, or the battle of the twelve Heroes, can no more pretend to read the finest writings of Persia, than he could understand the Odes of Pindar, if he never heard of the Trojan war, the groves of Elysium, the voyage of the Argonauts, or the several attributes of the heathen Deities.

The Persians would not readily forgive my presumption, if they knew what a liberty I have taken with their Chronology, and how many thousand years I have retrenched from the pretended Duration of their Empire. They reckon but eleven Monarchs of the first race, and nine, including Darius, of the second; yet they assign to the reigns of these twenty princes a period of above three thousand years, or an bundred and fifty to each prince one with another; but these are Persian tales: human nature is nearly the same in all ages; and it has been proved by the strongest induction, that Kings seldom reign, one with another, longer than eighteen or twenty years each^*: so that we must ascribe these fictions of the Persian Chronologers to the vain desire of aggrandizing their country, by raising its Antiquity so far beyond the truth.

It is with the utmost diffidence, that I venture to add an observation of my own upon any work of NEWTON; whose admirable tracts on the abstract sciences, and on the application of those sciences to natural Philosophy, exhibit the noblest specimen of perfection, to which the human intellect can be exalted; and whose treatises on lighter subjects, though incapable, from their very nature, of strict demonstration, are not without many strokes of that piercing genius, which raised him above all men who ever lived: but it appears to me, that his medium of twenty years to a reign is too general, and that, in some ages and nations, it must be considerably less, in others, far greater, according to the necessary difference of government or manners, in the different empires of the world. Thus, by comparing the duration of the modern Asiatick dynasties, since the decline of the Califate, with the reigns of the several princes, I have observed, that those Monarchs have seldom sitten on the throne longer than ten or twelve years each, at a medium; for, if one or two of them have contrived to hold their seats forty years, the greater part of them have reigned but six or seven, and many have been dethroned in a few months, some, even in a few days, after their accession. This can be owing to nothing, but the imperfection of those unhappy governments, where a Sultan no sooner has the diadem on his head, than his ministers, sons, or brothers, form a confederacy against him, so that he either perishes in the field, or closes his days in prison, to make room for one of his relations, who frequently meets with the same fate: this is apparent from almost every page in the Histories of modern Asia. The case was very different in the infancy of the Persian Empire: the sovereigns were almost deified by the people, whom they had civilized; the temperance of those early ages might tend to lengthen their natural lives; and few of them were disturbed by civil wars or rebellions; so that we may safely allow the space of five hundred and sixty years to the two first families of Persian Kings, or twenty-eight to a reign; which computation, if we count backwards, from the death of Darius, in the three-hundred-thirtieth year before CHRIST, will place the foundation of the Persian Monarchy in the eight-hundred-ninetieth year before the same Epoch, about fourteen years, according to Newton, after the burning of Troy, and just a century before some General or feudatory of Tahmuras founded the dynasty of the Assyrians^*: but here we must observe, that it is not possible for us, to fix the precise years, in which each of these ancient Monarchs began his reign, or how long each of them really sat on his throne; so that these calculations, when we descend to minute particulars, must needs be very uncertain, and, where we cannot hope to find the perfect truth, we must, like the old Academicks, be content with a bare probability. To conclude; if any essential mistakes be detected in this whole performance, the reader will excuse them, when he reflects upon the great variety of dark and intricate points, which are discussed in it; and if the obscurity of the subject be not a sufficient plea for the errours, which may be discovered in the work, let it be considered, to use the words of Pope in the preface to his juvenile Poems, that there are very few things in this collection, which were not written under the age of five and twenty; most of them, indeed, were composed in the intervals of my leisure in the South of France, before I had applied my mind to a study of a very different nature, which it is now my resolution to make the sole object of my life. Whatever then be the fate of this production, I shall never be tempted to vindicate any part of it, which may be thought exceptionable; but shall gladly resign my own opinions, for the sake of embracing others, which may seem more probable; being persuaded, that nothing is more laudable than the love of Truth, nothing more odious than the obstinacy of persisting in Errour. Nor shall I easily be induced, when I have disburdened myself of two more pieces, which are now in the press, to begin any other work of the literary kind; but shall confine myself wholly to that branch of knowledge, in which it is my chief ambition to excel. It is a painful consideration, that the profession of literature, by far the most laborious of any, leads to no real benefit or true glory whatsoever. Poetry, Science, Letters, when they are not made the sole business of life, may become its ornaments in prosperity, and its most pleasing consolation in a change of fortune; but, if a man addicts himself entirely to learning, and hopes by that, either to raise a family, or to acquire, what so many wish for, and so few ever attain, an honourable retirement in his declining age, he will find, when it is too late, that he has mistaken his path; that other labours, other studies are necessary; and that, unless he can assert his own independence in active life, it will avail him little, to be favoured by the learned, esteemed by the eminent, or recommended even by Kings. It is true, on the other hand, that no external advantages can make any amends for the loss of virtue and integrity, which alone give a perfect comfort to him who possesses them. Let a man, therefore, who wishes to enjoy, what no fortune or honour can bestow, the blessing of self-approbation, aspire to the glory given to Pericles by a celebrated Historian, of being acquainted with all useful knowledge, of expressing what he knows with copiousness and freedom, of loving his friends and country, and of disdaining the mean pursuits of lucre and interest^*: this is the only career, on which an honest man ought to enter, or from which he can hope to gain any solid happiness.

IRAN^*, or the vast Empire, which we commonly call PERSIA, is a country bounded on all sides by seas or rivers. It has the Indian sea on the south, and the Caspian directly opposite to it: the Persian gulf, or, as the Asiaticks call it, the Green Sea, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Cyrus and Araxes, the Oxus or Bactrus, and the five branches of the Indus, divide it on the other sides from Arabia, from Syria, from Georgia, from Turkestan, and from India. As all the provinces in this Empire must have changed their boundaries in a course of ages, it will not be easy to reconcile exactly the accounts of ancient and modern Geographers; but we shall attempt to make them agree as nearly as possible.

PARS^*, or Persis, has on the south a gulf, to which it gives its name, and along which it extends near three hundred leagues: it has Kermán on the east; Khuzistán on the west; and a vast desert, named Noubendigán, which embraces it on the north, divides it from Khorasán, or, The Province of the Sun. On the border of this desert is the beautiful valley of Baván^†, often alluded to by the Arabian poets, which is reckoned one of the four Paradises of Asia; the other three are the vale of Damascus, the banks of the river Obolla, and the plain of Sogd, in the midst of which stands the flourishing city of Samarcand: all these places are said by travellers to be delightfully pleasant; and the mildness of the air, joined to the clearness of the rivulets, which keep a perpetual verdure on the plains, give us the idea of the most charming scenes in nature.

The finest cities in Persis are, 1. SHIRAZ, surrounded with pleasant gardens, and famous for having given birth to the poets, Hafez and Sádi: its inhabitants are fair and well made, and are remarkable for the liveliness of their wit. 2. YEZD, the birth-place of Sharfeddin Ali, an elegant author, who wrote the life of Tamerlane: and, 3. FIRUZABAD, or, The Region of Happiness, where a very able grammarian was born, who compiled an admirable dictionary of the Arabick language, which he justly entitled^‡ Alcâmùs, or, The Ocean; he lived in the fourteenth century, and Tamerlane is said to have made him a present of five thousand ducats: he is usually called Firûzabâdi.

When you have passed the desert of Noubendigân, you enter the province of KHORASAN, the Bactriana of the Ancients: it is the most eastern kingdom of Iran, and takes its name from Khór^*, an old word for the Sun. It is bounded on the north by the Oxus, on the west by a desert, and on the east by the mountains of Candahár, which separate it from India. Its principal cities, all of which have been at different times the seats of Kings, are, 1. BALKH, where Lohorasp, successor to Cyrus, retired, having placed his son upon the throne of Persia; it was the birth-place of Mirkhond, the historian, and of the sublime poet Gelaleddín, who wrote the Mésnavi, a moral work, highly esteemed in the East. 2. HERAT, the Aria of the Greeks, whence the territory depending on it was called Ariana; it was a magnificent City, till it was ruined by the Tartars: the learned Khondemir, who was born in it, gives us a full description of its palaces, mosques, and gardens, in the twelfth chapter of his General History. 3. MERU SHAHJAN, or, The Delight of Kings; it was once a pleasant city, but had the same fate with Herat. 4. NISHAPOR, which was built or repaired by Shapor, son of Ardeshir. Several excellent men were born in this City, the chief of whom were Attár, who wrote a Pendnáma, or book of Instructions, and Cátebi, who composed a poem on the loves of Baharám, king of Persia, and the fair Gulendám. The great square of this city was called Meidán, in which was born a learned grammarian, thence named Meidáni, who published a large collection of Arabian proverbs, with elaborate notes. The other populous city of Khorasan is, 4. TUS, now called MESHEHED, or, The tomb of Martyrs; which was made in this century the Capital of Khorasan; it was the native city of the astronomer Nasíreddîn, and the poet Ferdúsi, who, after a number of adventures, ended his days in it. The little town of JAM or ZAM deserves to be mentioned among these cities, because it was the birth-place of the illustrious JAMI, a most animated and elegant poet, whose beautiful compositions, on a great variety of subjects, are preserved at Oxford in twenty-two volumes. He flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century, and dedicated one of his poems to Mohammed II. The cities of Balkh, Herat, and Meru, or at least the names of them, are very ancient: they are said to be mentioned by Zerdusht, in the first section of his Pazend, among the sixteen delightful places, which Ormusd raised, and Aherman endeavoured to destroy.

