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

ON A.D.1740. Nad. 53. the last day of July the army reached the banks of the Oxus, and found on the river eleven hundred barges, which Nader Shah had ordered to be built, that he might convey his artillery and provisions into the Transoxan provinces: they continued their march with great rapidity, and arrived in ten days at the passes of Bokhara, where a number of chiefs and governors submitted to the Shah’s generals, and paid homage to them as to his representatives.

In the mean while, the princes Riza and Ali, having passed the Oxus, advanced along the opposite bank, and spread a general terrour before them: but the Shah continued in Persia till the eighteenth of August, when he crossed the river in a sumptuous barge, which had been prepared for his reception. Soon after this, a bridge, which Nader had ordered to be built over the Oxus, was completed; a numerous army of Persians were in a short time assembled on the northern side of the river, and were marching in full array towards the metropolis of Mawaranahr: but the King of Turan had no inclination to give them battle, and sent his first Vizir to the Persian camp with the humblest offers of subjection. Nader Shah received the Vizir with great affability, and, having presented him with a rich mantle, according to the custom of Asiatick princes, A.D.1740. Nad. 53. dismissed him with orders to conduct the King his master to the camp, and to assure him, that nothing but his immediate compliance could preserve himself from destruction, and his kingdom from ruin. The Tartarian Monarch was under a necessity of obeying these haughty commands: he had descended too low already to think of recovering his dignity, and he was too prudent to irritate, by his disobedience, a powerful adversary, whom he could not repel by force of arms.

The Persian army still continued their course, and encamped on the twenty-third of August at the distance of twelve miles from the city of Bokhára: on the next day in the afternoon, Abulfeiz, King of Turan, attended by his Vizirs and Courtiers, arrived at the camp; and, being admitted into the presence of Nader Shah, layed his diadem and other ensigns of royalty at the feet of the Conqueror. If this fortunate man showed a fierce and violent temper on other occasions, he certainly behaved at the present juncture with a noble moderation: he assigned the captive monarch a place in the council, and declared, that he meaned to restore him, as he had restored the Emperor of India, to his former dignity; but that he should fix the Oxus as the common boundary of the Tartarian and Persian empires, and annex to the latter all the districts lying to the south and west of that river, together with Balkh and its dependencies; in confirmation of which alliance, he proposed to marry his nephew Ali to a daughter of Abulfeiz: the Turanian had too much sense to object to a single proposal of his Conqueror, who could easily have forced him to consent, and who, with respect to him, had acted mildly and benevolently. After A.D.1740. Nad. 53. several amicable conferences, the two sovereigns advanced to Bokhara; where Nader restored the crown of Tartary to his captive with great ceremony, and placed a diadem, set with pearls, upon his head, as a mark of his particular favour: he conferred upon him another honour, which was merely verbal; for, as the chief rulers of the Transoxan provinces had born only the simple title of Khan or Lord, he gave that of Shah, or King, to Abulfeiz, and his descendants. On the same day, the nuptials of Ali and the princess of Turan were celebrated with uncommon magnificence.

The next morning Nader Shah led his forces towards Kharezm, which, we may remember, was said in the Introduction to be an extensive kingdom lying on each side of the Oxus, near the place where it emptied itself into the Caspian, and containing a number of large cities and fortresses, which, from the advantage of their situation, were accounted impregnable. His view in visiting this country, was to make reprisals upon Ilbars, who then governed it, and who, during the Indian expedition, had made frequent incursions into Khorasan. This Chief was then in a castle, named Hezaresb, before which Nader appeared on the eighteenth of October; but, finding it very strongly fortified, and capable of resisting the most vigorous assaults, he thought it adviseable to make a pretence of marching toward Kheiva, the Capital of the province, justly concluding, that Ilbars would hazard a battle to save his metropolis. He was not disappointed; for the Kharezmian no sooner heard of his motions, than he left the fortress, and marched to Kheiva by another road, while Nader, expecting that A.D.1740. Nad. 53. event, returned through some passes in the mountains, and entirely precluded him from the hope of regaining Hezaresb. Ilbars, thus intercepted, retired in haste to a weaker castle, where he soon found it impossible to make any defence: he therefore, in a fit of despair, resolved to give the Persians battle, and advanced intrepidly to the field; but, after a short skirmish, he was driven back, and, leaving most of his men dead on the plain, saved himself with a few attendants in the fort: the conquerors began immediately to batter the walls, and, after a brisk fire for three days, made a considerable breach, and took the castle in a violent assault; yet even then the prince of Kharezm, deserted by his friends, and destitute of succour, had the madness to think of holding out singly against so formidable an enemy, and would not surrender, till some Persian soldiers dragged him by force before the Shah, who ordered him to be put to death, in revenge for the Persian envoys, who had been sent to summon him at Hezaresb, and whom he had inhumanly murdered.

Ilbars seems to have been a mere savage, who, without any talent necessary to form a General, had assumed the character of a warriour, and invaded Persia without any provocation, but was put to flight in every engagement, and received at last the punishment, which his folly, arrogance, obstinacy, and cruelty certainly deserved.

After this victory, the princes Ali and Riza obtained leave to retire to Meshed, where they intended to pass some time with Nasralla, whom they had not seen since his return from India; but Nader Shah stayed several days longer A.D.1740. Nad. 53. in Kharezm, in order to concert measures for the peaceable government of that principality, which he gave to a near relation of Abulfeiz, named Thaher, a nobleman of illustrious merit: after which arrangement he repassed the Oxus, and arrived at Meru in the middle of December. He made but a short stay in that city, and advanced with great expedition to his favourite castle of Kelat, which he had fixed upon as the place of his retreat, whenever his advanced age, and the completion of his military projects, should enable him to resign the throne, and pass the remainder of his life in a glorious retirement. He determined to provide this place with every thing requisite to make his solitude agreeable; consistently with which design, he caused a sumptuous palace to be raised in Kelat, together with elegant baths, temples, aqueducts, and houses for his officers and ministers: he ordered the treasures collected at Delhi to be transported into the castle, which was far the strongest hold in the Persian Empire. After these regulations he left Kelat, and, returning through a very agreeable country, reached Meshed at the close of the year.

Nader A.D.1741. Nad. 54. Shah entered the metropolis of his kingdom in triumph, and nothing was seen in the city but diversions and pageants, from the opening of the new year to the tenth of March, which day was solemnized with more than usual magnificence. He had, in the course of five years, subdued or put to flight as many Sovereign Princes^*, conquered three flourishing kingdoms, A.D.1741. Nad. 54. and extended the boundaries of Persia, as far as Oxus to the north, and Indus to the east. His next object was to drive the Turks from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, as he had already driven both them and the Russians from the Cyrus and Araxes; but the death of his brother Zoheireddoula was yet unrevenged: he, therefore, had no sooner recovered from the fatigue of his last campaign, than he led his army towards the mountains of Shirvan. On the third of May, as he was riding through a a forest in Mazenderan, a musket-ball, fired from a distance, grazed his right arm, and struck his horse on the head, who fell immediately to the ground: the ball was aimed at Nader Shah by an assassin, who lay in ambush behind a tree, but, finding he had failed in his design, had fled with great haste, and hid himself in the thickest part of the wilderness. The prince Rizakuli was in his father’s train, and appeared to be much surprised at this accident: but many of the courtiers, who were present, suspected that the plot had been concerted by him, and, though the Persian author supposes him to be innocent, yet the frequent examples of these horrid attempts in the courts of Asia, and the confidence with which our own writers relate the story, may induce us to believe, that their suspicions of his guilt are not wholly groundless. It was reported, however, that a son of Dilaver, one of the barbarous chiefs mentioned in a former part of this narrative, was the contriver of the plot, and had suborned a desperate villain to fire at the Shah, when he should pass through that forest: the assassin was pursued, and, being taken by the Persian soldiers, was put to immediate death.

The A.D.1741. Nad. 54. conquest of Daghestan was effected with little difficulty; as most of the savage chiefs, alarmed at Nader’s approach, came to him at the head of their tribes, and made a promise of inviolable submission to their Conqueror and his descendants.

The A.D.1742. Nad. 55. first months of the new year were employed in receiving foreign embassies, and in negotiating a treaty with the Sultan Mahmud, by which Nader proposed to recover the whole province of Mesopotamia; and, having so considerably enlarged the Persian Empire, he intended to resign the crown, and retire to Kelat, where he had reposited all the treasures of India. Among the ambassadors, who arrived this year at the court of Meshed, was an Indian Emîr, sent by the Great Mogul with a congratulatory letter to the Shah on his victories in Tartary, and a curious piece of furniture, made of red sandalwood, and carved in a most elegant manner: Nader accepted the present, and dismissed the Emîr, with one no less valuable for the Mogul, consisting of several vases adorned with gems; at the same time he sent back a band of musicians and dancers, whom he had brought with him from Dehli, in order to instruct his subjects in the Indian musick and method of dancing, which he greatly admired. What that kind of musick was, it is impossible for us to determine; but we cannot help admiring the remarkable disposition of this singular man, who, with the fierceness of a warriour, had yet a taste for the polite and ornamental arts, and, while he was conquering an Empire, had the calmness to think of improving the musick of his nation.

The A.D.1742. Nad. 55. rest of the year was spent in reducing the northern provinces, and principally in settling the affairs of Georgia and Circassia.

Nader A.D.1743. Nad. 56. Shah, perceiving that the Sultan meaned only to trifle with him, and being now at leisure to renew hostilities, marched at the opening of the year towards Bagdad, and took several considerable places in his way. Ahmed sent him a submissive message, and entreated him to reflect on the ruin which he should bring on himself, if he were to abandon a City, which the Sultan had expressly ordered him to defend. The Turkish court, on the other hand, were making preparations for an obstinate war, and had sent a decision of the Mufti to all their Asiatick governors, importing, that It was lawful to slay or make prisoners the inhabitants of Persia, as hereticks and opposers of the true faith. On hearing this, the Shah, despairing at that time to reduce the governor of Bagdad, advanced with all possible speed to Musel, a large and opulent City, then governed by Hussein, who had lately been reinforced by the basha of Aleppo with all his troops. He pursued his operations with great rapidity, raised a strong bridge over the river, and, having completed his lines, began to bombard the citadel. The garrison supported a sharp fire for several days, but at length Hussein Pasha expressed an inclination to capitulate, and sent two officers to the Persian camp with an offer of amicable terms, but represented to him the dangers to which a Turkish governor was exposed, who should surrender a City committed to his care, and desired a respite for a few months to obtain the consent of his court, and to persuade them to make a peace with the Shah at any rate. “Nader, says the Persian historian, accepted these pro“posals, and A.D.1743. Nad. 56. consented to desist from any further hostilities, till an answer could be received from Constantinople.” Accordingly he raised the siege, and amused himself, in this interval, with visiting the places near Bagdad, which had been rendered sacred by the residence of Ali, and the first successors of Mahomed. In the mean time great civilities passed between him and the governor of Bagdad; and a variety of presents were interchanged, as tokens of their mutual regard. Ahmed prepared a magnificent barge, in which Nader Shah passed the Tigris, and, with an indolence unworthy of his active nature, condescended to dispute upon subjects of religion with the Mahomedan priests, who took care to be always of his opinion. This irresolute and imprudent conduct, in a man so bold and impetuous, must needs be a matter of astonishment to the reader: it will, therefore, be necessary to explain the causes of it.

If Nader Shah had perished in the forest of Mazenderan on the third of May 1741, his course would have been completely glorious; and he would have left a most flourishing Empire to a valiant and active Prince, who, in all probability, would have followed the example of his father: but his glory was now declining, and his life seemed likely to be closed in weakness and misery. It had been suggested to him by some of his courtiers, that the villain, who fired at him in the forest, had been suborned by his eldest son Riza; and some of our travellers relate this story as an indisputable fact^*: but whether the suggestion A.D.1743. Nad. 56. were just or groundless, it is certain that Nader, in a fit of rage, ordered the Prince’s eyes to be torn out; the common, but inhuman, punishment for high crimes in Asia. His orders were no sooner executed, than he repented of his hasty passion; remorse, anguish, and despair succeeded to his wrath, and a disorder preyed upon his spirits, which gained new force every day. Conscious of his growing malady, he was desirous to conclude a peace with the Turks, and to seek some comfort from the retirement which he had so long meditated: but a circumstance, which happened the next year, roused him from his lethargy, and led him to make a last effort, which was not altogether unworthy of his former character.

