Another of the worthy inhabitants of Shiraz who maintained a perfect intimacy with me, was Mirza Abo Talib Sholistâni, a man of true taste and praise-worthy morals, who passed his time in the company of clever men, in conversation on the sciences, and in the performance of his religious duties. After my removal from that town to Isphahan, he always, as long as he lived, kept open the doors of mutual friendship and correspondence by letter; and he had collected together a great number of my poems.

Once, he sent a letter to me in Isphahan, pro­posing a question which concerned Jemal Eddin Abd Orrozzak Isphahani and his son Kemal Eddin Ismail, and requesting my judgement on their poetry, to decide whose composition of the two held the superiority. In the same letter it was mentioned, that a dispute existed among a number of persons on the subject of this superiority, and that both sides had agreed to abide by my decision. In reply, I wrote this piece in verse, and folding it up in my letter, sent it to him.

Lines.*
Last night, from the friend, of whom my heart is enamoured,
In the praise of whose perfect understanding eloquence is dumb,
There came to me a messenger, an angel of good fortune,
With a sweet refreshing letter, which might be taken for limpid water.
Prose it cannot be called, for it is a string of gems;
Every line of it, to my view, is a lace of pearls.
I opened it, and read, and weighed, and saw,
That the sum of its contents, is a question put to me.
“To-day, in this country, among our critics and connois­seurs,
“A dispute exists, concerning the poetry of Jemâl and Kemâl.
“Our friends, in short, are divided on this question into two bands,
“And are quarrelling on the proof of superiority of one of them.
“One party supports the pre-eminence of the father's poetry; another of the son's:
“And it is now two years that this matter has remained undecided.
“These disputatious friends have all agreed,
“That the judgement awarded by your pen, shall be as a revelation from heaven.”
Now, therefore, did open its wings, to weigh a just answer,
The Simorgh of my imagination, under whose pinion is the sphere.
I looked, with minuteness, into the Collections of both the poets,
And, if they are not to be called miracles of production, they are lawful magic.
I saw that the inkstand and pen of these two Royal Sovereigns
Are, in the kingdom of their majesty, the drum and the beater.
They are both of them prodigies of skill, of reason, and of eloquence;
And angel-born fancy is an attendant of their privy-chamber.
The brightness of each of their Matlas, is like the sun in the midst of heaven:
The watery refulgence of their Misras, is as the radiant scimitar.
The compositions of the poets, their contemporaries,
In comparison of their well-set gems, are but shingles.
The pens in the powerful hands of the masters,
Are doubled into folds, like the slender reed, through shame of them.
That collection of all the beauties of writing, which Atkan has made,
Before their breath, is like a saddle-cover on the back of the north-wind.
Every page, written by the musky pen of these two gem-weighers,
Like the cheek of the fair, is all beauty-spots and charms of feature.
But, should any one open the eye of justice and discrimina­tion,
This couplet of mine which follows, is a mirror that shews the reality.
In the poetry of Jemâl, though there is beauty to perfec­tion,
Yet, it has not the gracefulness of the virgin muse of Kemâl.
His expression, in its purity, is a mirror that reflects his meaning;
His meaning is, by its grandeur, the Toghra of sublimity.
Every masked subtilty is a bag of musk;
Every single point, that he has, is more charming than the eye of the fawn.
The grace of his writing, is an angel from behind the curtain of invisibility;
The draught of his pen, is the new moon on the horizon of excellence.
A hundred times, I have perused his divan from end to end:
It is a Leila— that from head to foot, is all charm and allurement.
The men of art are beggars for each drop of his pen;
And, truly, the vein of its cloud, is a sea of munificence.
Though Jemâl is a master of language, nevertheless,
The perfection of that manner and method is the work of Kemâl.
Hazin's verdict on the poems of the two masters
Is this which I have said, and every thing else is mere con­troversy.
Such indeed has been the general opinion; for is not Creator of Meanings
The title given to him by the judges of perfection?
I am the touch-stone of perfection; and for others to dispute with me
By throwing their own opinion into the opposite scale, is a mistake.
This letter I wrote on the night of the eighth of Shavvâl
The calendar month, and in the year one thousand one hun­dred and thirty-two.

In this court of science, Shiraz, a great number of able and learned men were on terms of intimacy with me; to make mention of all of whom would cause great prolixity. The atmosphere of that country is perfectly agreeable to the good state of the nervous system, so that, however much a person applies himself to reflection and deep thought, he is not subject to any languid debility. During my stay there, I read and taught much; and I deeply studied so many books and treatises of science of various kinds, that it would be diffi­cult to reckon up their numbers. Sometimes, taking a walk to delightful places and charming situations within the range of the town, I abun­dantly enjoyed such parties in the company of my friends.