SEGESTAN^*, or SISTAN, the Drangiana of the Greeks, has part of the Desert, and Kerman, on the West, and on the East the country of Gour, famous for a rich mine of turkis-stones, between which and India lies the territory of Ráver; it touches also, at its eastern boundary, the province of MULTAN, which makes a part of Sind: it has another desert, and part of Mocran, on the south, and joins on the north to Zablestán. The country of Segestan consists chiefly of plains, and is very fruitful in palm-trees; it is also rich in mines of gold, the ore of which is uncommonly pure. Its chief cities are, 1. BOST, whence a moral poet of great reputation in Persia was named BOSTI; and, 2. ZERENGE, which was a populous and commercial town during the reign of the Soffarian princes. This province, and ZABLESTAN, the ancient Arachosia, were considered as one principality by the old Persians; and Rostam, the commander under Cyrus, held it as a fief from the Kings of Iran. The cities of note in Zablestán are, 1. CABUL, which, indeed, is generally reckoned the capital of another province, named CABULISTAN, and no man, as the Indians say, can be called the ruler of India, who has not taken possession of Cábul. 2. MEIMEND, an agreeable town, surrounded with meadows watered by fresh streams, and with gardens, that produce excellent fruit. 3. GAZNA, or GAZNIN, from which the family of Mahmúd, who conquered these provinces in the tenth century, were called Gaznevis; it is an unpleasant city, and its inhabitants are forced to send to Meimend for their fruit and herbage: this city, as well as Cábul, was under the dominion of the Indian Emperor in the present century, but they were an easy conquest to the Persians. 4. BAMIAN, which Genghiz took by storm in the year 1221, and almost ruined, in the violence of his grief for the loss of his grandson, who was killed during the siege.

We may place the large province of SIND^* next to Segestán, because, though it is generally reckoned a part of India, yet it comprehends both MOCRAN, the ancient Gedrosia, and MULTAN, which have been considered as provinces of Persia; and here we may observe, that the Easterns divide the Indian Empire into two parts, which they call HIND, and SIND: by Hind, in its strictest sense, they mean the districts on both sides of the Ganges, and by Sind, the country that lies on each side of the Sindáb or Indus, especially where it discharges itself into the ocean. Sind, therefore, including Mocrán and Multán, is bounded on the south by the Indian sea, which embraces it in the form of a bow: it has Hind on the east, and on the west, Kermán, with part of Segestan, which also bounds it on the north; but if, with some Geographers, we make it comprise even Zablestán and Cábul, its northern limits will extend as far as CASHMIR^†, that delightful and extraordinary valley, celebrated over all Asia for the singular beauty of its inhabitants, the serenity of its air, and the abundance of its delicious fruits: if, again, we include Cashmír also in this division of India, it will reach as far northward as TIBIT or TOBAT, the country of the finest musk, which has China on the east, and Oriental Tartary on the west and north; but we are wandering from our road: let us return to Iran.

The principal cities of Sind are, 1. DAIBUL, where the Portuguese had a settlement. 2. MANSURAT, which we by contraction call Surát, situated in the territory of KAMBAIA, a city well known to our merchants and travellers: and 3. BIRUN, famous for being the birth-place of Abu Rihán an excellent Astronomer and Philosopher, who travelled forty years in India in search of knowledge; though some writers suppose him to be a native of another Birún in Kharézm.

Between Mocran, the mountains of which are washed by a branch of the Indus, and Persis, is the province of KERMAN^*, or, as the Ancients called it, Carmania; which is bounded by the desert on the north, and on the south by the Persian gulf: the soil of Kermán is extremely dry, as it is watered by no considerable river. The cities of this province are, 1. SIRJAN, which the inhabitants have contrived to water with artificial canals. 2. ZEREND, and 3. HORMUZ, which was formerly on the continent, but was afterwards transferred to an island of the same name in the gulf of Persia. The commerce of this city was removed by the Persians to the port of Abbas, or Gomrón. Many learned men were born in Kerman, the most celebrated of whom were the poets Khájah Kermáni, and Omadeddín: the first of them was remarkable for the richness and splendour of his style, the second for the correctness and elegance of his verses; they both left collections of their Odes and Elegies.

To the west of Pars is the province of KHUZISTAN^*, which the Greeks called Susiana; it has no mountain in it, but consists wholly of large plains. It has part of Persian Irák on the north, the Gulf to the south; and it extends westward as far as the plains of Wásset, and the port of Basra, whence Milton says

But he pronounces the word Basra very improperly, and makes also a considerable mistake, in putting into the mouth of the Tempter the name of a city, which was not built till six hundred years after the Temptation. The principal cities of Khuzistán are, 1. TOSTAR or SHUSTER, the ancient Susa, famous for a manufactory of rich velvets. 2. AHWAZ, which has a large territory, or rather province around it: the country of Ahwaz contains the smaller cities of Corkób, Dourák, Ramhormoz, and Ascar Mocram.

ARABIAN or Babylonian IRAK^†, the ancient Babylonia or Chaldea, comprises the districts, which lie on each side of the Tigris, and consequently has Mesopotamia on the west, and Cúhistán or Parthia on the east. This was the seat of the Babylonian princes; and the ruins of Babel or Babylon are still shown at some distance from BAGDAD, the capital of the province; which was built in the middle of the eighth century by the Calif Almansór. This city was raised on the spot, where a Persian princess had formerly built a palace, which she called the gift of Bag, the name of her idol; but Almansor named it the Mansion of Peace, because he had just put an end to a fortunate war, when the city was finished. Bagdád was also called ZAURA, by which name the illustrious and amiable Tográï mentions it in his poem, entitled Lamia. The Arabians, who inhabited this City under the Califs, were remarkable for the purity and elegance of their dialect; whence Sadi boasts, that he knew the art of love, as well as a native of Bagdád spoke the language of Arabia. The Tartars, Persians, and Turks have been successively in possession of this city: it was taken in the year 1638 by the Sultan Morad III. and it has remained to this day in the hands of the Turkish princes, for Ahmed, who governed it in the present century, had the address to defend it against the repeated assaults of the Persians. The other considerable cities of Irák are; 2. CUFA, from which the ancient Arabick letters are called Cúfick, for the modern characters were not invented till the beginning of the tenth century. The neighbourhood of Cufa has been rendered sacred to the Persians by the tombs of Ali, and his son Hussein, who was killed on the plain of Kerbelá^*. 3. HEIF, remarkable for a fountain of naphtha or bitumen, with which, according to the Oriental tradition, the tower of Babel was built on the plains of Senaar. 4. MADAIN, near which the ancient Ctesiphon probably stood; it was the metropolis of Irak in the reign of Perviz, whose throne of massy gold, covered with jewels, together with other inestimable treasures, was found in it, after the battle of Cadessia, and plundered by the Arabs. 5. HOLVAN, where the Califs used to reside in summer for the freshness of its air; it stands in the mountains between the two Iraks: and, lastly, BASRA a commercial City well known to our merchants; it is unpleasantly situated, by reason of the uncommon dryness of the soil; but not far from it the river Obolla flows through a delightful valley, and makes it one of the most beautiful spots in Asia. In this city was born the celebrated Hariri, who composed a moral work in fifty dissertations on the changes of fortune, and the various conditions of human life, interspersed with a number of agreeable adventures, and several fine pieces of poetry: the style of these discourses^* is so rich, elegant, and flowery, that a man, who understands them accurately, may justly be called a perfect master of the Arabick language.

PERSIAN IRAK, named also CUHISTAN or the mountainous country, and GEBAL, which has the same sense in Arabick, seems to be the Parthia of the Ancients: it is remarkable, that the words Parthia and Persia were both taken from one word, that is, Pars, or Parth, for the Asiaticks had a letter, which they sometimes pronounced th, and sometimes s; Pars^† signifies a Leopard, and the country might, perhaps, have taken its name from its being infested with beasts of that species: but this is only offered as a conjecture, and the fact, on which it is grounded, may happen not to be true; it adds, however, some weight to this opinion, that the people of Asia frequently gave names to countries from the animals which were found in them, or the plants which they produced: thus part of Africa was, very probably, named Libya from Lebia^‡, which signifies a Lioness in the eastern dialects. It may be worth while to remark in this place, that the Old man of the mountain, who is mentioned in our accounts of the Crusades, was no other than a Prince of the Ismaëlian family, who reigned in Gebal, or the mountainous province, with the title of Sheikh, an Arabick word, signifying an Old man as well as a Prince.

The two Iraks are said to be fine provinces; and their beauties are particularly described by the Persian poet Khacáni in his poem entitled Irakein, the dual number of Irak.