A A.D.1744. Nad. 57. Turkish commander, named Gemál Ogli, who was then at Cars in Armenia, which he had recovered, sent circular letters to the principal officers of Persia, inciting them to revolt from the Usurper Nader, and to join the banners of Prince Sefi, the true heir to the crown. This Pretender, whose real name was Mohammed Ali, had formerly gotten his bread in the city of Shuster, the ancient Susa, by begging in the dress of a dervise: one day a man, who gave him alms, observed that he resembled the Sefi family in his complexion, and the colour of his eyes; from which the beggar took the hint of a most impudent imposture, and told the people a piteous story of his misfortunes, assuring them, that he never had intended to reveal the secret of his birth, but that, since he was betrayed by his features, he found himself obliged to confess, that he was really the Prince Sefi. Upon this, so great a croud assembled round him every day, that the governor of Shuster was forced to drive him from the city; A.D.1744. Nad. 57. whence he proceeded to Bagdad, and was introduced to Ahmed as a prince of the house of Sefi: the governor, imagining that the heir to the throne of Persia, whether real or pretended, would be useful to his court, sent him to Constantinople, where he had apartments allotted to him in the palace, and a considerable revenue; but after the deposition of Sultan Ahmed in 1730, he was sent to Thessalonica, and afterwards to Lemnos, where he had lived many years neglected and despised, but was now summoned, and carried into Persia by the Turkish General. The letters of Gemal Ogli were brought to Nader, who immediately led his army to Abher, intending to advance as far as Cars, whither, on account of several delays, he did not arrive till the end of July. The governor refused to surrender, and Nader Shah, finding himself in no condition to compel him, made a feeble attempt to bombard the citadel, but the next day accepted the governor’s offer to give the Turkish court notice of his desperate situation, and press them to conclude a peace; upon which he left one of his generals to blockade the city, and retired into winter quarters at Berda.

At A.D.1745. Nad. 58. the beginning of March he advanced towards Erivan, but was attacked with so violent a disorder, that he was forced to be carried in a litter, and did not recover his strength till the middle of summer; at which time he was informed that Mohammed Pasha, the late Grand Vizir, was marching by the way of Erzerum with twelve other Bashas, at the head of a vast army, and that two more Turkish officers were hastening through Diarbecr to join them with all their forces. Nader seemed to be transported with A.D.1745. Nad. 58. joy at this intelligence, hoping by one decisive blow to terminate his dispute with the Turks, and either to crown his labours with a victory, or to end in the field of battle a life, which was now become a burden to him: he therefore sent his son Nasralla to prevent the junction of the two Turkish armies, and, having appointed the princes Imamkuli and Ibrahim governors of Khorasan and Irák in his absence, proceeded by forced marches, and on the twenty-eighth of July encamped in the same plain, where he had defeated Abdalla ten years before. The next day Mohammed appeared with an hundred thousand horse, and forty thousand foot, but he marched very slowly, and pitched his tents in the evening at the bottom of a mountain. On the thirtieth, both armies advanced into the plain; but the whole day was spent in slight skirmishes, in which the Turks generally retired with loss. Mohammed must have been either ignorant of Nader’s infirmity, or timid to the last degree, for if he had made a bold attack on this day, it would probably have been successful; but, alarmed at the very name of Nader Shah, and thinking his troops unable to oppose the hardy veterans, who had learned the force of discipline in the battle of Karnal, he thought it prudeut to sound a retreat, and retired with such silence and expedition, that a detachment of Persians, who were sent to examine the Turkish camp, were surprised to find it deserted: but the janissaries, conscious of their own valour, and eager to engage their enemies, began to murmur at the remissness of their commander; and his council were apprehensive of a general mutiny, if he should delay to lead them back into the field.

On A.D.1745. Nad. 58. the ninth of August a letter was brought to Nader Shah from the prince Nasralla, informing him of a complete victory, which he had gained over the Basha’s, who were marching from Diarbecr, and whom he had intercepted in a plain near Musel. The King was highly pleased with this letter, and sent it to Mohammed by one of the Turkish prisoners, who had no sooner reached the camp, than he heard a loud noise, and presently discovered, that the soldiers had revolted, and put their General to death. By this time the Persians had advanced close to the Turkish camp, and, perceiving the disorder of the enemy, attacked them on all sides: the Turks fled in confusion; and, while some of Nader’s troops were engaged in pursuing them, the rest seized their artillery, tents, and ammunition: twelve thousand janissaries were slain, among whom were several officers of distinction. Nader Shah stayed a few days in this place to refresh his army, and to divide the spoils among them; after which he led them to Hamadan, and thence proceeded to Ispahan, which he did not reach till the close of the year, as he made a long stay in some of the principal towns, in order to regulate the affairs of his Empire. In his way he received an ambassador from the King of Khoten, who had sent a valuable present to Nader Shah, with a letter of congratulation upon all his victories, in which he took occasion to request, that a proper officer might be sent to fix the boundaries of their respective dominions: the Shah readily complied with his request, and dismissed the ambassador with a present of nine Arabian horses, and a cimiter set with jewels. This prince was descended from Genghizkhan, and had been raised by his merit to the throne of A.D.1745. Nad. 58. Khoten, while his brother reigned in the kingdom of Khata; both which countries are usually mentioned together by the Asiatick writers, and reach from the northern frontiers of China to the territories of Balkb, which Nader Shah had lately annexed to the empire of Persia.

Nader A.D.1746. Nad. 59. had now baffled the last effort of his most dangerous enemies; and, as his disorder grew daily upon him, he was very desirous of making an honourable peace, and of hastening to that retirement, which had been his chief object for several years. In the middle of March, therefore, he sent an offer of accommodation to the Turkish court, who listened eagerly to his proposals; but the whole year was spent in negotiations, and peace was not concluded till January 1747, A.D.1747. Nad. 60. in the sixtieth year of Nader’s life. As he had no further intentions of renewing the war, he dropped his two articles relating to the mosque at Mecca, which, as we observed before, were only intended to amuse the Turks before the expedition against Candahar; and the Porte, on the other hand, consented to protect the Persian pilgrims, to set their prisoners at liberty, and to relinquish their claim to the provinces of Irak and Azarbigian, one district of which was ceded to the Sultan as a free gift, and as a mark only of the Shah’s amicable intentions.

While Nader was preparing to visit the place of his birth, and had thoughts of resigning the diadem to his son Nasralla, he received news, that a noble Persian, named Taki Khan, to whom he had assigned the government of Fars, had declared himself independent of his benefactor, and revolted A.D.1747. Nad. 60. openly; in which he was soon imitated by the governors of some other provinces. This intelligence drove him to a degree of fury, which can scarce be conceived: he put to death a great number of his governors and ministers, upon the slightest suspicion of their guilt; and, not satisfied with destroying the leaders of the rebellion, he cut off whole cities, and forced the greatest number of his subjects to seek a refuge in the mountains and deserts. After he had celebrated the Nurûz in the city of Kerman, he advanced to Meshed, which he found in a manner deserted, and the whole province ripe for revolt: his madness was now raised to the highest pitch; he sent Nasralla, his grandson Shahrokh, and the other princes, to the castle of Kelat, resolving in the mean time to exterminate the rebels without mercy.

It was not long before he heard that the province of Segestan had revolted; upon which he sent his nephew Ali to reduce it to submission, under the guidance of an old and faithful officer named Tahmasp. The young prince, eager to possess the treasures of his uncle, and panting for the delights of a throne, proposed to his guide to join the Segestanians, and depose the Tyrant, whose age and infirmities rendered him incapable of reigning: the old man was shocked at the idea, and dissuaded the prince from so base an attempt. Ali dissembled his displeasure; but in a few days the person, who had occasioned it, was no more: he poisoned Tahmasp, and caused himself in several provinces to be proclaimed King of Persia; but as the life of Nader Shah was a great obstacle to his designs, he despatched three of his officers in order to remove it.

Nader A.D.1747. Nad. 60. had notice in a short time of this unnatural rebellion; and, as his presence alone could have any chance of suppressing it, he left Meshed at the end of May, to which he never returned.

On Sunday, the eighth of June, he encamped at a place called Fatehabad, or The mansion of victory, where, fatigued with his long march, oppressed with years, sunk in despair, he retired early to his tent, and slept till midnight; at which time the three assassins sent by Ali, who had also bribed the officers upon guard, entered the tent, and in a few minutes put an end to a life, which had been devoted to destroy the lives of others^*.

Thus fell, at the age of sixty years, NADERKULI, the Deliverer of Persia, and Conqueror of India; who, from an humble station, had raised himself to a degree of power, at which few monarchs by birth have ever arrived. He seems to have united the talents of a complete General, and an able Politician; and, though he had not the advantages of learning, yet appears to have had a taste for true magnificence, and would probably, had he lived in happier times, have encouraged the arts of peace, and been no stranger to the charms of society; but the darling object of his life, to which he sacrificed every other pursuit, and devoted all the powers of his mind and body, was the Art of War, in which he became equal to the greatest Commanders of Asia, and may justly stand upon a level with Cyrus or Tamerlane. They, who form a notion of his character from the various narratives, which have been printed in Europe, are apt to consider him in no other light, than as a fearless Barbarian, who surmounted every difficulty, and overthrew all his opposers, by the dint of mere valour and hardiness; but, on a nearer view of his exploits, they will seem to contain something more than brutal heroism, and to have been no less wisely concerted than vigorously performed. His great project of delivering his country was executed with a regularity and prudence, that can be surpassed only by the celerity of his motions, and the vigour of his acts. If we throw a veil over his latter years, in which he was rather to be pitied than condemned, we shall see nothing in his life, but what was noble and laudable: he had neither the rashness of Alexander, the insatiable ambition of Cæsar, the inflexible obstinacy of Charles the Twelfth, nor the vices of his illustrious rival Peter the Great; he resembled rather that real Hero, Gustavus Vasa, who, to use the words of an excellent writer, “left the forest where he lay concealed, and came to deliver his country^*:” like Vasa, he was raised to the throne of the Empire, which he had freed from oppression; like Vasa, he changed the religion of his subjects; but he did not, like Vasa, reign happy and beloved to an advanced old age.

Early in the morning the body of the king was exposed in the camp; upon which the leaders of the army, after a long debate, thought it adviseable to declare for Ali, and invite him to the seat of his empire: but Ahmed, a valiant officer, who had always been attached to Nader, made a bold effort to revenge his death, and rushed at the head of his troop against the other chiefs, but was soon repulsed, and retreated in despair to Candahar.

Ali, having received a full account of the transaction, marched with great eagerness into Khorasan, and sent a body of men under able commanders to seize the treasures of Kelát, and the persons of the young princes his cousins.

As the castle of Kelát was very strong, it would have been almost impossible to have taken it by storm; but an accident saved them the trouble of a regular siege: one of the soldiers in the fortress, wanting some fresh water, descended by a ladder, which he imprudently left on the wall, and did not return, till he found the castle full of Ali’s men, and heard the cries of the garrison. The princes Nasralla, Imamkuli, and Shahrokh mounted their horses, and escaped by another gate, intending to fly towards Meru: they had scarce ridden twenty-seven miles, when they were overtaken by a troop of their enemies, by whom Imamkuli and Shahrokh were made prisoners; but Nasralla, having killed a soldier who had seized his bridle, galloped to Meru, where he hoped to find a sure refuge; but the inhabitants of the city, among whom Ali’s gold had already spread its infection, put him in chains, and sent him instantly to Meshed.

Ali made a solemn entry into the capital of Khorasan, where his first act of benevolence was to deprive the princes of their lives, which were no longer dear to them: the unfortunate Riza, together with Nasralla, Imamkuli, and sixteen others of the imperial family, were massacred; but Shahrokh, a beautiful boy about fourteen years old, was kept privately in a tower, whence Ali designed to bring him to the throne, and to assume the regency during his minority, if he should find the Persians determined to oppose his own government.

