He is well known as Āṣaf Khān the Qazvīnī, and is brother's son to Mīrzā Ghiyā-ud-dīn ‘Alī ‘Āṣaf Khān, the late paymaster-in-chief. He is himself now one of the chief paymasters. So bitter is his resentment at having received no honour in the days in which his uncle was influential at court, that he continues to show it, and to attack his uncle even now that he is dead.* His poetic genius is greater than that of all his contemporaries, but is restricted by not being exercised, owing to his love of pleasure and ease and the great demands made upon his time by official business. He is also moderately fond of learning. Had he been a man of one occupation he would have enchanted the hearts of many of the poverty-stricken people of this time, which would probably have been worth to him forty tūmāns in cash.* (Whenever he made any considerable sum of money by his poetry he would squander it.)*

The following few couplets are some of his:—

“My lives are cast to-day in the ways of injustice
For wherever the beloved sets her footheads fall.”

“If, like the moth, I fly distractedly around thy candle,
O obstinate one!
My presumptuous flight will at length land me in death.”

“The roses of all are despoiled by the autumn,
But in my case both the rose-tree and the rose-garden are
gone.”

“Thine affair, O Ja‘far! is fallen into the fire,
²¹⁷ Two hundred songsters are here not worth one sala-
mander.”

“At length the day of resurrection has come for the
reckoning of my sin.
O, tear up the record of the sins of the people.”

“What plain was this and what hunter that always brought
down the game?
No quarry appeared in view, but received an arrow from
him.”

“I must write a letter concerning my grief to her who
possesses my heart;
The grief of my heart is great, I must write to my love
concerning it.”

“If Thou art pleased with Ja‘far, with the faith which he
holds and his heart,
I am deputed by him to say that he freely gives Thee this
faith and heart.”

“Behold my magnanimity! A hundred leaves of the book
of hope
Have I torn into a hundred pieces and washed them with
tears of blood!”

“A rose has now bloomed in the garden afresh,
For last night the nightingale slept not till the morning.”

“Since the city was too small to contain the griefs of my
heart
The open plain was created for my heart.”

“All thy complaints are over, as mine begin,
For the whole of my complaint is that I do not hear the
voice of thy complaint.”

“Come into her heart, O pity, and let not my grief be in
vain!
For I am deeply afflicted while she is occupied with
cruelty.”

“Ja‘far found the way to the street of his love,
Now he will hardly rise to his feet again.”

“She came and distracted me, and remained not for so long
That I could make my heart acquainted with consolation.”