The principal cities of Cuhistán are, 1. ISPAHAN, which the Sefi family made the Metropolis of their kingdom. The splendour and riches of this city under Abbas, and his immediate successors, are well known in Europe by the relations of Chardin, who has described them with a minute exactness; but for us, who prefer the genius of its inhabitants to the luxury of its Kings, it will be sufficient to mention the learned men, who were born in it: the chief of them were Omád Elcáteb, who published the life of Seláheddin, whom we call Saladin, in seven volumes, and an account of the Siege of Jerusalem in a separate work, both written in a flowery and elevated style; and the poet Kemàleddín, who left a Diván, or collection of his elegant verses. 2. HAMADAN, an agreeable city, situated near the mountain Alvénd, and remarkable for a fresh and temperate air; it was the birth-place of an eloquent writer, who produced some rhetorical discourses, in imitation of which, Haríri composed his admirable dissertations. 3. KOM, where the richest Persian silks were woven. 4. CASHAN, famous likewise for its manufactory of silk, and for the dangerous venom of its scorpions, which has even passed into a proverb. 5. CAZVIN, called also Gemálabád, or the Region of Beauty, where many able scholars, and learned historians were born. 6. REI, the most northern city of Parthia, in which were born the sublime philosopher Fakhreddín, and the physician, commonly called Rázi, whose works begin to be known in Europe, as those of Boerhave begin to be studied in Asia: and 7. NOHAVEND, celebrated for being the scene of the last battle, which the Persians were able to give to the Arabs, who gained a complete victory under the command of Ebn Yemen in the year of Christ 641, on a day which the Arabians call^* The victory of victories. These cities, together with Abher, Sava, and others, have been exactly described by the traveller Chardin.

The province of Cuhistán has on the East the vast desert of Noubendigán, and, on the West, Azarbigian, the ancient Media; its southern limits are the borders of Susiana; its northern, part of Dilem and Mazenderán.

AZARBIGIAN^‡, or Media, ARRAN or Atropatia, and ARMENA, or Armenia, are considered by some Eastern Geographers as One Province or Kingdom, and we may, therefore, describe them together. They are bounded on the east by part of Cuhistán, and the Caspian provinces, on the west, by Rûm, or the lower Asia; on the north they have Georgia and Circassia, on the south, a canton of Mesopotamia, and Curdistân, part of the ancient Assyria. The most remarkable cities of Azarbigián are; 1. ARDEBIL, considered as sacred by the Persians, for containing the tombs of Sefiaddîn and Heider, the venerable ancestors of the Sefi family. 2. TABRIZ, commonly called Tauris, which, in the last century, was a large and beautiful city, but has been much impaired during the late disorders in Persia: it stands at the foot of a mountain, which the Greeks called Orontes, a word corrupted, perhaps, from Orond; and a small river winds through its streets. The air of Tauris is cool, dry, and so healthy, that it is said to have taken its name from its quality of resisting any noxious infection; for Tab signifies a fever, and Ríz is the participle of Ríkhten, to disperse^*. There was an ancient city, which stood nearly in the same place, and is called by Ptolemy. The most illustrious person born at Tabriz, was the poet Hemám, who flourished in the thirteenth century, and was contemporary with Sadi. There is a very agreeable story told by M. d’Herbelot of these two poets, which, though foreign from the subject of geography, deserves to be inserted. Sâdi, who spent his youth in travelling, happened to meet Hemám in a certain city, either in a bath or at a banquet: they conversed for a long time without knowing one another, and discovered the places of their birth; some time after, Hemám, observing that Sadi was almost bald, a defect imputed to the air of Shiraz, showed him the bottom of a cup, which he held in his hand, and asked him how it happened, that the heads of the Shirazians were like that cup: Sadi, without hesitating, took the cup, and, presenting the hollow part of it to his companion, tell me first, said he, how it happens that the heads of the Tabrizians are like this. Hemám, who was very rich and well born, was surprised at so smart a reply from a dervise, for Sadi used to travel in that dress, and began to treat him with more respect: “You come, said he, from Shiraz; do you know Sádi? has he composed any new piece of poetry?” Sadi replied, that he knew him, and repeated some of his finest verses. The other was highly pleased with them, and asked him if the people of Shiraz set any value on the poems of Hemám; he answered, that they were greatly admired, and repeated a couplet taken from them, which intimated, “that there was a veil between his beloved and him, but that it was time to remove it, and have a full view of her perfections.” Upon this they made themselves known to each other, and cultivated the strictest friendship till their death.

The great cities of Arran and Armenia are, GANGIA, and ERIVAN, its Capital, a large but unpleasant town, without any fine edifice in it, or any other ornament than a number of gardens, and vineyards. Some Geographers, and among them the prince of Hamah, place in Armenia the cities which we consider as belonging to Georgia or Gurgistán; these are SHAMCUR, and TEFLIS, a city not large but tolerably elegant: it is washed on the eastern side by the river Ker or Cyrus, and defended on the other sides by strong and beautiful walls.

SHIRVAN^* and DAGHESTAN^† or The country of rocks, are those provinces which Milton calls

The first of them seems to be derived from Shír, a lion, and the second from Dágh, a cliff. Daghestan, the ancient Albania, which is inhabited by a bold and warlike race of banditti, called Lekzies, reaches along the Caspian to the borders of the Russian Empire: it has on the north the vast desert of Capchác, which has ever been the nursery of hardy and untamed warriours; and extends from the Wolga to the immense regions of north-eastern Tartary or Siberia. The cities of Shirván are, 1. BACU, a port on the Caspian lake, whence it is called the Sea of Bácu: 2. SHAMAKHI, a city well known to the Russians: and 3. DERBEND or the barrier, which stands at the foot of Mount Caucasus or Keitáf, and commands the Caspian: this place was called by the ancients Caspiæ portæ, by the Turks, Demir Capi, or, the gate of iron, and by the Arabs, Bábelabwáb^* or the important passage. It was anciently considered as the boundary of the Persian Empire, and an old king of Persia built to the north of it a vast wall, like that of China, which has been repaired at different times, in order to prevent the incursions of the Khozárs, and other savage nations, who infested the rocks between the Caspian and Euxine seas. Some ruins of this mound are still to be seen, and the cement of it is as hard as marble. This city was once thought so considerable, that the governor of it had the privilege of giving audience in a golden chair, whence the territory around it was called Serîreddhehab, or, the throne of gold^*.

DILEM and GHILAN, the country, perhaps, of the ancient Cadusü and Gelæ, are described together by the illustrious Geographer Abu’l Fedá, prince of Hámah, who reckons but seven towns in them, neither of which are at all remarkable: these provinces, according to him, contain two degrees from south to north, and about three from west to east. These two countries, joined to TABERESTAN, and MAZENDERAN^†, seem to form the great kingdom, called by the Ancients Hyrcania and Margiana. The capital of Mazenderán is, A??TERABAD, which stands in the territory of Jorján; and the chief city of Taberestan is, AMOL, the birth-place of Ibn Joreir or Taberi, an exact and agreeable Historian, whose work was published in Arabick at the beginning of the tenth century, and has since been translated by eminent writers into Persian and Turkish.

Khuarezm, or KHAREZM^‡, the country of the ancient Chorasmü, lies on each side of the Oxus, as far as the place where it formerly discharged itself into the Caspian; so that it belongs partly to Irán, partly to Turán: it has great Tartary on the north and north-east, Khorasán on the south, and is bounded on the east by the Transoxan provinces. The word Kharezm signifies in old Persian an easy conquest, and took its name, we are told, from an expression of Cyrus, who, having in this country, defeated a numerous army of Turanians, with little loss on his side, was heard to say Kharezmi búd, or, it was an easy victory; a tradition, which seems to prove the antiquity of the Persian language, for Rezm, in the modern dialect, signifies a battle, and Búd, it was. The Kharezmians have always been esteemed lovers of musick and poetry; some of their verses are preserved in Arabick, which are very sprightly and elegant. They have not a very warm climate, for their rivers are generally frozen in winter. The principal cities of Kharezm are, 1. CORCANGE, whose inhabitants used to traffick in raw silk and saffron; it stands on the west of the Oxus, which in this place bends its course to the north. 2. CATH, once the capital of the province. 3. HEZARESB, famous for a castle almost impregnable. 4. DARGAN, the first city which you enter, if you come from Merú in Khorasán. 5. ZAMAKHSHAR, renowned only for being the birth-place of a great scholar and able grammarian, commonly called Zamakhshari^*, author of a most learned and entertaining work in ninety-nine chapters, which he chose to entitle Al Rabî, or The Vernal Recreation^†: to these cities Abulfeda adds FARABR a small town close to the Oxus, near which the river is fordable.

BADAKHSHAN and TOKHARESTAN^*, the countries of the ancient Massagetæ, lie towards the source of the Gihún or Oxus, and are separated from Turán by the district of Khotlán, and the town of Vakhsh, which stands in a pleasant and fruitful territory. There is a city also named Badakhshán, near which are some mines, where the balass rubies are commonly found. We have a collection of poems by a native of this country, who is commonly called Badakshi; one of his couplets is quoted by M. d’Herbelot, in which he compares the life of man to an hourglass, that is always alternately high and low^†. On the south of Badakshán is the province and city of CANDAHAR^‡, situated in the mountains, which the Greeks called Paropamisus.

