DURING the period of my illness, being power­less of other exertion, I composed many verses, and, as I could not write myself, others wrote them for me. They are of a different turn and character from my other poetry. Afterwards, I collected all the poems which I had accumulated from the beginning till then, and formed them into a Divan, consisting of cassidas, or elegies, mesna­vis, odes, and quatrains, to the number, I suppose, of seven or eight thousand couplets. This was the first Divan of my humble production. It has cir­culated through the hands of the literati. My love for composition, and for the society of poets, increased, and my taste was wonderfully affected and delighted, by good and approved poetry.

Of all the men of genius and masters of lan­guage that I ever associated with, one I may men­tion as having seen, that had attained to all the niceties and beauties of Persian Poetry, and could do justice to all the demands of eloquent composition; one, whose equal in degree I have not yet seen, Mir Abd Alghani Tafrashi, one of the nephews of the late excellent Mir Abd Alghani Tafrashi, a pupil of the celebrated Mirza Ibrahim of Hamadan, who, in the reign of the last Shah Abbas, ranked as a clever man, and is now dead. In short, this Mir Abd Alghani, who was one of my friends and most intimate companions, and accord­ing to the saying,* “The high-mettled youth ever holds to his illustrious fathers,” was adorned with the purest accomplishments, possessed a perfect and true taste, and the most exalted disposition. Having gone through the course of the ordinary sciences, he became a prodigy of poetical talent, for ingenuity, taste, and imagination; though, indeed, he composed very little poetry, the whole number of his virgin thoughts not amounting to as many even as one hundred couplets. But he com­posed in the proper style; and there is no com­parison between the strength, and sweetness, and delicacy of his language, and the inferior composi­tions of his contemporaries. In the growth of ingenious subtilties, and in quickness of percep­tion for faults of style, I have not seen his equal. Whilst he lived, I composed a great deal of poetry by the taste of his criticism, as he maintained a very great intimacy with me. This quatrain is from him.*

I have sat a whole life in the path of fidelity; but in vain:

I have set my heart on none besides thee; but in vain.

In thy street, the approach of every dog is nearer than mine:

I have broken all this quantity of bones; but in vain.

He died at Isphahan in the flower of his youth, and has left the fire-mark of separation on the hearts of his friends. “O God! forgive him his offences, and place him beside thee in the highest of high places.”