On the twenty-fifth of June he was crowned by the name of ALI SHAH, and began his reign by dispersing the spoils of India, which his uncle had collected in Kelát. He sent his brother Ibrahim to Ispahan, and appointed him governor of Irak; after which he committed the care of his Empire to his ministers, and, fixing his abode sometimes in Mazenderan, sometimes in Khorasan, led a life, the least worthy of a powerful King, sensual, voluptuous, effeminate.

In the mean while Ibrahim, who had repined in secret at the success of his brother, was concerting measures to undermine his power: his liberality soon drew to Ispahan a number of chiefs and governors, who had taken a just offence at the conduct of Ali; and, when he had collected a force sufficient to try his strength, he marched against the city of Carmanshah, which he took by storm, and afterwards bent his course towards Azarbigian: but in a plain between Zenjan and Sultania, he was met by Ali Shah, who, roused from his indolence by the news of this revolt, had advanced by forced marches to intercept his progress. The two armies soon came to an action; but in the heat of it a great number of Ali’s men went over to the enemy, and the rest were soon put to flight. Ali was made prisoner, and condemned to lose his eyes by his brother, whom, contrary to the custom of Persian monarchs, he had permitted to enjoy his sight.

Ibrahim had in a short time secured to his interests most of the provinces and chief cities, and found himself at the head of an hundred and twenty thousand men: but the young prince Shahrokh, who was favoured by the Khorasanians, stood between him and the throne; and, as the treasury was at Meshed, he despaired of being fixed in his government, till he had in his power the person and wealth of his rival: with this intent he acted with a deep dissimulation, and sent one of his ministers to Meshed, with a declaration, that Shahrokh was now the undoubted heir of two royal families, of Sefi by his mother, and of Nader Shah, by his father; that Ibrahim was determined, therefore, to place him on the throne of his ancestors at Ispahan, where the former Kings of Persia had resided. The Chiefs of Khorasan agreed, that the young prince was heir to the crown, but sent word to Ibrahim, that it would be necessary to finish the ceremonies of the coronation without any further delay: they accordingly went to the prince in the tower, where he had been imprisoned, and paid homage to him, as their lawful sovereign; but the amiable youth, justly apprehensive of the dangers which surround a throne, and of which at his tender age he had been a mournful witness, entreated them not to expose him to a state of such splendid misery: they would not listen to his request, and, after repeated oaths of fidelity, brought him to the palace; where on the twentieth of September he took the scepter of Persia with a trembling hand.

Ibrahim, finding that his project had failed, had no resource left but open rebellion; he caused himself to be proclaimed King, and ordered money to be struck in his name: but his undiscerning prodigality brought him to destruction; he chose his ministers among the meanest of his officers, and raised the most ignorant soldiers to the highest commands in his army: his best troops, justly incensed at this conduct, either went over to Shahrokh, or returned to their native countries; so that in a short time he was almost deserted, and had scarcely strength enough to take possession of Kom, which it would have been better for him never to have taken. He was betrayed by his guards to the inhabitants of this city, who sent him in chains to Meshed, along with his brother Ali, whom he had kept in his palace: the officer, who conducted the prisoners, thinking to recommend himself to the new king, slew Ibrahim in the way, and carried his head to Shahrokh, who turned aside from the bloody sight; but, when he cast his eyes upon Ali, his regard for the memory of the princes, whom that monster had murdered in cold blood, overcame his natural sweetness of temper, and he gave orders for him to be immediately strangled.

There was now a prospect of tranquillity in the Persian empire; as the Shah had every quality, which promised a happy reign: but there was one more pretender to the crown, a grandson of Soliman III. whom Shahrokh, perhaps imprudently, had suffered to live unconfined. This barbarian concerted a plot against the Shah, and, having by bribes and promises gained access to his apartment, tore out the eyes of the unfortunate king, who in a lower station might have preserved both his sight and his happiness. So cruel an act could not be long unpunished: the ruffian was seized, and put to death with every aggravated circumstance of torture; but as the blindness of Shahrokh made him incapable, by the laws of Persia, of reigning, he retained only the name of King, whilst all his affairs were conducted by his ministers: how long he lived, it has not been in our power to learn; but it is easy to conceive that his life could be neither long nor happy, unless he spent it in retirement, where a sense of religion might support him with hopes of a better state.

Thus, in a period of sixty years, one of the most beautiful Empires in the world was so drenched in blood, and so torn with calamities that not one heir to the diadem remained in a capacity to wear it; and a single man of no high birth, in a life of the same length, delivered his country, raised it to the highest pitch of grandeur, and left it at his death no less distressed than ever: such are the miseries which naturally flow from an immoderate love of dominion; such are the fruits of military glory, and such the fate of those kingdoms, whose rulers prefer the pride of conquest to the calmer joys of peace and to the welfare of their people.

Persia has since been divided into a number of independent governments, and will probably continue in that state, till Kerim, who reigns in the midland provinces, or Abdalla, whose dominions extend from the Caspian to the borders of India, or some other of the rival powers, shall have the good, or bad, fortune to reduce the whole Empire to subjection.

The fate of India has not been better; and from Candahar to cape Comorin, from the straights of Kupele to the mouth of the Ganges, there has been a continual scene of havock and confusion for a course of years: the vast dominions of the Mogul were dismembered; the Rajas and other Indian princes refused to continue their allegiance to the Emperor, and a descendant of Tamerlane, who still retains the title of Shah Alem, or, King of the World, was protected in the tents of European officers, whose employers also had their share in the ruins of Indostan. Who knows, but that the time may come, when the richest kingdoms of Asia will be provinces of European Empires, and when the light of truth and reason will be spread over the finest part of the habitable globe?

The actions related in this volume have had a greater influence over the affairs of Europe than we may be apt to imagine; for if Nader Shah had lost his life, which he so wantonly exposed, in his youth, the whole face of Asia, and of those European kingdoms, which are connected with it, would have been different: if Persia had not been delivered by this daring genius, the Russians would still have possessed the rich provinces, which border on the Caspian lake, and would, no doubt, have attacked the Turks on the side of Georgia, which might have given them the dominion of the Black Sea, and might have opened a passage to Constantinople itself; or, on the other hand, the Turks, being possessed of all Media, the ancient kingdom of Cyrus, might have driven the Russians from Asia, and compelled them to retire beyond the mountains of Caucasus; lastly, if India had not been drained of its treasures in 1738, the Mogul Empire would not have been weakened and divided, the Nawáb or Viceroys would not have declared themselves independent of the Emperor, and consequently our settlements on the Ganges would still have depended for protection on the court of Dehli.

THE following Essay has already been printed, by way of Commentary on a Collection of Eastern Poems, to which it is added; but, as it contains many remarks on the manners of the Asiaticks, it seemed proper to be inserted in this Volume, after the Life of Nader Shah: it will be found very different, both in form and style, from the Treatise, which the Author wrote in French on the same subject, and published in 1770, with his Translation of the King of Denmark’s Persian Manuscript. Both these Dissertations were intended only as introductory to a much larger work, on the Asiatick Poetry, written in Latin for the convenience of learned foreigners, and entitled, Poeseos Asiaticæ Commentarii, which will be offered to the publick in the middle of next March.

ARABIA, I mean that part of it, which we call the Happy, and which the Asiaticks know by the name of Yemen, seems to be the only country in the world, in which we can properly lay the scene of pastoral poetry; because no nation at this day can vie with the Arabians in the delightfulness of their climate, and the simplicity of their manners. There is a valley, indeed, to the north of Indostan, called Cashmír, which, according to an account written by a native of it, is a perfect garden, exceedingly fruitful, and watered by a thousand rivulets: but when its inhabitants were subdued by the stratagem of a Mogul prince, they lost their happiness with their liberty, and Arabia retained its old title without any rival to dispute it. These are not the fancies of a poet: the beauties of Yemen are proved by the concurrent testimony of all travellers, by the descriptions of it in all the writings of Asia, and by the nature and situation of the country itself, which lies between the eleventh and fifteenth degrees of northern latitude, under a serene sky, and exposed to the most favourable influence of the sun; it is enclosed on one side by vast rocks and deserts, and defended on the other by a tempestuous sea, so that it seems to have been designed by Providence for the most secure, as well as the most beautiful, region of the East^*.

Its principal cities are Sanaa, usually considered as its metropolis; Zebîd, a commercial town, that lies in a large plain near the sea of Omman; and Aden, surrounded with pleasant gardens and woods, which is situated eleven degrees from the Equator, and seventy-six from the Fortunate Islands, or Canaries, where the geographers of Asia six their first meridian. It is observable that Aden, in the Eastern dialects, is precisely the same word with Eden, which we apply to the garden of paradise: it has two senses, according to a slight difference in its pronunciation; its first meaning is a settled abode, its second, delight, softness, or tranquillity: the word Eden had, probably, one of these senses in the sacred text, though we use it as a proper name. We may also observe in this place that Yemen itself takes its name from a word, which signifies verdure, and felicity; for in those sultry climates, the freshness of the shade, and the coolness of water, are ideas almost inseparable from that of happiness; and this may be a reason why most of the Oriental nations agree in a tradition concerning a delightful spot, where the first inhabitants of the earth were placed before their fall. The ancients, who gave the name of Eudaimon, or Happy, to this country, either meaned to translate the word Yemen, or, more probably, only alluded to the valuable spice-trees, and balsamick plants, that grow in it, and, without speaking poetically, give a real perfume to the air^*: now it is certain that all poetry receives a very considerable ornament from the beauty of natural images; as the roses of Sharon, the verdure of Carmel, the vines of Engaddi, and the dew of Hermon, are the sources of many pleasing metaphors and comparisons in the sacred poetry: thus the odours of Yemen, the musk of Hadramut, and the pearls of Omman, supply the Arabian poets with a great variety of allusions; and, if the remark of Hermogenes be just, that whatever is delightful to the senses produces the Beautiful when it is described, where can we find so much beauty as in the Eastern poems, which turn chiefly upon the loveliest objects in nature?

To pursue this topick yet farther: it is an observation of Demetrius of Phalera, in his elegant treatise upon style, that it is not easy to write on agreeable subjects in a disagreeable manner, and that beautiful expressions naturally rise with beautiful images; for which reason, says he, nothing can be more pleasing than Sappho’s poetry, which contains the description of gardens, and banquets, flowers and fruits, fountains and meadows, nightingales and turtle-doves, loves and graces: thus, when she speaks of a stream softly murmuring among the branches, and the Zephyrs playing through the leaves, with a sound, that brings on a quiet slumber, her lines flow without labour as smoothly as the rivulet she describes. I may have altered the words of Demetrius, as I quote them by memory, but this is the general sense of his remark, which, if it be not rather specious than just, must induce us to think, that the poets of the East may vie with those of Europe in the graces of their diction, as well as in the liveliness of their images: but we must not believe that the Arabian poetry can please only by its descriptions of beauty; since the gloomy and terrible objects, which produce the sublime, when they are aptly described, are no where more common than in the Desert and Stony Arabia’s; and, indeed, we see nothing so frequently painted by the poets of those countries, as wolves and lions, precipices and forests, rocks and wildernesses.