ALGEZIRAH, or the Peninsula, for so the Arabians call the province of Mesopotamia, lies, as its Greek name imports, between the two rivers Tigris and Euphrates, or, as the Easterns call them, Degelah, and Forát. This extensive country is divided into four Diár, or cantons, which took their names from as many Arabian tribes, who formerly settled in them; that of Becr is best known to our Geographers. The principal cities of Mesopotamia are, 1. ROHA, called by our writers Edessa, which was taken by the Crusaders, and afterwards recovered by the Persians from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem. 2. HARRAN, which the Romans called Carrhæ, where Crassus and his army were defeated. 3. RACCA, not Aracta, as it is written in the maps, the birth-place of the astronomer Batáni, a very accurate observer of the heavens. 4. NASSIBIN, the Nisibe of the Ancients, which has been a subject of perpetual contention between the Persian and Roman Emperors: and, 5. MUSEL, near which it is supposed, that Niniveh was anciently built; it was the native city of an excellent musician, thence named Múseli, who, by the power of his melody, is said to have reconciled the Calif Al Rashíd to the fair Maridah, his mistress, at whose behaviour he had taken some offence.

THE large and beautiful kingdom, which lies between the Gihún and Sihún, or the ancient Oxus and Iäxartes, is called by the Persians TURAN^*, by the Arabians, Mawarannahar^†, or, The province beyond the river, and by the Greeks Sogdiana, from the pleasant valley of Sogd, which shall presently be described: they might have called it Mesopotamia, if that name had not been before applied to another country. It has Badakhshan on the east, and on the north, the vast regions of Turkestan or Scythia, which reach to the confines of the Russian and Chinese Empires. The valley or plain of SOGD^‡ passes among the Asiaticks for one of the most delightful spots in the world; it is an hundred and twenty miles in length, and sixty in breadth, and a large river, named Caï, rolls through it, which branches into a thousand clear streams, that water the gardens and cultivated lands, with which the whole plain is covered. In the midst of this vale stands the city of SAMARCAND, which was very rich and flourishing in the fourteenth century: the territory is now possessed by the Uzbeks, a warlike nation, who took it from the descendants of Tamerlane. That Conqueror was born at CASH, a pleasant city, about a day’s journey from Samarcand. In short, Sogdiana lies in the same climate with Italy and Provence, and has the advantage of a sky perpetually clear, the coolest rivers, and the most excellent fruits. The other famous cities of Transoxiana are, 1. BOKHARA, through which the Russian merchants used to pass in their journeys to China; it was in this century the seat of a sovereign prince, whom Mirza Mahadi calls king of Bokhára, by which he means the whole territory of Sogdiana. 2. NAKHSHEB, where a celebrated author was born, who wrote in Persian a book called The Tales of a Parrot, not unlike the Decamerone of Boccace. 3. ZAMIN, where the finest manna of all Asia is gathered. 4. OSRUSNAH, surrounded by a district, that has four hundred strong castles in it. 5. FARGANA, the birth-place of a great astronomer, usually called Alfargáni, who flourished in the ninth century. The mountains near Fargána abound in turkis-stones, as well as in rich mines of gold and silver.

The vast Empire, which lies beyond the Iäxartes, between the dominions of the Czar and the Emperor of China, is called by the Asiaticks, who speak correctly, TURKESTAN^*, or, The country of the Oriental Turks, an ancient and martial people, who, under the names of Getes, Moguls, and Tartars, have, at different times, poured in great numbers into the more western and southern kingdoms. The principal cities of Turkestán are, 1. BALASAGUN, which was once its Capital. 2. SHASH, which gives its name to a river that flows from the Sihún, and joins another called Faráb. 3. SHAHROKHIA, built by Tamerlane upon the birth of his son, whom he called Shahrokh, or, Check with the rook, because he was playing at chess, and had just beaten his adversary by that stroke, when he received news of the prince’s birth. This city stands on the banks of the Iäxartes, over which there is a large and elegant bridge in this part. 4. FARAB, or FARIAB, otherwise called Otrár, the birth-place of two very learned men, the great philosopher and musician Al Fariábi, and an able grammarian, known to us by the name of Al Joûheri, or, The Jeweller, who compiled a voluminous dictionary of the Arabick language, entitled Seháh, in which the principal words are illustrated by chosen passages from the old Arabian poets^*. There is nothing very remarkable in the other cities of Turkestán, as Ilák, Toncát, and the rest; they stand between the ninety-ninth, and hundred and first degrees of longitude, and are between forty-one and forty-three from the Equator. The province of KHOTOLAN deserves, indeed, to be more particularly mentioned; it lies between Tartary, Badakhshan, and the territory of Balkh; its chief city, which has also a considerable district around it, is named VAKHSH; and the whole country is represented as fruitful, pleasant, watered by several rivulets, and even rich in golden ore, which the streams often bring down the mountains mingled with their sand.

At the extremity of Turkestán, are the countries of KHATA and KHOTEN, which border on China, and, in this century, were governed by an independent King, who sent an ambassador to Nader Shah. The city of Khoten has a large territory round it of the same name, which is famous for producing very fine musk, equal to that of Tibet. A Persian poet, quoted by Golius in one of his manuscripts^*, alludes to the musk of this country in the following passage: ‘When thy charming letter was ‘brought to me, I said; “Is it the zephyr that breathes from the gardens, or is the sky burning wood of aloes on the censer of the sun? or is a caravan of musk coming from Khoten^†?” To understand these verses, we must know, that the Asiaticks have a custom of perfuming their letters, which they tie up in little bags of sattin or damask. The city of CASHGAR also, with its territory, belongs, according to some writers, to Khatá; as well as KHANBALEK, which the Eastern Geographers place actually in the Chinese Empire; this is not the Cambalu of our travellers, which is properly called Cabalig, and stands forty-four degrees from the Line, and an hundred and three from the Canaries. CARACUM is likewise a city of Khatá, and is situated in a large plain covered with black sand, from which it derives its name. All this extensive Empire was conquered in the thirteenth century by Tamugin or Genghiz, who penetrated even into China, which his successor Octáï almost wholly subdued, and took the city of Nâm Kím, or Nang King, where the Chinese prince Altún burned himself and all his family, that he might not fall into the hands of the Moguls.

THE celebrated Empire of India is called by the Persians Hind, or HINDUSTAN^*, The Country of the Hindús: it is bounded on the west and south by the Ocean, on the north by Candahár and Turán, on the east by Chîn or China; for so the Asiaticks call the Peninsula beyond the Ganges, which comprises the kingdoms of Tipra, Asám, Aracan, and Siam. The country of Hind is divided into three parts; 1. Guzerat, or DECAN, including most of the southern provinces, and, among them, the city and territory of SUMENAT, where Sadi, as he tells us in his Bostán, had an adventure with the worshippers of an ivory image, whose artful contrivance he detected at the hazard of his life. 2. MALABAR, or, The country of the Malais, which includes what the Arabians call Beladelfulful, or, The land of pepper^†, and is terminated on the south by the cape of Comron, famous for producing the best aloe-wood, a favorite perfume of the Asiaticks: to the south west of this promontory are the numerous islands, which we call Maldives, and the Arabs Rabíhát, and a little to the south east, the famed Serandíb or Seilán, which produces so many precious perfumes, jewels, and spices. M. d’Herbelot remarks, that the Eastern Geographers say nothing of the cinnamon, with which Serandib abounds, and, as they call that spice the wood of China, he imagines, with some appearance of probability, that it was transplanted to Seilán by the Chinese, who, as it is currently reported, had once a great connection with the natives of that island. Farther eastward are the islands of Samander, or Sumatra, Rámi, or Lameri, which may, perhaps, be Java, though, by the accounts of it, one would take it for the same with Samander, and then Albinoman will be Java, Jálûs, the Moluccas, and Mehrage, or Soborma, Borneo; to which isle the Easterns seem to confine their knowledge of Asiatick Geography^*; for what they call the isle of Anam, is no other than the southern part of the peninsula, which the ancients named The Golden Chersonnese; and as to Sinf, Sili, and Sindafúlat, they are rather ports on the coast of China than islands. The city of Khancú, which the learned African Prince Edrissi mentions, seems to be the Cantón of our merchants.

The third division of Hind is called MABER^† by the Arabians, and extends from the gulf of Bengal on both sides of the Ganges as far northward as the straits of Kupele; and here we may observe, that it is usual with the Asiaticks to give the same name to the countries, which lie on both sides of any considerable river: thus the province of Sind is divided by the Indus, Kharezm by the Oxus, Palestine by the Arden or Jordan, Egypt by the Nile, and this part of India by the Ganges. The ancient system of government, which prevailed in this country, seems to have been perfectly feudal; all the territories were governed by Ráï’s or Rájas, who held their lands of a supreme lord called Belhár, the seat of whose residence was the city of CANNOUGE, now in ruins. There is a curious book at Oxford, which was presented to the University by Mr. Pope, and contains the pictures of all the Kings who reigned in India, from the most early times to the age of Timúr, whose descendant Báber founded the monarchy of the Moguls at the opening of the sixteenth century.

DEHLI, called also Shahgehânabád, was the Capital of a kingdom, which bore the same name, where a race of Mahomedan princes reigned before Tamerlane, who were lovers of poetry and eloquence, and liberal patrons of learned men: this City, as well as a great part of the Indian Empire, has been agreeably described by M. Bernier, who tells a pleasing story of two Raja’s, named Gemel and Polta, who were besieged in a castle by Sultan Acbar, where, fearing to be led in chains by an insulting Conqueror, they made a desperate sally, in which they lost their lives fighting boldly to the last moment: he adds, that Acbar ordered the statues of these two illustrious brothers to be cut in marble upon two elephants, and placed over the gates of Dehli. To the north west of this city stands Lahawar or LAHOR, the capital of Penjáb, or, The five Rivers, a province so called, because the Indus is in that part divided into five large branches: it seems to have been the ancient kingdom of Pór or Porus^*, which is almost the only Asiatick word, that the Greeks have not corrupted, Our travellers mention a fine road of two hundred and fifty leagues, with rows of beautiful trees on each side, that reached from Agra to Lahór; and it is observable that the Persians call that city also Ráhver^†, in allusion, perhaps, to this road. We cannot forbear mentioning in this place the city of BENARES on the Ganges, famous for an academy or college of Indian priests, commonly called Bramens, who once possessed all the learning of India, and spoke the language, in which Bidpai wrote his excellent fables: there are some of this fraternity remaining, but their learning, it is probable, has not been preserved among them in any great degree, and their ancient language begins, like the Greek, to be respected rather than known.

THE peninsula of ARABIA, for so it is called by the eastern Geographers, has the gulf of Persia on the north-east, and the sea of Ommán on the south, whence the province, that lies between them, took the name of Bahrein, or, The Two Seas; it is bounded on the west by the Bahar Al Yemen, or Red Sea, which has also the name of Colzom, taken from a town of Egypt, now entirely ruined; on the north it has Shám or Syria. The triple division of Arabia into Yemen, or the Happy, Hejáz, or the Desert, and Hajar, or the Stony, is well known to every reader; yet it will not be useless to add a short description of those three provinces.

YEMEN^*, a delightful country, which had its Arabick name from the advantages of its situation, is divided from Hejáz by high mountains and vast deserts; it produces the finest incense, and other valuable perfumes: the sweetness of its fruits, the refreshing shade of its woods, and the coolness of its rivers, which flow perpetually down the mountains, make ample amends to its inhabitants for the heat of the climate, which must needs be very intense, as the city of ADEN is but eleven degrees from the Line. Its other principal cities are, 1. SANAA, which was the seat of the Tobáï’s, or ancient kings of Yemen. 2. ZEBID, nearly in the same latitude, a commercial city, known to the merchants, who sail from Ethiopia or India. 3. Máreb, or Saba, the city of the Arabian Princess who visited Solomon, situated in a fertile territory called HADHRAMUT, the Hadramytene of Ptolemy. We must not omit, that the entrance into the Red Sea is called by the Arabians the gate of tears^*, because that part of the ocean is extremely dangerous.

HEJAZ, or the Desert, is principally celebrated for its two cities, MECCA, the birth-place of Mahomed, renowned over all Asia for its Câaba, or Square Temple, which the old Arabians used to decorate with the most beautiful compositions of their poets, written in golden characters on the silky paper of Egypt; and YATREB, or Teiba, called also, by excellence, ALMEDINA, or The City, in which the Arabian lawgiver was buried.

The chief city of HAJAR is YAMAMA, which gives its name to the territory around it: this was the country of the ancient people called Thamúd^†; who were extirpated, according to the traditions of Arabia, for refusing to break their idols at the command of the prophet Sáleh.

SHAM^‡, or Syria, has Hajar on the south, and part of the lower Asia on the north; its eastern and western limits are the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. This country is so well known to our historians, ancient and modern, and to all our travellers and merchants, that very little needs be said of it in this place; there is scarce a city in it, which has not had its particular history, written in several volumes by authors, who seemed to forget how small a part of the globe they inhabited, compared with the vast Empires described in the proceding pages. The two principal cities of Syria are, 1. DAMASHC, or Damascus, near which is a valley or plain represented by the Arabians as a most charming spot, and one of the four paradises of Asia. 2. HOLAB, or Aleppo, where the learned Pocock acquired so perfect a knowledge of the Arabick language. 3. JERUSALEM, or Alcods, The Holy, which is still held sacred by the Mahomedans, who, whatever may be said to the contrary, are certainly a sect of Christians; if, indeed, they deserve the name, while they follow the impious heresy of Arius.

RUM^*, or the Roman provinces, which are also called Anatolia, have the Empire of Iran on the east, and are bounded on the other sides by the Black Sea, the Archipelago, and the Mediterranean; this is the country so justly famed for producing many of the great poets and fine writers of the ancient world, so that, whatever may be said of the Persian and Arabian compositions by those who are unable to read them, it cannot be denied even by them, that Asia has given birth to men of the brightest parts, and the most exalted genius. The Thracian Bosphorus, so frequently mentioned in the fictions of the old poets, separates this part of Asia from the city of CONSTANTINOPLE, which was made the seat of the Turkish Sultans in that memorable period, when learning revived in Italy, and the art of printing, which was then invented, served to promote and to fix it; when our apartments were first adorned with the vases of China and the silks of India; when a new world was discovered and subdued; when the light of reason and liberty was spread over part of Christendom, and delivered it from the worst of oppression, the tyranny of superstition and imposture.

CAIUMARAS^*, Before CHRIST 890. who seems to be the King of Elam mentioned in the Scripture, founded the Persian Empire, and fixed the seat of it in the province of Azarbigian. He was opposed in his noble enterprises by the inhabitants of the mountains and forests, who, like the wild Tartars and Arabs, dwelled in tents or caverns, and led a rambling life among rocks and in deserts. The rude appearance of these Savages, compared with the more polished manners of those, who first began to be civilized, gave rise to the fiction of Dæmons and Giants among the Persians, who call them Dîves^† and represent them as declared enemies to Man.

HU SHENG^‡, Grandson of Caiumaras, was, probably, contemporary with Minos, and, like him, B. C. 865. was eminent for his Justice and excellent Laws, which gained him the surname of Pishdâd^*, or The Legislator, whence the first race of Persian Kings took the name of Pishdadians. He taught Agriculture to his subjects, and made great improvements in the art; he advised them to water their fields with artificial canals, a custom still frequent in Persia, where the soil is uncommonly dry. He also discovered mines of iron in his kingdom, which metal he wrought into weapons, and tools for husbandry. He was the first, who bred dogs and leopards for hunting, and introduced the fashion of wearing the furs of wild beasts in winter. He is also said to have built the city of Shuster or Susa, to have extended the bounds of his Empire, and to have penetrated as far as the coast of the Indian Sea.

TAHMURAS^† B. C. 835. succeeded his father Husheng; he built several cities in the two provinces of Irak, and among them Babel or Babylon, and Niniveh, near the ruins of which the cities of Bagdad and Musel are now supposed to stand. He assigned the government of these cities, with large territories annexed to them, to his most illustrious Ministers, who are known to us by the names of Assyrian and Babylonian Monarchs, though, most probably, they payed homage to the sovereign lords of Iran.

This prince encouraged arts and manufactures, and particularly the planting of rice, and the breeding of B. C. 835. silk-worms; he first used a complete suit of armour, and civilized many barbarous nations, whence he was called Dîvbend^*, or, The Tamer of Giants.

GEMSHID^† B. C. 800. finished the City of Istakhar, or, as the Greeks called it, Persepolis, which his uncle Tahmuras had begun, and the ruins of which are still shown, by the name of Chehlminár^‡, or, The Forty Pillars. He introduced the use of the Solar Year among the Persians, and ordered the first day of it, called Nurúz^ǁ, when the Sun enters the Ram, to be solemnized by a splendid festival. This gave a beginning to Astronomy among his subjects, and at the same time, perhaps, to the idolatrous respect, which the common people afterwards showed to the Sun. Gemshid, or Gem, for he is known by both names, was a wise and magnificent prince: he was the first, who instituted publick baths, and encouraged his subjects to dive for pearls in the Green Sea, or Persian Gulf; he invented tents and pavilions, and discovered the use of lime in building: he built a strong bridge over the Tigris, which, according to the Asiatick writers, was demolished by the Greeks. Yet this illustrious monarch was unfortunate in war: he was driven from his throne by Zohác, a native of Arabia, and spent the remainder of his life in travel. The Queen, his wife, saved her son Feridun from the usurper, and educated him in a distant retreat. The Persians say, that musical B. C. 800. instruments were invented in the reign of Gemshid; and they add, that Pythagoras and Thales were his Contemporaries.