If we allow the natural objects, with which the Arabs are perpetually conversant, to be sublime, and beautiful, our next step must be, to confess that their comparisons, metaphors, and allegories are so likewise; for an allegory is a string of metaphors, a metaphor is a short simile, and the finest similes are drawn from natural objects. It is true that many of the Eastern figures are common to other nations, but some of them receive a propriety from the manners of the Arabians, who dwell in the plains and woods, which would be lost, if they came from the inhabitants of cities: thus the dew of liberality, and the odour of reputation, are metaphors used by most people; but they are wonderfully proper in the mouths of those, who have so much need of being refreshed by the dews, and who gratify their sense of smelling with the sweetest odours in the world. Again; it is very usual in all countries, to make frequent allusions to the brightness of the celestial luminaries, which give their light to all; but the metaphors taken from them have an additional beauty, if we consider them as made by a nation, who pass most of their nights in the open air, or in tents, and consequently see the moon and stars in their greatest splendour. This way of considering their poetical figures will give many of them a grace, which they would not have in our languages: so, when they compare the foreheads of their mistresses to the morning, their locks to the night, their faces to the sun, to the moon, or the blossoms of jasmine, their cheeks to roses or ripe fruit, their teeth to pearls, hail-stones, and snow-drops, their eyes to the flowers of the narcissus, their curled hair to black scorpions, and to hyacinths, their lips to rubies or wine, the form of their breasts to pomegranates, and the colour of them to snow, their shape to that of a pine-tree, and their stature to that of a cypress, a palm-tree, or a javelin, &c.^* these comparisons, many of which would seem forced in our idioms, have undoubtedly a great delicacy in theirs, and affect their minds in a peculiar manner; yet upon the whole their similes are very just and striking, as that of the blue eyes of a fine woman, bathed in tears, to violets dropping with dew^*, and that of a warriour, advancing at the head of his army, to an eagle sailing through the air, and piercing the clouds with his wings.

These are not the only advantages, which the natives of Arabia enjoy above the inhabitants of most other countries: they preserve to this day the manners and customs of their ancestors, who, by their own account, were settled in the province of Yemen above three thousand years ago; they have never been wholly subdued by any nation; and though the admiral of Selim the First made a descent on their coast, and exacted a tribute from the people of Aden, yet the Arabians only keep up a show of allegiance to the Sultan, and act, on every important occasion, in open defiance of his power, relying on the swiftness of their horses, and the vast extent of their forests, in which an invading enemy must soon perish: but here I must be understood to speak of those Arabians, who, like the old Nomades, dwell constantly in their tents, and remove from place to place according to the seasons; for the inhabitants of the cities, who traffick with the merchants of Europe in spices, perfumes, and coffee, must have lost a great deal of their ancient simplicity: the others have, certainly, retained it; and, except when their tribes are engaged in war, spend their days in watching their flocks and camels, or in repeating their native songs, which they pour out almost extempore, professing a contempt for the stately pillars, and solemn buildings of the cities, compared with the natural charms of the country, and the coolness of their tents: thus they pass their lives in the highest pleasure, of which they have any conception, in the contemplation of the most delightful objects, and in the enjoyment of perpetual spring; for we may apply to part of Arabia that elegant couplet of Waller in his poem of the Summer-island,

Yet the heat of the sun, which must be very intense in a climate so near the Line, is tempered by the shade of the trees, that overhang the valleys, and by a number of fresh streams, that flow down the mountains. Hence it is, that almost all their notions of felicity are taken from freshness and verdure: it is a maxim among them that the three most charming objects in nature are,^* a green meadow, a clear rivulet, and a beautiful woman, and that the view of these objects at the same time affords the greatest delight imaginable. Mahomed was so well acquainted with the maxim of his countrymen, that he described the pleasures of heaven to them, under the allegory of cool fountains, green bowers, and black-eyed girls, as the word Houri literally signifies in Arabick; and in the chapter of the Morning, towards the end of his Alcoran, he mentions a garden, called Irem, which is no less celebrated by the Asiatick poets than that of the Hesperides by the Greeks: it was planted, as the commentators say, by a king, named Shedad, and was once seen by an Arabian, who wandered very far into the deserts in search of a lost camel: it was, probably, a name invented by the impostor, as a type of a future state of happiness. Now it is certain that the genius of every nation is not a little affected by their climate; for, whether it be that the immoderate heat disposes the Eastern people to a life of indolence, which gives them full leisure to cultivate their talents, or whether the sun has a real influence on the imagination (as one would suppose that the Ancients believed, by their making Apollo the god of poetry); whatever be the cause, it has always been remarked, that the Asiaticks excel the inhabitants of our colder regions in the liveliness of their fancy, and the richness of their invention.

To carry this subject one step farther: as the Arabians are such admirers of beauty, and as they enjoy such ease and leisure, they must naturally be susceptible of that passion, which is the true spring and source of agreeable poetry; and we find, indeed, that love has a greater share in their poems than any other passion: it seems to be always uppermost in their minds, and there is hardly an elegy, a panegyrick, or even a satire, in their language, which does not begin with the complaints of an unfortunate, or the exultations of a successful, lover. It sometimes happens, that the young men of one tribe are in love with the damsels of another; and, as the tents are frequently removed on a sudden, the lovers are often separated in the progress of the courtship: hence almost all the Arabick poems open in this manner; the author bewails the sudden departure of his mistress, Hinda, Maia, Zeineb, or Azza, and describes her beauty, comparing her to a wanton fawn, that plays among the aromatick shrubs; his friends endeavour to comfort him, but he refuses consolation; he declares his resolution of visiting his beloved, though the way to her tribe lie through a dreadful wilderness, or even through a den of lions; here he commonly gives a description of the horse or camel, upon which he designs to go, and thence passes, by an easy transition, to the principal subject of his poem, whether it be the praise of his own tribe, or a satire on the timidity of his friends, who refuse to attend him in his expedition; though very frequently the piece turns wholly upon love. But it is not sufficient that a nation have a genius for poetry, unless they have the advantage of a rich and beautiful language, that their expressions may be worthy of their sentiments; the Arabians have this advantage also in a high degree: their language is expressive, strong, sonorous, and the most copious, perhaps, in the world; for, as almost every tribe had many words appropriated to itself, the poets, for the convenience of their measure, or sometimes for their singular beauty, made use of them all, and, as the poems became popular, these words were by degrees incorporated with the whole language, like a number of little streams, which meet together in one channel, and, forming a most plentiful river, flow rapidly into the sea.

If this way of arguing à priori be admitted in the present case, (and no single man has a right to infer the merit of the Eastern poetry from the poems themselves, because no single man has a privilege of judging for all the rest) if the foregoing argument have any weight, we must conclude that the Arabians, being perpetually conversant with the most beautiful objects, spending a calm and agreeable life in a fine climate, being extremely addicted to the softer passions, and having the advantage of a language singularly adapted to poetry, must be naturally excellent poets, provided that their manners and customs be favourable to the cultivation of that art; and that they are highly so, it will not be difficult to prove.

The fondness of the Arabians for poetry, and the respect which they show to poets, would be scarce believed, if we were not assured of it by writers of great authority: the principal occasions of rejoicing among them were formerly, and, very probably, are to this day, the birth of a boy, the foaling of a mare, the arrival of a guest, and the rise of a poet in their tribe: when a young Arabian has composed a good poem, all the neighbours pay their compliments to his family, and congratulate them upon having a relation capable of recording their actions, and of recommending their virtues to posterity. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Arabick language was brought to a high degree of perfection by a sort of poetical Academy, that used to assemble at stated times, in a place called Ocadh, where every poet produced his best composition, and was sure to meet with the applause that it deserved: the most excellent of these poems were transcribed in characters of gold upon Egyptian paper, and hung up in the temple, whence they were named Modhahebat, or Golden, and Moallakat, or Suspended: the poems of this sort were called Casseida’s or eclogues,^* seven of which are preserved in our libraries, and are considered as the finest that were written before the time of Mahomed. The fourth of them, composed by Lebíd, is purely pastoral, and extremely like the Alexis of Virgil, but far more beautiful, because it is more agreeable to nature: the poet begins with praising the charms of the fair Novâra (a word, which in Arabick signifies a timorous fawn) but inveighs against her unkindness; he then interweaves a description of his young camel, which he compares for its swiftness to a stag pursued by the hounds; and takes occasion afterwards to mention his own riches, accomplishments, liberality, and valour, his noble birth, and the glory of his tribe: the diction of this poem is easy and simple, yet elegant, the numbers flowing and musical, and the sentiments wonderfully natural; as the learned reader will see by the following passage, which I shall attempt to imitate in verse, that the merit of the poet may not be wholly lost in a verbal translation:

The Mahomedan writers tell a story of this poet, which deserves to be mentioned here: it was a custom, it seems, among the old Arabians, for the most eminent versifiers to hang up some chosen couplets on the gate of the temple, as a publick challenge to their brethren, who strove to answer them before the next meeting at Ocadh, at which time the whole assembly used to determine the merit of them all, and gave some mark of distinction to the author of the finest verses. Now Lebid, who, we are told, had been a violent opposer of Mahomed, fixed a poem on the gate, beginning with the following distich, in which he apparently meaned to reflect upon the new religion: Are not all things vain, which come not from God? and will not all honours decay, but those, which He confers^*? These lines appeared so sublime, that none of the poets ventured to answer them; till Mahomed, who was himself a poet, having composed a new chapter of his Alcoran (the second, I think) placed the opening of it by the side of Lebid’s poem, who no sooner read it, than he declared it to be something divine, confessed his own inferiority, tore his verses from the gate, and embraced the religion of his rival; to whom he was afterwards extremely useful in replying to the satires of Amralkeis, who was continually attacking the doctrine of Mahomed: the Asiaticks add, that their lawgiver acknowledged some time after, that no heathen poet had ever produced a nobler distich than that of Lebid just quoted.

There are a few other collections of ancient Arabick poetry; but the most famous of them is called Hamása, and contains a number of epigrams, odes, and elegies, composed on various occasions: it was compiled by Abu Temam, who was an excellent poet himself, and used to say, that fine sentiments delivered in prose were like gems scattered at random, but that, when they were confined in a poetical measure, they resembled bracelets and strings of pearls^*. When the religion and language of Mahomed were spread over the greater part of Asia, and the maritime countries of Africa, it became a fashion for the poets of Persia, Syria, Egypt, Mauritania, and even of Tartary, to write in Arabick; and the most beautiful verses in that idiom, composed by the brightest genius’s of those nations, are to be seen in a large miscellany, entitled Yateima; though many of their works are transcribed separately: it will be needless to say much on the poetry of the Syrians, Tartarians, and Africans, since most of the arguments, before used in favour of the Arabs, have equal weight with respect to the other Mahomedans, who have done little more than imitate their style, and adopt their expressions; for which reason also I shall dwell the shorter time on the genius and manners of the Persians, Turks, and Indians.

The great empire, which we call PERSIA, is known to its natives by the name of Iran; since the word Persia belongs only to a particular province, the ancient Persis, and is very improperly applied by us to the whole kingdom: but, in compliance with the custom of our geographers, I shall give the name of Persia to that celebrated country, which lies on one side between the Caspian and Indian seas, and extends on the other from the mountains of Candahar, or Paropamisus, to the confluence of the rivers Cyrus and Araxes, containing about twenty degrees from south to north, and rather more from east to west.

In so vast a tract of land there must needs be a great variety of climates: the southern provinces are no less unhealthy and sultry, than those of the north are rude and unpleasant; but in the interior parts of the empire the air is mild and temperate, and, from the beginning of May to September, there is scarce a cloud to be seen in the sky: the remarkable calmness of the summer nights, and the wonderful splendour of the moon and stars in that country, often tempt the Persians to sleep on the tops of their houses, which are generally flat, where they cannot but observe the figures of the constellations, and the various appearances of the heavens; and this may in some measure account for the perpetual allusions of their poets, and rhetoricians, to the beauty of the heavenly bodies. We are apt to censure the oriental style for being so full of metaphors taken from the sun and moon: this is ascribed by some to the bad taste of the Asiaticks; the works of the Persians, says M. de Voltaire, are like the titles of their kings, in which the sun and moon are often introduced: but they do not reflect, that every nation has a set of images, and expressions, peculiar to itself, which arise from the difference of its climate, manners, and history. There seems to be another reason for the frequent allusions of the Persians to the sun, which may, perhaps, be traced from the old language and popular religion of their country: thus Mihridâd, or Mithridates, signifies the gift of the sun, and answers to the Theodorus and Diodati of other nations. As to the titles of the Eastern monarchs, which seem, indeed, very extravagant to our ears, they are merely formal, and no less void of meaning than those of European princes, in which serenity and highness are often attributed to the most gloomy, and low-minded of men.

The midland provinces of Persia abound in fruits and flowers of almost every kind, and, with proper culture, might be made the garden of Asia: they are not watered, indeed, by any considerable river, since the Tigris and Euphrates, the Cyrus and Araxes, the Oxus, and the five branches of the Indus, are at the farthest limits of the kingdom; but the natives, who have a turn for agriculture, supply that defect by artificial canals, which sufficiently temper the dryness of the soil; but in saying they supply that defect, I am falling into a common error, and representing the country, not as it is at present, but as it was a century ago; for a long series of civil wars and massacres have now destroyed the chief beauties of Persia, by stripping it of its most industrious inhabitants.

The same difference of climate, that affects the air and soil of this extensive country, gives a variety also to the persons and temper of its natives: in some provinces they have dark complexions, and harsh features; in others they are exquisitely fair, and well made; in some others, nervous and robust: but the general character of the nation is that softness, and love of pleasure, that indolence, and effeminacy, which have made them an easy prey to all the western and northern swarms, that have from time to time invaded them. Yet they are not wholly void of martial spirit; and, if they are not naturally brave, they are at least extremely docile, and might, with proper discipline, be made excellent soldiers: but the greater part of them, in the short intervals of peace that they happen to enjoy, constantly sink into a state of inactivity, and pass their lives in a pleasurable, yet studious, retirement; and this may be one reason, why Persia has produced more writers of every kind, and chiefly poets, than all Europe together, since their way of life gives them leisure to pursue those arts, which cannot be cultivated to advantage, without the greatest calmness and serenity of mind. There is a manuscript at Oxford^*, containing the lives of an hundred and thirty-five of the finest Persian poets, most of whom left very ample collections of their poems behind them: but the versifiers, and moderate poets, if Horace will allow any such men to exist, are without number in Persia.

This delicacy of their lives and sentiments has insensibly affected their language, and rendered it the softest, as it is one of the richest, in the world: it is not possible to convince the reader of this truth, by quoting a passage from a Persian poet in European characters; since the sweetness of sound cannot be determined by the sight, and many words, which are soft and musical in the mouth of a Persian, may appear harsh to our eyes, with a number of consonants and gutturals: it may not, however, be absurd to set down in this place, an Ode of the poet Hafez, which, if it be not sufficient to prove the delicacy of his language, will at least show the liveliness of his poetry:

That is, word for word, O sweet gale, thou bearest the fragrant scent of my beloved; thence it is that thou hast this musky odour. Beware! do not steal: what hast thou to do with her tresses? O rose, what art thou, to be compared with her bright face? She is fresh, and thou art rough with thorns. O narcissus, what art thou in comparison of her languishing eye? Her eye is only sleepy, but thou art sick and faint. O pine, compared with her graceful stature, what honour hast thou in the garden? O wisdom, what wouldst thou choose, if to choose were in thy power, in preference to her love? O sweet basil, what art thou, to be compared with her fresh cheeks? They are perfect musk, but thou art soon withered. Come, my beloved, and charm Hafez with thy presence, if thou canst but stay with him for a single day. This little song is not unlike a sonnet ascribed to Shakespeare, which deserves to be cited here, as a proof that the Eastern imagery is not so different from the European as we are apt to imagine.

The Persian style is said to be ridiculously bombast, and this fault is imputed to the slavish spirit of the nation, which is ever apt to magnify the objects that are placed above it: there are bad writers, to be sure, in every country, and as many in Asia as elsewhere; but if we take the pains to learn the Persian language, we shall find that those authors, who are generally esteemed in Persia, are neither slavish in their sentiments, nor ridiculous in their expressions: of which the following passage in a moral work of Sadi, entitled Bostán, or, The Garden, will be a sufficient proof. I have heard that king Nushirvan, just before his death, spoke thus to his son Hormuz: Be a guardian, my son, to the poor and helpless; and be not confined in the chains of thy own indolence. No one can be at ease in thy dominion, while thou seekest only thy private rest, and sayest, It is enough. A wise man will not approve the shepherd, who sleeps, while the wolf is in the fold. Go, my son, protect thy weak and indigent people; since through them is a king raised to the diadem. The people are the root, and the king is the tree that grows from it; and the tree, O my son, derives its strength from the root^*.

Are these mean sentiments, delivered in pompous language? Are they not rather worthy of our most spirited writers? And do they not convey a fine lesson for a young king? Yet Sadi’s poems are highly esteemed at Constantinople, and at Ispahan; though, a century or two ago, they would have been suppressed in Europe, for spreading with too strong a glare the light of liberty and reason.

As to the great Epick poem of Ferdusi, which was composed in the tenth century, it would require a very long treatise, to explain all its beauties with a minute exactness. The whole collection of that poet’s works is called Shahnâma, and contains the history of Persia, from the earliest times to the invasion of the Arabs, in a series of very noble poems; the longest and most regular of which is an heroick poem of one great and interesting action, namely, the delivery of Persia by Cyrus from the oppressions of Afrasiab, king of the Transoxan Tartary, who being assisted by the emperours of India and China, together with all the dæmons, giants, and enchanters of Asia, had carried his conquests very far, and become exceedingly formidable to the Persians. This poem is longer than the Iliad; the characters in it are various and striking; the figures bold and animated; and the diction every where sonorous, yet noble; polished, yet full of fire. A great profusion of learning has been thrown away by some criticks, in comparing Homer with the heroick poets, who have succeeded him; but it requires very little judgment to see, that no succeeding poet whatever can with any propriety be compared with Homer: that great father of the Grecian poetry and literature, had a genius too fruitful and comprehensive to let any of the striking parts of nature escape his observation; and the poets, who have followed him, have done little more than transcribe his images, and give a new dress to his thoughts. Whatever elegance and refinements, therefore, may have been introduced into the works of the moderns, the spirit and invention of Homer have ever continued without a rival: for which reasons I am far from pretending to assert that the poet of Persia is equal to that of Greece; but there is certainly a very great resemblance between the works of those extraordinary men: both drew their images from nature herself, without catching them only by reflection, and painting, in the manner of the modern poets, the likeness of a likeness; and both possessed, in an eminent degree, that rich and creative invention, which is the very soul of poetry.

As the Persians borrowed their poetical measures, and the forms of their poems from the Arabians, so the TURKS, when they had carried their arms into Mesopotamia and Assyria, took their numbers and their taste for poetry from the Persians;

In the same manner as the Greek compositions were the models of all the Roman writers, so were those of Persia imitated by the Turks, who considerably polished and enriched their language, naturally barren, by the number of simple and compound words, which they adopted from the Persian and Arabick. Lady Wortley Montague very justly observes, that we want those compound words, which are very frequent and strong in the Turkish language; but her interpreters led her into a mistake in explaining one of them, which she translates stag-eyed, and thinks a very lively image of the fire and indifference in the eyes of the royal bride: now it never entered into the mind of an Asiatick to compare his mistress’s eyes to those of a stag, or to give an image of their fire and indifference; the Turks mean to express that fullness, and, at the same time, that soft and languishing lustre, which is peculiar to the eyes of their beautiful women, and which by no means resembles the unpleasing wildness in those of a stag. The original epithet, I suppose, was^* Ahú cheshm, or, with the eyes of a young fawn: now I take the Ahú to be the same animal with the Gazâl of the Arabians, and the Zabi of the Hebrews, to which their poets allude in almost every page. I have seen one of these animals; it is a kind of antelope, exquisitely beautiful, with eyes uncommonly black and large. This is the same sort of roe, to which Solomon alludes in this delicate simile: Thy two breasts are like two young roes, that are twins, which play among the lilies.

A very polite scholar, who has lately translated sixteen Odes of Hafiz, with learned illustrations, blames the Turkish poets for copying the Persians too servilely: but, surely, they are not more blameable than Horace, who not only imitated the measures and expressions of the Greeks, but even translated, almost word for word, the brightest passages of Alcæus, Anacreon, and others; he took less from Pindar than from the rest, because the wildness of his numbers, and the obscurity of his allusions, were by no means suitable to the genius of the Latin language: and this may, perhaps, explain his ode to Julius Antonius, who might have advised him to use more of Pindar’s manner in celebrating the victories of Augustus. Whatever we may think of this objection, it is certain that the Turkish empire has produced a great number of poets; some of whom had no small merit in their way: the ingenious author just mentioned assured me, that the Turkish satires of Ruhi Bagdadi were very forcible and striking, and he mentioned the opening of one of them, which seemed not unlike the manner of Juvenal. At the beginning of the last century, a work was published at Constantinople, containing the finest verses of five hundred and forty-nine Turkish poets, which proves at least that they are singularly fond of this art, whatever may be our opinion of their success in it.

The descendants of Tamerlane carried into India the language and poetry of the Persians; and the Indian poets to this day compose their verses in imitation of them. The best of their works, that have passed through my hands, are those of Huzein, who lived some years ago at Benáres, with a great reputation for his parts and learning, and was known to the English, who resided there, by the name of the Philosopher. His poems are elegant and lively, and one of them, on the departure of his friends, would suit our language admirably well, but is too long to be inserted in this essay. The Indians are soft and voluptuous, but artful and insincere, at least to the Europeans, whom, to say the truth, they have had no great reason of late years to admire for the opposite virtues: but they are fond of poetry, which they learned from the Persians, and may, perhaps, before the close of the century, be as fond of a more formidable art, which they will learn from the English.

I must request, that, in bestowing these praises on the writings of Asia, I may not be thought to derogate from the merit of the Greek and Latin poems, which have justly been admired in every age; yet I cannot but think that our European poetry has subsisted too long on the perpetual repetition of the same images, and incessant allusions to the same fables: and it has been my endeavour for several years to inculcate this truth, that, if the principal writings of the Asiaticks, which are reposited in our publick libraries, were printed with the usual advantage of notes and illustrations, and if the languages of the Eastern nations were studied in our great seminaries of learning, where every other branch of useful knowledge is taught to perfection, a new and ample field would be opened for speculation; we should have a more extensive insight into the history of the human mind; we should be furnished with a new set of images and similitudes; and a number of excellent compositions would be brought to light, which future scholars might explain, and future poets might imitate.

THE greatest part of the following Piece was designed to be added to a Grammar of the Persian language, which was printed in 1771; but, as it was prevented from seeing the light at that time, it is here inserted, after the discourse on Eastern Poetry, to complete this Miscellany of Persian Literature. It might easily have been swelled into a larger treatise, by adding more copious extracts from the Persian writers, both in prose and verse; but, as the change of style may be seen as well in ten lines as in a thousand, it seemed equally useful and less ostentatious, to exhibit only a few chosen specimens from the best authors, and chiefly from the Poets, who, in all nations, have taken the greatest pains to harmonize and improve their language.

MOST of my readers will apprehend, that, in attempting to trace the progress of the Persian language, through a period of two thousand years, I am entering into a subject, which will afford them neither amusement nor instruction, and can be agreeable only to those few men, who apply themselves to the obscurer branches of literature, and have very little intercourse with the rest of mankind. The title of my piece seems, indeed, to give a reasonable ground for their apprehensions; and the transition appears rather abrupt, from the history of Monarchs to the history of mere words, and from the revolutions of the Persian Empire to the variations of the Persian idiom: but it shall be my endeavour to remove, as far as possible, the dryness of the subject, by interspersing the narrative with a variety of Eastern anecdotes; and, as to the second objection, it may be alledged, that a considerable change in the language of any nation is usually effected by a change in the government; so that literary and civil history are very nearly allied, and may often be used with advantage to prove and illustrate one another.

The History of the Persian tongue may be divided into four periods, like that of the Empire; not that the language was immediately altered upon every revolution of the state, but it is observable, that, under each Dynasty of which we have any monuments remaining, there was an apparent change in the dialect of the kingdom, especially under the two last, namely, the Sassanian and Mohammedan dynasties; and these, indeed, are the only periods, of which we can speak with any degree of certainty.