ZOHAC^*, B. C. 780. the Usurper, was a detestable Tyrant: his cruelty forced the Persians to revolt, and a General, named Gáo, having defeated him, drew the young Feridún from his retirement, and placed him upon the throne.

FERIDUN^† B. C. 750. is considered by the Persians as a model of every virtue: he gave the province of Irak or Parthia to his Deliverer Gáo, as a principality for life; and having sent for the standard, which that officer used in his battle against Zohác, he adorned it with precious stones, and preserved it in his treasury^‡.

Feridun, wishing to spend the last years of his life in a studious retirement, divided his vast dominions between his three sons: he allotted Syria and the western provinces to Salm, who was, perhaps, the Salmanasser of the Jews; he gave the country beyond the Oxus to Tûr, whence the Transoxan Regions were called Tûrán, and assigned the kingdom of Khorasan and all the heart of his Empire to Irage, his youngest son, whose share took the name of Irán, B. C. 750. which it still retains. The two elder brothers, thinking this division partial, made war against Irage, and slew him in a cruel manner; they would even have dethroned Feridun, had not Manucheher, son of Irage, a youth of great hopes, led a powerful army against them, and avenged the death of his father. This division of the Persian empire into Iran and Turan has been a source of perpetual dissensions between the Persians and Tartars, as the latter have taken every opportunity of passing the Oxus, and laying waste the districts of Khorasan; they have even pushed their conquests so far, as to overturn the power of the Califs, and afterwards to raise a mighty Empire on the banks of the Ganges.

MANUCHEHER^* B. C. 720. made great improvements in the government of Persia, and was the first who began to fortify his cities with ramparts and ditches. He was fond of improving gardens, and of cultivating curious plants. He was not fortunate in war, though his General and Vizir, the son of Neriman, was the bravest hero of his age. In his reign the celebrated Rostam is said to have been born of Rudába, an Indian princess, by Zálzer or The golden-haired, a youth of exquisite beauty and eminent virtues: but, as Rostam was, certainly, a Commander under Cyrus, he must, if we place him under Manucheher, have lived above an hundred and fifty years; which is scarce credible, though such a fiction may be allowed in the poems of Ferdusi.

NUZAR^*, B. C. 695. son of Manucheher, succeeded to the diadem, but not to the glory, of his father. While his court was torn in pieces by a number of factions, Afrâsiáb, King of Tûrán, a lineal descendant from Tûr, son of Ferídûn, passed the Oxus with a formidable army, and, having defeated the Persian Monarch, slew him with his own hand. This Invader reigned twelve years in Persia, but was forced by Zalzer, or The Prince with Golden Hair, to repass the Oxus, and return to his own dominions. It is more than probable, that Afrasiáb was a common name for the Kings of Asiatick Tartary, since the grandfather of Cyrus, whom we commonly call Astyages, bore the same name, and we cannot suppose Him to have been the first invader of Persia^†.

It B. C. 667. was not long before the Turanians invaded Iran a second time, and, by forcing the great commanders of Persia to defend their own Principalities, reduced the power of the Persian Kings to a shadow. Afrasiáb, either the monarch above-mentioned, or another of his name, is reckoned the ninth king of Persia.

ZAV^‡ B. C. 639. was a Prince of the royal line, and was placed on the throne by Zalzer, but enjoyed only the B. C. 639. title of King, as the Turanians had overrun great part of his Empire, and kept him in continual alarm. These are the Scythians of our Ancient Histories, who are said about this time to have invaded the kingdom of the Medes; but our best historians are apt to confound them with the Scythians of the North.

GERSHASP^*, B. C. 633. son of Zav, or KISHTASP, as some writers call him, reigned but a few years, if it could be called reigning, to have the name of King, and to be more helpless than his subjects: he was the last prince of the Pishdadians. During the reign of these monarchs in Persia, if we believe our Chronologers, Dido built Carthage, Homer wrote his Poems, which were afterwards brought into Greece by Lycurgus; the Pyramids of Egypt were raised by Cheops, Cephren, and Nitocris; the Assyrians founded a powerful Dynasty; Athens was first governed by Archons; and Sabaco, whom the Persians call Cús Pildend^†, or with the Teeth of an Elephant, because he first made use of that beast in his wars, became famous in Ethiopia, and spread his arms over all Africa. This warriour was contemporary with Feridún, who reigned, as we have seen, seven hundred and fifty years before Christ, at which time, says Newton, Sabaco the Ethiopian invaded Egypt. Rome, the rival of Carthage and Athens, was built in the reign of Gershásp.

WHILE B. C. 610. Zalzer, the most powerful prince of Persia, was encamped in his province of Seistán, the Drangiana of the Greeks, Afrasiab, who had subdued all Media, considered himself as Sovereign of the Empire. By this time, another son of Zav, named Cobád, began to distinguish himself in his engagements against the Turaníans, and, being assisted by Zalzer, whose son Rostam was very young at this time, he was enabled to drive the invaders from Iran, and to place himself upon the throne of his ancestors. Æschylus, who flourished but an hundred years after this event, rightly attributes the recovery of the Empire to this prince, whom he calls a Mede, in his Tragedy of the Persians: “The first Leader of the army, says he, was a Mede; the next, his son, completed (or rather promoted) this work, for wisdom guided his mind: the third was Cyrus, a fortunate Man^*.” It is evident, that these three Kings are Cai Cobád^†, Cai Cäús, and Cai Cosru B. C. 610. or Khosru; whom the Greeks call Cyaxeres, Darius the Mede, and Cyrus. The first syllable of Cyaxeres is apparently the Cai of the Persians, which signifies a Great King, and was prefixed to the names of those three princes, whence the whole race were named Caianians. The Ancients tell us, that Cyaxeres slew the Scythian Chiefs at a feast, to which he had invited them; but the Easterns are silent on this head, and it seems more probable, that the Tartars were compelled by force to repass the Oxus; our authors make them retire beyond Cholcos and Iberia, confounding, as usual, the Oriental with the Northern Scythians. Cai Cobád made several wise regulations in his kingdom, and ordered the publick roads to be divided into parsangs or spaces of about four miles.

CAI CAUS^* B. C. 600. is called by our writers Darius the Mede, and it may here be observed, that Dára, or the Sovereign, was rather an Epithet than a proper name of the Persian Kings; so that the Daricks, or pieces of money, which were known at Athens, might have been coined by any Persian Monarch, and have born that name without the least impropriety. We must also remember, that the Asiatick Princes had several different names or titles, which circumstance has been the source of great confusion in our histories of the East. The Persian writers mention nothing of the Lydian war; they only say, that Cai Caüs carried his arms into the lower Asia, and was very successful in his enterprise. The Turanians, led by another Afrasiab, invaded Persia a third time, and layed B. C. 600. waste the province of Media. Siavesh, son of Cai Cáüs, being unjustly accused by Sudába, his father’s concubine, of an attempt to violate her, went over to Afrasiab, who received him with open arms, and gave him his daughter in marriage. This Princess was called Firenkis by the Persians, and Mandane by the Greeks, who had a singular fondness for soft and melodious names, and neglected truth itself for a pleasing sound. A few months after her nuptials, Siavesh, who deserved a longer life, was killed by a brother of Afrasiab, and the Princess, of whom Khosru was soon after born, was obliged to fly with her infant. The young Khosru was, some years after, seen by a Persian General, who guessed by his features that he was the son of Siavesh, and, his conjecture being confirmed by the Princess his mother, he brought them both into Persia, where Cai Cáüs embraced his Grandson with the highest joy imaginable, and, after a short interval, resigned his throne to him.

CAI KHOSRU^*, B. C. 568. or CYRUS, whom the Persians consider almost as a Demi god, determined to avenge the death of his father, and to deliver his kingdom from the tyranny of Afrasiab. He, therefore, assembled all his forces, and gave battle to the Usurper, who, on the other side, was supported by the Kings of Khataí and India: but the valour of Cyrus, and of his General Rostam, prevailed against the united powers of so many Sovereigns, and Afrasiab lost his life in the mountains of Media. This War is celebrated in a noble Poem by the illustrious Ferdusi, who may B. C. 568. well be called the Homer of Persia. Whatever our Chronologers say, it is not easy to conceive, that the Jews were delivered by this Cyrus: the name Coresh, used by Isaiah, has no affinity with the Persian word Khosru, and we cannot suppose any corruption in the sacred Text; whereas all the Persian writers agree that a prince, named Coresh, who was sent by Bahaman, son of Asfendiar, to govern Babylon in the room of Baltazar, actually protected the captive Jews, and permitted them to rebuild their Temple. Our historians, perhaps, deceived by the name Cyrus, which the Greeks gave both to Khosru and to Coresh, have fixed the return of the Jews much earlier than the truth.