It is natural to suppose, that, in the infancy of the Persian Empire, under Caiúmaras and his descendants, no great pains were taken to cultivate and polish the language, which in that rude age must needs be thought sufficiently elegant, if it were sufficiently clear and intelligible; and we are assured by Herodotus, that, even after the reign of CYRUS, the whole education of the Persian youth, from the age of five years to twenty, consisted in three points only, riding, throwing the javelin, and the practice of moral virtue; which account is also confirmed by Xenophon. The story mentioned by Diodorus of the old volumes of parchment, on which the Persians were obliged by a certain law to write the annals of their country, was probably invented by Ctesias, that he might give an air of authenticity to his impertinent fables; for such literary impostures were as frequent among the Greeks, as among us, who imitate the Ancients in nothing but their failings. We are far from contending, however, that the ancient Persians, especially those of the second period, were entire strangers to the art of composition either in verse or prose; for there never was a nation so rude and unpolished, who had not a custom of celebrating the noble acts of their ancestors, and inciting one another by songs and panegyricks to an imitation of their virtue; and Strabo, a very different author from Diodorus, asserts, that the Persians used frequently to sing the praises of their ancient Heroes and Demigods, sometimes with a musical instrument, and sometimes with the voice alone: but what their language really was, what were their rules of versification, or what was the course of their studies, no mortal can pretend to know with any shadow of exactness.

The Greek Historians can give us no light on this subject; for neither Themistocles, who spoke the dialect of Persia like a native, though he had spent only one year in learning it^*, nor even Xenophon, whose intimacy with the younger Cyrus could not have been contracted without a knowledge of his language, seem to have read the works of the Persians, or even to have known their characters; but were perhaps contented to express their sentiments in Persian with ease and fluency. Nor are we much enlightened by the writers after Alexander; not even by those, who have described the life of that Hero: for Curtius, who compiled his rhetorical History from the Greek authors, seems to have known as little of Persian as of Scythian, though he dresses up a number of speeches for the chiefs of those nations, which certainly were never spoken by them. A few words, indeed, are here and there interspersed in these histories, which are still used in the modern idiom of Persia^*; but we can no more form an idea of a whole language from a list of broken phrases or detached epithets, than we can judge of a poem or piece of oratory, from an unconnected line or a single member of a period.

Since the Greeks afford us so little information, nothing remains but to consult the Persians themselves; and the great Traveller Chardin, whom every Orientalist must always mention with reverence, seems to have enquired very diligently into the ancient language of the people, among whom he resided so long, and whose manners he describes with so much copiousness and learning: but he declares, after all his researches, “That the old Persian is a language entirely lost; in which no books are extant, and of which there are no rudiments remaining: that the Guebres, who are the remains of the Parsis, or Adorers of Fire, have an idiom peculiar to themselves; which is supposed, by the Persians in general, to be rather a jargon of their own, than a part of their ancient tongue: that, if you believe their own account, the Magi, who resided at Yezd in Carmania, have preserved this language from father to son, after the dissolution of their Monarchy; but that, for his part, he has found no reason to give any credit to their story: that they have, indeed, some books in strange characters, but he cannot persuade himself that they are old Persian letters; especially, since they bear no kind of resemblance to those on the famous monuments at Persepolis.” The authority of this excellent writer is decisive, and puts an end at once to the controversy lately started, concerning the authenticity of the books ascribed to Zoroaster, which a French adventurer, who translated them from the translation of a certain Gipsy at Surat, has had the boldness to send abroad as genuine: but, to avoid any suspicion of misrepresenting the passage, it seems necessary to transcribe the very words of Sir John Chardin, which the reader may see at the bottom of the page^*. From this we may reasonably conclude, that the gibberish of those swarthy vagabonds, whom we often see brooding over a miserable sire under the hedges, may as well be taken for old Egyptian, and the beggars themselves for the priests of Isis, as the jugglers on the coast of India for the disciples of Zoroaster, and their barbarous dialect for the ancient language of Persia. But let the rosy-cheeked Frenchman, to give him his own Epithet, rest happy in the contemplation of his personal beauty, and the vast extent of his learning: it is sufficient for us to have exposed his follies, detected his imposture, and retorted his invectives, without insulting a fallen adversary, or attempting, like the Hero in Dryden’s Ode, to slay the slain.

We have no genuine accounts then of the Persian language till the time of the SASSANIAN kings, who flourished from the opening of the third century to the middle of the seventh; in which period an Academy of Physick was founded at Gandisapor, a City of Khorasan, and, as it gradually declined from its original institution, it became a school of poetry, rhetorick, dialectick, and the abstract sciences. In this excellent seminary the Persian tongue could not fail of being greatly refined, and the rusticity of the old idiom was succeeded by a pure and elegant dialect; which, being constantly spoken at the court of Beharám Gúr in the year 351, acquired the name of Deri, or, Courtly, to distinguish it from the Pehlevi, or, Language of the Country.

It must not, however, be imagined, that the use of the ancient dialect was wholly superseded by this more polished idiom; for several compositions in Pehlevi were extant even after Mahomed, which appear to have been written by order of the Sassanian Princes. Anushirvan, surnamed The Just, who reigned at the close of the sixth century, having heard from some travellers, that the Indian Monarchs had a collection of moral fables, which they preserved with great care among their archivcs, sent his chief Physician Barzuieh into India, with orders to make himself master of the Sanscrit language, and not to return without a translation of those fables. These orders were punctually executed; Barzuieh learned the Indian tongue, and, having at a great expence procured a copy of the book, translated it into the Pehlevian dialect: about an hundred and forty years after, his work was turned from Pehlevi into Arabick, by order of Almansur, second Calif of the Abbasides; and this is the volume which we see in every language of Europe, under the name of Calîla wa Demna, or, The fables of Pilpay. There is a fine copy of the Arabick version in the publick library at Oxford; and if the work of Barzuieh could be found, we should be enabled to recover a considerable part of the old Persian language; the same, perhaps, which was spoken in the second period by Themistocles and Xenophon.

In the reign of Anushirván, who protected the arts and sciences in his own dominions, MAHOMED was born; who, by the force of his Eloquence, and the success of his Arms, established a mighty Empire, and spread his new religion from the wilds of Arabia, to the mountains of Tartary and the banks of the Ganges: but, what belongs more particularly to the subject of this discourse, he polished the language of his country, and brought it to a degree of purity and elegance, which no Arabian writer since his time has been able to surpass. The battle of Cadessia in the year 636 gave the last blow to the Persian Monarchy; and the whole Empire of Iran was soon reduced under the power of the first Mahomedan Dynasty, who fixed the seat of their government in Bagdad, where the Arabick language was spoken, for many ages, in its utmost perfection: but the ancient literature of Persia, which had been promoted by the family of Sassan, was expressly discouraged by the immediate successors of Mahomed, for a reason, which it is proper to explain.

At the time when the Alcoran was first published in Arabia, a merchant, who had lately returned from a long journey, brought with him some Persian romances, which he interpreted to his countrymen, who were extremely delighted with them, and used to say openly, that the stories of griffons and giants were more amusing to them than the moral lessons of Mahomed: part of a chapter in the Alcoran was immediately written, to stop the progress of these opinions; the merchant was severely reprimanded; his tales were treated as pernicious fables, hateful to God and his prophet; and Omar, from the same motive of policy, determined to destroy all the foreign books which should fall into his hands. Thus the idle loquacity of an Arabian traveller, by setting his legends in competition with the precepts of a powerful Lawgiver, was the cause of that enthusiasm in the Mahomedans, which induced them to burn the famous library of Alexandria, and the records of the Persian Empire.

One book, however, besides the fables of Pilpay, escaped the fury of these unmerciful zealots: it was an History of Persia in the Pehlevian dialect, extracted from the Sassanian annals, and composed, it is believed, by the command of Anushirvan. Saad, one of Omar’s Generals, found this volume, after the victory at Cadessia, and preserved it for himself as a curiosity: it passed afterwards through several hands, and was at length translated into some other languages of Asia^*.

It was a long time before the native Persians could recover from the shock of this violent revolution; and their language seems to have been very little cultivated under the Califs, who gave greater encouragement to the literature of the Arabians: but, when the power of the Abbasides began to decline, and a number of independent Princes arose in the different provinces of their empire, the arts of elegance, and chiefly Poetry, revived in Persia, and there was hardly a Prince, or Governor of a city, who had not several poets and men of letters in his train. The Persian tongue was consequently restored in the tenth century; but it was very different from the Deri or Pehlevi of the Ancients: it was mixed with the words of the Alcoran, and with expressions from the Arabian Poets, whom the Persians considered as their masters, and affected to imitate in their poetical measures, and the turn of their verses.

That the learned reader may have a just notion of this new idiom, it seems necessary, first to produce a specimen of pure Arabick, and, afterwards, of the purest Persian that can be found; by which means he will form a more accurate judgement of the modern Persick, in which both languages are perfectly incorporated.

The following Ode was written by a native of Damascus: it contains a lively description of an Eastern Banquet; and most of the couplets are highly elegant in the original.

that is; “We have a banquet, into which sorrow cannot enter, and from which mirth can never depart. It comprises every species of Beauty; and he, who seeks the joys of life, cannot rise beyond it. A sprightly Song gives more pleasure to youth than Riches^*: here the stream of life is unsullied, and all our cares are dispersed. Here the mildness of our gentle darling gives ease to our love; and here the timid dervise becomes an Apostate from his faith. We have a bower, on which the dew-drops sparkle; and in which the breeze becomes scented with the fragrance of musk. You see the various blossoms, which resemble stars blazing and glittering in the firmament. Here the wonderful beauties of the flowers, among which are the narcissus and the violet, bring the fair objects of my love to my remembrance. You would think you saw my beloved looking mildly on you with her soft, tender, languishing eye: a nymph, in whom every charm and every perfection is collected; whose curled locks hang always dangling, black as the scorpion, or the mace of ebony (with which the Asiaticks strike an ivory ball in one of their favourite plays,) the pomegranate brings to my mind the blushes of my beloved, when her cheeks are coloured with a modest resentment. Our cups are such as our souls desire; they seem to be filled with the streams of friendship and cheerfulness. The goblets and vases of China appear to my sight, like the stars of heaven shining in the Zodiack.”

I might here have selected a more ancient example of Arabick, either from the poets before Mahomed, or from the illustrious Abu Temám, who flourished in the ninth century^*; but the language has remained unaltered from the earliest antiquity to the present time, and it would not have been easy, without a number of notes, to have made an ancient Ode intelligible in a literal translation.

The oldest Persian poems, which have come to my knowledge, are those of FERDUSI, of which it will not be improper to give a short account, as far as they relate to my present subject.

At the close of the tenth, and beginning of the eleventh centuries, Mahmud reigned in the city of Gazna: he was supreme ruler of Zablestan, and part of Khorasan, and had penetrated very far into India, where by this time the religion and language of the Arabs and Persians had begun to prevail. Several poets were entertained in the palace of this Monarch, among whom was FERDUSI, a native of Tús or Meshed. This most learned man, happening to find a copy of the old Persian History above-mentioned, read it with eagerness, and found it involved in fables, but bearing the marks of high antiquity: the most ancient part of it, and principally the war of Afrasiab and Khosru, or Cyrus, seemed to afford an excellent subject for an Heroick Poem, which he accordingly began to compose. Some of his episodes and descriptions were shown to the Sultan, who commended them exceedingly, and ordered him to comprise the whole History of Persia in a series of Epick poems. The poet obeyed; and, after the happiest exertion of his fancy and art for near thirty years, he finished his work, which contained sixty thousand couplets in rhyme, all highly polished, with the spirit of our Dryden and the sweetness of Pope. He presented an elegant transcript of his book to Mahmud, who coldly applauded his diligence, and dismissed him. Many months elapsed, and Ferdusi heard no more of his work: he then took occasion to remind the King of it by some little epigrams, which he contrived to let fall in the palace; but, where an Epick poem had failed, what effect could be expected from an Epigram? At length the reward came; which consisted only of as many small pieces of money, as there were couplets in the volume. The high-minded Poet could not brook this insult: he retired to his closet with bitterness in his heart; where he wrote a most noble and animated invective against the Sultan, which he sealed up, and delivered to a Courtier, who, as he had reason to suspect, was his greatest enemy, assuring him, that it was a diverting tale, and requesting him to give it to Mahmud, when any affair of state or bad success in war should make him more uneasy and splenetick than usual^*. Having thus given vent to his just indignation, he left Gazna in the night, and took refuge in Bagdad, where the Calif protected him from the Sultan of Zablestan, who demanded him in a furious and menacing letter.