LOHORASP^* B. C. 530. was placed on the throne before the death of Cyrus, who lived some years after his resignation. One would think at first, that he was the Cambyses of the Greeks; but nothing can be more different than the characters of Cambyses and of Lohorasp, the first being described as a cruel tyrant, the second as a virtuous and amiable Prince. He had a General named Guderz^†, who, according to the Oriental writers, pushed his conquests very far into the west: this conqueror is supposed by Mirkhond and others to be Nebuchadnezzar, who, we know, invaded Syria and Judea; but he seems to have been the Prince, whom the Greeks called Xerxes, and who might, perhaps, have had the title of King after his victories; for it must be remembered that a word, which signified King, was applied by B. C. 530. the Persians to every Governor of a province, and the lofty title, King of Kings, which their monarchs afterwards assumed, was no more than Ruler of Rulers, or, Chief of several Chiefs. It is certain, that the Persians have no monarch named Xerxes, or even Shirsháh, from which the Greek name is said to be derived; and, though we can hardly suppose the word to be corrupted from Guderz, yet, when we reflect that the more modern Greeks have made Varanes of Beharam, we cannot wonder at the corruptions of the Ancients. Our Chronologers place the reign of Xerxes after Darius Hystaspes, and he might, perhaps, have outlived both Lohorasp and his successor.

KISHTASP^*, B. C. 500. whom the Greeks call Darius, the Son of Hystaspes, transferred the seat of Empire from Balkh in Khorasan to Istakhar, for which reason he was better known to the Europeans than Lohorasp, who led a retired life in the most Eastern province of his kingdom. In his reign Zerdúsht or Zeratúsht, whom we know by the name of Zoroaster, published his moral work called Zend, or The book of Life, which was followed by his Pazend, or a further Confirmation of his Doctrine, as the^† word seems to imply: both these tracts were afterwards explained in a commentary entitled Vasta or Avasta; they inculcated the doctrine of two Principles, and recommended the worship of the good principle under the allegory of Light, which they opposed to B. C. 500. the bad, whose Emblem was Darkness. The King was much inclined to this doctrine, and raised a number of^* temples to the Sun, the fountain of Light; which the people, as usual, conceiving in a gross and literal sense, began to adore the Effect instead of the Cause, and the figure instead of the archetype: the priests took the hint, and the Sun or Mihra, became really to them, as our Alchymists absurdly consider it, a powerful Elixir, which transformed their base metals into gold. The Chief of Zeratúsht’s Scholars was Jamásp^†, who published a strange work upon Astrology. Not many years before this singular man, Confucius, or Cumfuçu, as the Missionaries write his true name, reformed and polished the people of China; and Solon, his contemporary, a sublime Poet, as well as a perfect Statesman, made admirable laws for the Athenians; so that this period was the age of Philosophers and Law-givers.

ARDESHIR^‡, B. C. 464. or BAHAMAN, surnamed Dirazdest^ǁ, or, The Long-handed, is, no doubt, the Artaxerxes of the Greeks, who called him Macrokheir, a name literally translated from the Persian, and implying only a very extensive power. We may safely place the building of the second temple under the reign of this prince; since, for the reasons before alledged, which appear very decisive, and are confirmed by the testimony of the Persian Historians, we cannot ascribe B. C. 464. the delivery of the Jews to the first Cyrus. The Easterns assure us, that Ardeshir sent a prince, named Coresh, descended from Lohorasp, to punish Baltazar, son of Bakhtnassar, who was grown very insolent in his government of Babylon; that Coresh conquered Baltazar, and was raised by the King to the supreme command of that City, where he protected and encouraged the captive Jews. The Persians could have no inducement to invent this tale, and as it was recorded in the oldest Annals of the kingdom, we cannot help giving some credit to it. They tell us also, that Bakhtnassar signified, in old Chaldean, The Servant of Nassar, an idol of the Babylonians; but it seems a better opinion, that the true word was Nebohadonassar, derived from Nebo, Hadon, and Assar, which, we know, were names of three Assyrian deities^*.

HOMAI^†, B. C. 440. a name which signifies The Bird of Paradise, was the daughter of Ardeshir, and sat on the throne during the infancy of her son Darab. She raised a sumptuous palace in the city of Istakhár, some pillars of which remain to this day; she built also a city called Semrem, whence the learned M. d’Herbelot supposes her to be Semiramis; but our Chronologers place the reign of that Princess three hundred years earlier.

DARAB, B. C. 424. or DARA^*, whom the Greeks call The Bastard, succeeded to Homái?? Here the Persian histories begin to be full of absurd fables, for we may suppose that the Records of these times were lost or neglected during the Grecian Wars. The Eastern writers tell a story of Darab, which has quite the air of a romance; “that he was exposed by his mother, like the Hebrew Lawgiver, on a river, which by its rapid current carried him to the habitation of a dyer, who knew him to be a child of high birth by the trinkets, which adorned his cradle; that he was educated by this honest man, who sent him to the wars, where he distinguished himself in fighting against the Greeks; that, being introduced to the queen as a brave youth, she knew him by the jewels which he wore, and which his reputed father had restored to him.” So far we may indulge these writers in the liberty of embellishing their Chronicles with lively tales; but we cannot so easily excuse them, when they make Alexander the son of Darab, and tell us of a daughter of Philip, whom the king of Persia married, but sent back to Macedon after his nuptials, because he found her less agreeable than he supposed her to be. These are stories, which would be unworthy of The Thousand and One Days.

There B. C. 400. seems in this place to be a chasm of many years in the annals of the Persians; for they say B. C. 400. nothing of Ardeshir, son of Dara, by^* Parizádeh, or Parysatis, whose brother Cyrus led the Greeks to Babylon in that memorable expedition, which Xenophon so elegantly relates; nor of the third Ardeshir, whom our historians call Ochus, nor of Arogus, whose true name it has not been in my power to discover. Now if we suppose, as we reasonably may, that these three Kings reigned about twenty-one years each, we shall bring the reign of Dara the Younger to the year 337 before Christ, which will agree tolerably well with the Chronologers both of Asia and Europe.

DARA B. C. 337. the Younger is better known to us, than to the natives of Persia; we may, however, be deceived in his character, for we represent him as a mild and benevolent prince, while they assert that he was severe, cruel, implacable. The Persians cannot comprehend the motives that induced Alexander to invade the dominions of Dara; and they assign a number of ridiculous reasons for it, which are too absurd to be related: in many points, however, they agree with our historians. The success of Alexander, and the battle of Arbel^†, or Arbela, are too well known to need any farther description. Dara was assassinated about three hundred and thirty years before our Epoch, and the Monarchy of the Caianians was transferred to the Greeks. While this family were on the throne of Persia, the light of reason, and that of liberty, which B. C. 337. ever attends it, were spread over the other parts of the world. Harmodius and Aristogiton slew the Tyrant of Athens, and the Lyrick Poets vied with each other in singing their praises; while old Brutus, nearly at the same time, incited the Romans to expel their Oppressors, whose vices made the very name of King detestable; and, during the twenty-seven years of the Peloponnesian war, Athens gave birth, as Ascham was fond of observing, to more able Commanders, Orators, Poets, Historians, and Philosophers, than the whole earth besides could ever produce.

How long the Greeks were able to hold the Persian Empire in their own hands, or whether they ever intended to exclude the princes of Persia from all share in the government, are points not easy to be settled with any certainty; but, if we suppose that the fifteen kings of the Ashcanians, who reigned before the birth of Christ, sat on the throne twenty years each, one with another, we shall place the rise of that family three hundred years before our epoch; which calculation will not seem much amiss, if we believe, what the Persians assure us, that the successors of Alexander reserved for themselves only Irak or Parthia, and Persia properly so called, but resigned the more Eastern provinces to the princes of the royal family; while the descendants of Seleucus reigned in Syria. The founder of this race was^* Ashac, or Arshac, whom the Greeks call Arsaces; his successors, who were styled B. C. 337. Kings of Parthia by our Historians, reigned till about two hundred years after Christ, and are famous for nothing but their Wars against the Romans, in which they were always valiant, and often successful. The last Prince of the Ashcanians, or Parthians was Ardaván^*, known to us by the name of Artabanus, against whom Ardeshír revolted, and transferred the empire to the Sassanians.

ARDESHIR A. D. 202. BABEGAN^*, whom our writers call Artaxares, was the son of Sassan, a man originally in a low station of life, but descended from a son of Ardeshir the Long-handed, who was disinherited in favour of Homáï. He was surnamed Babegán from Babeg, his grandfather, who was a Persian prince of eminent rank, and was so pleased with the amiable qualities of Sassan, his shepherd, that he gave him his daughter in marriage. Ardeshir was bold and warlike, yet a wise and learned prince, and is said to have composed two excellent books, the first, a Cárnâma^†, or a Commentary of his life and actions, the second, a moral work, of which Nushirván the Great, some ages after, published a second edition. These were employments truly worthy of great Princes; but the Kings of Europe have not written many Cárnâma’s, nor given many lessons of morality.