The work of Ferdusi remains entire, a glorious monument of Eastern genius and learning; which, if ever it should be generally understood in its original language, will contest the merit of invention with Homer himself, whatever be thought of its subject or the arrangement of its incidents. An extract from this poem will exhibit a specimen of the Persian tongue, very little adulterated by a mixture with the Arabick, and, in all probability, approaching nearly to the dialect used in Persia in the time of Mahomed, who admired it for its extreme softness, and was heard to say, that it would be spoken on that account in the gardens of Paradise.

that is; “Seest thou yonder plain of various colours (Pers. red and grey); by which the heart of a valiant man may be filled with delight? It is entirely covered with groves and gardens and flowing rivulets; it is a place belonging to the abode of Heroes. The ground is perfect silk, and the air is scented with musk: you would say, Is it rose-water which glides between the banks? The stalk of the lily bends under the weight of the flower; and the whole grove is charmed with the fragrance of the rose-bush. The pheasant walks gracefully among the flowers; the dove and nightingale warble from the branches of the cypress. From the present time to the latest age, may the edge of those banks resemble the bowers of Paradise! There you will see, on the plains and hills, a company of damsels, beautiful as fairies, sitting cheerfully on every side. There Manizha, daughter of Afrasiab, makes the whole garden blaze like the Sun. Sitara, his second daughter, sits exalted like a Queen, encircled by her damsels, radiant in glory. The lovely maid is an ornament to the plains; her beauty sullies the rose and the jasmine. With them are many Turkish girls, all with their faces veiled; all with their bodies taper as a cypress, and locks black as musk; all with cheeks full of roses, with eyes full of sleep; all with lips sweet as wine, and fragrant as rose-water. If we go near to that bower, and turn aside for a single day, we may take several of those lovely nymphs, and bring them to the noble Cyrus.”

This is part of a speech by a young amorous Hero, the Paris of Ferdusi, who had reason to repent of his adventure with the daughter of Afrasiab, for he was made captive by the Turks, and confined in a dismal prison, till he was delivered by the valour of Rostam.

Of these two languages was formed the modern dialect of Persia, which, being spoken in its greatest purity by the natives of Pars or Farsistan, acquired the name of Parsi^*; though it is even called Deri by Hafez in the following couplet;

that is; “While the nightingale, O Hafez, makes a boast of his eloquence, do thou lessen the value of his lays by singing thy Persian (Deri) strains.”

Nearly in the same age with Ferdusi, the great Abul Ola, surnamed Alámi from his blindness, published his excellent Odes in Arabick, in which he professedly imitated the poets before Mahomed. This writer had so flourishing a reputation, that several Persians of uncommon genius were ambitious of learning the Art of Poetry from so able an instructor: his most illustrious scholars were Feleki and Khakani^*, who were no less eminent for their Persian compositions, than for their skill in every branch of pure and mixed Mathematicks, and particularly in Astronomy; a striking proof, that a sublime Poet may become a master of any kind of learning which he chuses to profess; since a fine imagination, a lively wit, an easy and copious style, cannot possibly obstruct the acquisition of any science whatever, but must necessarily assist him in his studies, and shorten his labour. Both these poets were protected by Manucheher, Prince of Shirvan; but Khakáni was always averse to the pleasurable and dissipated life of a Court, so that the Prince was obliged to detain him by force in his palace, and actually confined him for some time in prison, lest he should find some opportunity of escaping.

The works of these authors are not very scarce; but it seems needless to give any extracts from them, which would swell this discourse to an immoderate length: it will be sufficient to say, that, in this and the following century, the Persian language became altogether mixed with Arabick; not that the pure style of the ancients was wholly obsolete, but it was the fashion among the Persians to interweave Arabian phrases and verses into their poems, not by way of quotations, but as material parts of a sentence. Thus in the following distich,

The phantom of her, whose beauty gives brightness to the shades, appeared to me at night: I wondered at the kindness of Fortune, and said, Whence came this prosperity?—the first line is pure Arabick in the style of the ancient poets.

This elegant tetrastich is of the same kind:

In this mansion of darkness, how long must I sit expecting my beloved; one while with my finger on my teeth, one while with my head bent on my knee? Come, O fortunate cup-bearer, bring me the tidings of joy: who knows but my days may again be prosperous, as they were before? Where the last line is taken from an Ode in the Hamasa of Abu Temám, which begins,

We pardoned the sons of Dhohal, and said, The tribe are our brothers.

At the opening of the twelfth century lived Anveri, a native of Abiurd in Khorasan, whose adventures deserve to be related, as they will show in what high esteem the polite arts were held in Asia, at the time when learning first began to dawn in Europe. Anveri, when he was very young, was sitting at the gate of his college, when a man richly dressed rode by him on a fine Arabian horse, with a numerous train of attendants; upon his asking who it was, he was told, that it was a Poet belonging to the Court. When Anveri reflected on the honours conferred upon Poetry, for which art he had a very early bent, he applied himself to it more ardently than ever, and, having finished a poem, presented it to the Sultan. This was a prince of the Seljukian dynasty, named Sanjar, a great admirer of the fine arts: he approved the work of Anveri, whom he invited to his palace, and raised him even to the first honours of the state. He found many other poets at court, among whom were Selman, Zehir, and Reshídi^*, all men of wit and genius, but each eminent in a different way; the first for the delicacy of his Lyrick verses, the second, for the moral tendency of his poems, and the third, for the chastity of his compositions; a virtue, which his predecessors and contemporaries were too apt to neglect.

But of all the cities in the Persian Empire, none has given birth to more excellent poets than Shiraz; which my noble and learned friend Baron Revizki justly calls “the Athens of Persia^*.” SADI, a native of this city, flourished in the thirteenth century, when the Atabegs of Parsistan encouraged men of learning in their principality: his life was almost wholly spent in travel; but no man, who enjoyed the greatest leisure, ever left behind him more valuable fruits of his genius and industry. A fine manuscript, about two hundred years old, was lately put into my hands, containing a complete collection of his works; among which are several pieces, both in verse and prose, which have never been mentioned by the Scholars of Europe. The following extract from his Gulistan, or Bed of Roses, will show how the Persian and Arabick languages were mixed together in his age:

that is; “My companion oft reproaches me for my love of Leila. Will he never behold her charms, that my excuse may be accepted? Would to heaven, that they, who blame me for my passion, could see thy face, O thou ravisher of hearts! that, at the sight of thee, they might be confounded, and inadvertently cut their hands instead of the fruit, which they hold^*. Thou hast no compassion for my disorder: my companion should be afflicted with the same malady, that I might sit all day repeating my tale to him; for two pieces of wood burn together with a brighter flame. The song of the turtle dove passes not unobserved by my ear; and if the dove could hear my strain, she would join her complaints with mine. O my friends, say to them, who are free from love, Ah, we wish you knew, what passes in the heart of a lover! The pain of illness affects not them, who are in health: I will not disclose my grief but to those, who have tasted the same affliction. It were fruitless to talk of an hornet to them, who never felt its sting. While thy mind is not affected like mine, the relation of my sorrow seems only an idle tale. Compare not my anguish to the cares of another man; he only holds the salt in his hand, but it is I, who bear the wound in my body.”

The same city had the honour of producing, in the fourteenth century, the most elegant Lyrick Poet of Asia, Shemseddín, surnamed HAFEZ; on whose life and productions it is the less necessary to expatiate, because the Baron before-mentioned has exhausted the subject in his specimen of Persian Poetry, and will, it is to be hoped, be persuaded to complete that most learned work, in the short intervals of leisure, which his important affairs will allow him. It will be fully sufficient, therefore, to transcribe two of his Gazals or Anacreontick Odes; the first of which was chosen, on account of the Arabick verses interwoven in it, and the second, for its exquisite beauty, which makes it a genuine example of the true Shirazian dialect.

“THE dawn advances veiled with roses. Bring the morning draught, my friends, the morning draught! The dew-drops trickle over the cheek of the tulip. Bring the wine, my dear companions, bring the wine! A gale of paradise breathes from the garden: drink then incessantly the pure wine. The rose spreads her emerald throne in the bower. Reach the liquour, that sparkles like a flaming ruby. Are they still shut up in the banquet-house? Open, O thou keeper of the gate. It is strange, at such a season, that the door of the tavern should be locked. Oh, hasten! O thou, who art in love, drink wine with eagerness; and you, who are endued with wisdom, offer your vows to Heaven. Imitate Hafez, and drink kisses, sweet as wine, from the cheek of a damsel, fair as a nymph of paradise.”

“RISE, boy; for the cup of the tulip is full of wine. When will this strictness end? how long will these scruples last? No more of this pride and disdain; for time has seen the crown of Cæsar humbled, and the diadem of Cyrus bent to the ground. Oh! be wise; for the bird of the morning is intoxicated with love. Oh, awake! for the sleep of eternity is just before you. How gracefully thou movest, O sweet branch of a vernal plant! May the cold wind of December never nip thy buds! There is no reliance on the favours of Fortune or her deceitful smiles. Oh! wo to him, who thinks himself secure from her treachery. To-morrow, perhaps, the stream of Cuther, and the girls of paradise will be prepared for us; but today also let us enjoy a damsel bright as the moon, and quaff the wine from the full cup. The Zephyr (Saba) reminds us of our youth (Sabi;) bring us the wine, boy, which may refresh our souls, and dispel our sorrow.

“Admire not the splendour and dignity of the rose; for the wind will soon scatter all her leaves, and spread them beneath our feet. Bring a larger cup to the memory of Hatem Tai^*; that we may fold up (Tai) the gloomy volume of those, who want generosity. This wine, which gives a lively tint to the Argavan, (a purple flower) communicates its sweet nature from my beloved’s cheek to her heart. Attend; for the musicians of the bower have begun their concert, joining the notes of the lute and harp to the melody of the dulcimer and flute. Bring thy Sofa into the garden, for, like active attendants, the cypress stands before us, and the green reed has tucked up his girdle. O Hafez, the fame of thy sweet alluring sorcery has reached from the extremity of Reï and Rûm, to the limits of China and Egypt.”

There is nothing, which affords a stronger proof of the excellence of the Persian tongue, than, that it remained uncorrupted after the irruption of the Tartars, who, at different times, and under various leaders, made themselves masters of Persia; for the Tartarian princes, and chiefly Tamerlane, who was a patron of Hafez, were so far from discouraging polite letters, like the Goths and Huns, that they adopted even the language and religion of the conquered country, and promoted the fine arts with a boundless munificence: and one of them, who founded the Mogul Empire in Hindostan, introduced the Persian literature into his dominions, where it flourishes to this day; and all the letters from the Indian governors are written in the language (I do not say, in the style) of Sadi. The Turks themselves improved their harsh dialect by mixing it with the Persian; and Mahomed II. who took Constantinople in the middle of the fifteenth Century, was a protector of the Persian poets: among these was Noureddîn JAMI, whose poem on the loves of Joseph and Zelikha is one of the finest compositions I ever read. The following description will serve as a specimen of his elegant style:

“In the morning, when the raven of night had flown away, the bird of dawn began to sing: the nightingales warbled their enchanting notes, and rent the thin veils of the rosebud and the rose: the jasmine stood bathed in dew, and the violet also sprinkled his fragrant locks. At this time Zelikha was sunk in pleasing slumber; her heart was turned towards the altar of her sacred vision^*. It was not sleep; it was rather a confused idea: it was a kind of phrenzy caused by her nightly melancholy. Her damsels touched her feet with their faces; her maidens approached, and kissed her hand. Then she removed the veil from her cheek, like a tulip besprinkled with dew; she opened her eyes, yet dim with sleep. From the border of her mantle the sun and moon arose; she raised her head from the couch, and looked around on every side.”

This poem contains about four thousand couplets, and deserves to be translated into every European language: though I shall have neither time nor inclination to translate it myself, yet I may perhaps be induced, some years hence, to present the Original to the learned world, which any man, who has the advantage of greater leisure, may take the pains to interpret.