SHAPOR^‡, A. D. 242. son of Ardeshir, whom we call Sapores, built many cities in Persia, and rebuilt that of Níshapór^ǁ, which the Macedonians had destroyed. A. D. 242. The name of this city is compounded of Shapór added to Nî or Néï, a reed, because its ruins were overgrown with reeds, when Shapór first saw it. This Prince was very successful in his wars against the Roman Emperors: he reduced all Syria and Cilicia, and took Valerian prisoner, but was checked in his career by the more fortunate arms of Odenatus. In his reign Máni^* a Painter, having learned by the conversation of some Christians, that the Redeemer had promised to send a Comforter after him, formed the wild design of passing for the Paraclete; and, as no opinions are so absurd, which many will not embrace, he soon drew together a multitude of proselytes. Shapór was enraged at this imposture, and wished to punish the author of it; but Mani found means to escape, and fled into Eastern Tartary as far as the borders of China, having first told his followers, that he was going to heaven, and promised to meet them in a certain grot, at the end of the year. In his retreat he amused himself with painting a number of strange figures and views, which, at the year’s end, he showed to his disciples, as a work given to him by angels: he was a very ingenious artist, and had a lively fancy, so that his pictures, which were finely coloured, easily persuaded the credulous multitude, in the infancy of the art in Asia, that they were really divine; they were bound together in a book called Erteng^†, which is often alluded to by the Persian poets, one of whom, addressing himself to A. D. 242. a great Painter, says, The point of thy pencil draws a line over the leaves of Erteng, that is, effaces them^*. Máni, by a whimsical mixture, blended in his doctrine the Metempsychosis of of Brahma and Vishnú^†, and the two Principles of Zeratúsht, together with several tenets of the Alcoran, and even of the Gospel; yet this motley religion, ridiculous as it may seem, was followed even by Bishops and Patriarchs. Our writers call the professors of this sect Manicheans, but they should, by analogy, be called Manians. The Impostor was put to death in the reign of Baharam, grandson of Shapor: had he been, like Mahomed, a successful Warrior, instead of an obscure Artist, his religion would, perhaps, have been spread over all Asia; for it was the miraculous privilege of the true faith alone, to make its way, in defiance of persecution, by the force of its indisputable Truth, and the sanctity of its precepts.

HORMOZD^‡, A. D. 272. or Hormizdas, as our historians call him, had the advantage of a graceful person, and an agreeable air; but he was neither active nor warlike. He was much addicted to study, and strongly inclined to favour Mani, whom his son, as it was said above, afterwards destroyed.

BAHARAM^*, A. D. 274. son of Hormuz, after the death of Mani, led a peaceful and studious life. He was surnamed The Beneficent, and used to say, that Good-nature and Benevolence could not be defined separately, because they were the aggregate of all Virtues. His adopted son, who succeeded him, paid little regard to this maxim, and his violence procured him the name of Khálef, or, The Unjust^†; but it is said that he changed his temper and conduct upon the remonstrances of his Nobles.

There was nothing memorable in the reign of his successor Narsi^‡, whom we call Narses: Hormozd II. his son, was a just and magnificent prince; he raised a Court of Judicature in his Metropolis, in which he sometimes presided in person; and he built, it is thought, the city of Hormuz in Carmania, the name of which was afterwards given to the Island in the Persian Gulf, which our travellers call Ormus.

SHAPOR, A. D. 349. whom the Arabians name DHU LACTAF^ǁ, or, The Round-Shouldered, was taken prisoner by the Greek Emperor, and, during his captivity, many of his finest provinces were laid waste; but having recovered his liberty by the help of the Emperor’s Mistress, he returned to Azarbigian, where he made himself known to his A. D. 309. people, and soon after totally defeated the Greeks: in memory of this action he built the city of Cazvin^*, which, for its singular beauty, was also named Gemalabád^†. His grandson Baharam had but a short reign, which was disturbed by frequent rebellions. It was usual for the Persian Kings to give their sons some considerable government with the title of Sháh; that of Carmania was allotted to Baharám, who assumed, in consequence of it, the surname of Kermanshâh^‡, which our writers have corrupted into Carmasat.

The reign of his son Yézdegerd had nothing in it, that deserves to be related.

BAHARAM A. D. 35?? the Fourth^ǁ, or the Sixth, as some authors reckon him, was educated in Arabia, and had some difficulty to recover the throne of Persia, which the Nobles of his father’s court had, in his absence, given to a prince named Kesri. The adventures of this King are related at large by the poet Câtebi, some of whose fictions have been transplanted into the Persian histories, where we are told, with great solemnity, “that he challenged Kesri to snatch the diadem from two hungry lions, between whom he had placed it; that he slew the two lions, and took the diadem; that he travelled into India in A. D. 351. a private character, and married the King’s daughter, having gained his favour by killing a furious elephant, and by defeating another Indian Prince, who had invaded the country.” These relations have the air of Persian tales; but we may be assured, that he repulsed the Eastern Tartars, who, as usual, had passed the Oxus in his reign; and that, having no other enemies, he spent the remainder of his life in hunting. His favourite prey was a beast called Gúr, which seems to be the Onagrus, or Wild Ass; and it is said that he was killed in a chace. The word Gúr, which signifies a tomb, as well as a wild ass, gave occasion to a pun of some Persian wit, which was circulated after Baharâm’s death: See, says he, how Baharám, who chased the Gúr, or wild ass, all his life, was at length chased and taken by Gúr, or the tomb^*.

The successor of Baharam was Yezdegerd II. a wise and resolute prince, whose soldiers were so fond of him, that they gave him the surname of Sipâhdóst, or, Beloved by the army^†. He left his throne to his younger son Hormuz, surnamed Firzâma^‡, or, The Prudent; but that prince was dethroned, in less than a year, by his elder brother Firúz.

FIRUZ^*, A. D. 459. having deposed his brother by the help of Khoshnavâz, a King of the Indoscythians, soon forgot his obligation to him, and turned his arms against his protector; but he was constantly defeated by that prince, and was at last obliged to conclude a dishonourable peace. The people, whom the Greeks call Indoscythians, and the Persians Haïatelis, inhabited the mountains between Candahar and India, and were, perhaps, nearly the same with the Afgans, who ruined the Persian Monarchy in the present age.

Belash and Cobad succeeded Firúz; the second of them was the father of Nushirván the Great, before whom Jamásp, or, as we call him, Zamaspes, reigned one year.

NUSHIRVAN^†, A. D. 530. better known in Europe by the name of Cosroës, reigned till near the close of the sixth century; he was a Prince of eminent virtues, fortunate in war, and illustrious in peace. MAHOMED, who was born in his reign, calls him The Just King, a title more honourable than that of Great, which we are apt to bestow so wantonly upon the oppressors of mankind. All the moral writers of Persia, and principally Sádi, in his Bostán, or Garden, and Jámi, in his Beharistán, or, Mansion of the Spring, are fond of reciting the maxims of this Monarch, and of illustrating their lessons of morality by his example.

His A. D. 530. son Hormúz was far from imitating his father’s virtue; he was at last dethroned by his General Baharám, whom some authors reckon among the Kings of Persia.

KHOSRU A. D. 590. PARVIZ^* was a magnificent and amiable monarch: he fought against the Greek Emperors with great success, but was at length defeated by Heraclius. He is said to have married a daughter of the Emperor Maurice, named Irene: the Persians call this princess Shirin, or Sweet, and the progress of her love for Parvíz furnished Nezámi, and other poets, with the subject of an entertaining Romance; they tell us that a certain Statuary, named Ferhad, was in love with the same lady, and pierced through the heart of a large mountain, either to gratify his mistress, or to employ his melancholy hours. There is an elegant couplet of Jámi on this celebrated Beauty and her lovers: When Shirín, says he, opened her lips, that shed sweetness around, she stole the heart of Parviz, and the soul of Ferhad^†.

This prince is said to have received a letter from Mahomed, inviting him to embrace the new sect of the Arabians; but, as he was extremely addicted to the popular religion of his country, he tore the letter with great disdain.

Parviz, A. D. 590. if we believe the Easterns, was a lover of Musick, and a patron of those who professed that art: his chief Musician was Barbúd, who composed a favourite tune called Aurengi, or Royal, and invented a sort of lute, known by his name; whence M. d’Herbelot supposes, a little too hastily, that the Greeks formed their word Barbiton, not reflecting, that Anacreon and Horace used that word many ages before the birth of Parviz. The Persians, like the ancient Greeks, call their musical modes, or Perda’s, by the names of different countries or cities, as the mode of Ispahan, the mode of Irak, the mode of Hejáz, or the Arabian mode. Whether these modes, like ours, mean a succession of sounds relating by just proportions to one principal note, or only a particular sort of air, it has not been in my power to learn. If we may argue from the softness of the Persian language, the strong accentuation of the words, and the tenderness of the songs which are written in it, we may conclude that the Persians must have a natural and affecting melody, which is, certainly, true musick; but they seem to be very little acquainted with the Theory of that sublime art: and, indeed, the Europeans knew as little of it, till it was explained to them by Rousseau of Geneva, who has written upon the subject like a Philosopher, an Artist, and a Man of Taste.

After A. D. 623. the death of Parviz, the Empire began to decline: the five Princes, and the two Queens, who succeeded to Shirúieh, or Siroes, as they were eminent neither in peace nor in war, are not worthy of a place in History.

The A. D. 636. Arabs, under the command of Omar, were perpetually making inroads upon the Persian Empire, and finally overthrew it by the defeat of YEZDEGIRD^*, who was killed in the middle of the seventh century; and by his death the family of Sassan became extinct.