In the same Century with Jami, flourished a poet named CATEBI, who was highly honoured at the court of Mirza Ibrahim, one of Tamerlane’s descendants. Mr. d’ Herbelot tells a very pleasing story of this writer, which deserves a place in this essay; though, in order to understand it, we must remember, that the Persians frequently end their couplets with the same word, which is often continued through a long poem; but in that case, the rhyme falls upon the preceding syllable. “Catebi, says he, having composed an Elegy, each verse of which ended with the word, Gul, a rose, or any flower, repeated it to the prince Ibrahim, his Patron; who, being extremely delighted with it, could not forbear interrupting him, by saying, From what bower did this tuneful nightingale (meaning the poet) take its flight? that is, without a metaphor, In what city were you born? to which Catebi, without hesitation, replied in a couplet of the same measure with the poem, and with the same rhyme, as if he had only continued to read his Elegy:

“that is, Like Attár^*, I came from the rose-garden of Nishapor; but I am only the thorn of that garden, and Attár was its most beautiful flower.”

This distich, though delivered extempore, is at least equal to any of the rest in spirit and elegance. The poem consists of about thirty-five couplets, the first of which is the following:

that is; Again the rose advances towards the bower with an hundred leaves; like the narcissus, it is a charming object to every discerning eye.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries, under the family of Sefi, the Persian language began to lose its ancient purity, and even to borrow some of its terms from the Turkish, which was commonly spoken at Court. As to the modern dialect, no specimen of it needs be produced, since the Life of Nader Shah, which was written in Persian about fourteen years ago, and translated into French by the author of this Volume, may be consulted in the original by the learned reader.

SIRE,

UNE Traduction, faite par les Ordres de Votre Majesté, emprunte son lustre des augustes auspices sous lesquels elle a été entreprise; daignez donc souffrir, que laissant à mon auteur l’enthousiasme de la flatterie orientale, je ne fasse mention de son Héros que pour relever un contraste qui m’a frappé. C’est au successeur légitime d’une suite de Rois, aussi anciens qu’illustres, que je présente ce NADER CHAH, usurpateur, & d’une origine obscure. Le crime & la terreur conduisirent ce fameux guerrier à la fortune, par une voïe remplie d’allarmes & de dangers. L’admiration & la confiance des peuples, déja fixées au pied du trône de Votre Majesté, lui ouvrent une carriere aussi brillante qu’heureuse. Nader craignit la lumiere du savoir, & tâcha de détruire les sciences dans ses états; Votre Majesté, véritable appréciatrice du génie, lui confiera sans peine les annales de Son regne. Il suffira à Ses historiens d’être éclairés & fideles; ils ne seront pas obligés, comme celui de Nader, de donner au destructeur le masque du conquérant; à l’oppresseur ces magnifiques tîtres que la bouche servile accorde, & que le cœur honnête refuse à l’injustice, & à la tyrannie. Mais, SIRE, si d’autres ont l’honneur d’achever le contraste que j’ébauche, & de faire sentir à la posterité la différence qu’il y a entre la bassesse de l’adulation & le pur encens de la vérité, j’aurai du moins l’avantage de les avoir dèvancés dans une route, que la gloire de Votre Nom rendra si facile, ainsi que dans le zèle, & le très profond respect avec lesquels je suis,

CET Ouvrage n’est point entiérement inconnû; un^* Auteur Anglois, dans l’agréable récit de ses voïages, a fait mention d’une vie de NADER CHAH, écrite en Persan; mais, il ajoute, qu’il est peu probable qu’elle paroisse jamais en Europe. En effet, pour que le public fût enrichi de ce rare présent, il a fallû que le destin le fit tomber entre les mains d’un Roi distingué par son amour pour les Belles Lettres, & par la délicatesse de son goût; ce qui n’étoit pas un bonheur facile à prévoir. Chargé par les ordres de ce Monarque de traduire & de publier ce manuscrit, je desirerois de mon côté pouvoir satisfaire le lecteur, en lui donnant une parfaite connoissance de l’auteur que je traduis; mais, mes recherches à cet égard aïant été vaines, il faut qu’il se contente de mon opinion. J’avoüe d’abord, que je ne suis pas de l’avis de l’écrivain que je viens de citer, qui annonce mon auteur comme un général ou un commandant; il me paroit plutôt un homme d’un savoir profond, d’une éloquence agréable, & parfaitement versé dans la litérature orientale, ainsi que dans la poësie de son païs. Ses notions sur l’art militaire, la maniére dont il décrit les batailles ne conviennent nullement à un guerrier; elles s’accordent bien mieux avec le titre de Mirza, qui signifie homme d’étude, lorsqu’il précede le nom propre; celui de Khan, qui s’y trouve joint, prouve seulement que le savoir, en Asie, est le chemin de la fortune, aussi bien que celui de la gloire. Comme il n’y a que douze ans que cette histoire a été écrite, il est probable que Mirza Mohammed Mahadi Khan de Mazenderan vit encore, à moins qu’il n’ait péri dans quelque danger semblable à ceux qu’il décrit, & qui étoient si frequens dans sa patrie aux tems malheureux qu’il déplore: cependant le récit de ces rebellions perpétuelles, souvent compliquées, & renouvellées aussitôt qu’appaisées, a quelque chose de sec & de fatiguant. L’auteur l’a senti lui-même; ainsi, lorsqu’il n’a pas eû des événemens grands & frappants à raconter, il a tâché de faire supporter la minutie, & même quelquefois l’obscurité, de sa narration par des morceaux de poésie Persanne aussi bien choisis que placés. Ces essais de Rhétorique orientale sont sur tout admirables dans les descriptions variées du printems, qu’il donne au commencement de chaque année, & dans lesquelles, en géneral, il fait allusion à ce qui s’y est passé de plus remarquable. Cet ouvrage doit naturellement intéresser le public, & attacher le lecteur; les faits en sont si récens, qu’ils ne sauroient être effacés de notre mémoire, & n’aïant pas perdû leur degré de chaleur par une froide recherche dans des siécles reculés, ils ne se présentent à nous qu’avec ces charmes, & cette importance que la verité & l’authenticité donnent aux moindres événemens.

Après avoir ainsi rendû justice à mon auteur, je serai plus concis sur ce qui me regarde moi-même & ma traduction. Je dois d’abord assurer le lecteur, que j’ai tâché de lui donner une idée exacte de l’original Persan, en le traduisant aussi literalement qu’il m’a été possible; en cela j’ai suivi & mes ordres & mon inclination. Nous avons asséz d’histoires Asiatiques habillées à l’Européene, j’ai laissé à celle-ci ses ornemens naturels: je n’ai orné aucun détail; j’ai suivi l’élévation ou l’abaissement du style, comme je les ai trouvés. Le peu de mots que je puis avoir ajoutés n’ont été que pour écarter des ambiguités attachées à la différence d’idiomes; je n’ai retranché que dans les endroits où les allusions étoient ou trop absurdes pour nous; que quand les expressions à force d’être outrées devenoient ridicules à l’imagination calme de nos climats. Si j’ai hazardé de donner une traduction rimée des vers que j’ai trouvé dans le corps de cette Histoire, j’en ai ajouté une litérale à la fin de chaque partie.

On trouvera dans mes Notes un index Géographique des principales villes & provinces dont cet ouvrage fait mention, mais j’ai été forcé de passer sous silence ce qui concerne plusieurs tribus, villages, & forteresses, dont on ne voit nulle trace dans les livres de géographie orientale que j’ai consulté.

Quant au traité sur la poésie Asiatique que j’ai ajouté à cette histoire, comme une espece de commentaire sur le goût poétique dans lequel élle est écrite, s’il s’y trouve quelques erreurs, j’en appelle au jugement impartial du lecteur savant; il considerera sans doute combien il étoit difficile d’entendre parfaitement des Odes dont le ton sublime & chargé d’ornemens embarrasse même ceux dans la langue desquels elles sont écrites, surtout étant privé du secours d’un bon commentaire, si nécessaire dans ces occasions. Au reste, comme il m’a été prescrit d’écrire cet ouvrage en François, j’espére qu’on excusera la témérité que j’ai eû en entreprenant une traduction si difficile dans une langue qui n’est pas ma langue naturelle. Je ne dirai pourtant point avec le Romain, qui publia un ouvrage Grec, que j’ai commis des fautes volontaires, afin quelles fissent connoitre quelle étoit ma patrie; au contraire, j’avoue que je n’ai rien oublié pour me mettre en état d’offrir un style correct; que j’ai reçû avec empressement tous les avis qui m’ont été donnés à ce sujet, & accepté avec reconnoissance les secours qui m’ont été offerts.

CHRISTIANUS Septimus, Dei gratiâ, rex Daniæ, Norvegiæ, Vandalorum, Gothorumque, dux Slesvici, Holsatiæ, Stormariæ, atque Dittmarsiæ, comes in Oldenburg ac Delmenhorst, &c. &c. Serenissimo ac potentissimo principi domino Georgio Tertio, eâdem gratiâ, Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ regi, fidei defensori, duci Brunsvicensi, et Luneburgensi, Sacri Romani Imperii Archithesaurario, et Electori, &c. &c. fratri, affini, et consanguineo, et amico nostro carissimo, salutem! Serenissime et potentissime princeps, frater, affinis, consanguinee, et amice carissime! Annuentes precibus subditi cujusdam Majestatis Vestræ, viri eruditi, et linguarum Orientis peritissimi, Collegii Academiæ Oxoniensis Socii Gul. Jones, qui nobis desiderantibus, opus historicum vitæ Naderi Shah è Persico in Gallicum idioma à se magnâ cum diligentiâ translatum nuper in lucem emisit, eoque labore feliciter exantlato, expectationi nostræ ex asse satisfaciens calculum nostrum meruit, hoc ei nostræ benevolentiæ testimonium, quod à nobis sibi decenter expetiit, denegare noluimus, sed amicitiâ Majestatis Vestræ in nos sincerâ freti eundem clementiæ et benevolentiæ ejus regiæ, pro eo quo ipsa bonas literas, et earum cultores prosequi dignatur, favore eximio, de meliori commendatum esse amicè et fraternè cupimus; gratiam eo nomine Majestati Vestræ insignem habituri, et si qua in re possumus, referre paratissimi; cui, quod reliquum est, divini numinis tutelam ad perenne summæ felicitatis incrementum toto animo apprecamur. Dabantur in regiâ nostrâ Christianburg die XV. mensis Februarii, anno 1771 regnique nostri sexto.

MONSIEUR,

SOUFFREZ que je vous témoigne ma reconnoissance pour la flatteuse distinction dont Sa Majesté a bien voulu m’ honorer. Je regarde comme un des plus grands bonheurs de ma vie d’être né dans le siecle d’un Roi, qui sait emploïer et récompenser les talens. De combien ce bonheur n’augmenteroit-il pas, si mes desseins et mes occupations dans ma patrie, me permettoient d’aller me jetter aux pieds de Sa Majesté, et de contempler dans sa Capitale le second renouvellement des Lettres et des Beaux Arts. Cependant, d’ici même, je ne perdrai jamais de vûe les influences propices que sa protection répand sur le savoir, et si je vis assez pour finir L’Histoire générale de ce Siecle, ouvrage, que j’ai projettè depuis long tems, ce sera au nom de CHRETIEN VII. que je croirai devoir son vrai lustre. Permettez-moi, Monsieur, d’ajouter en ce lieu une reflexion qui m’a frappé en recevant le diplome, par lequel Sa Majesté m’ agrége à Sa Société Roïale des Sciences. On ne sauroit, en voïant un tel asile des belles lettres s’éléver dans un empire du nord, s’empécher d’admirer les decrets de la providence dans la revolution des evénemens. Ce fût de la Gothie que sortirent l’essaim de courageux guerriers, qui éteignirent la lumiére du savoir dans l’Europe en arrachant aux Romains l’empire du monde; c’est dans ces mêmes régions que le savoir rêvit sous les auspices d’un Monarque qui l’apprécie, et le protége.

J’ai l’honneur,

Monsieur, d’être votre trés humble,

et très obeïssant Serviteur,

ERRATA.