Sanscrit Writing and Language. . 149 



prince ; — and so on. It is unnecessary to pursue this view of the subject farther ; 

 but if the passage be considered in all its bearings, it will be found by far more 

 adapted for the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, than for a place in the pages 

 of real history. 



But to revert for a moment to the two lists ; — the ground on which it is 

 imagined that Kaikhosrou is the same person as Cyrus, is because the Persian 

 authors represent him as a prince who was exposed in his infancy, brought up by 

 people of low condition, and discovered, when arrived at manhood, to be of 

 royal birth ; — circumstances, by the way, which have no analogy to the history of 

 Cyrus as given by Xenophon, but only to that transmitted to us by Herodotus ; 

 and which would equally serve to identify Darab with the ancient hero of 

 Persia. In every other respect the two characters here compared are totally 

 different from each other ; and the pairs placed immediately above* and below 

 the one just considered, are composed of equally discordant parts. Let us, 

 however, for an instant assume that the preceding names belonged to the same 

 individual, in order to try if this will assist us in the identification of the prin- 

 cipal pair ; and then we shall find so far, indeed, a correspondence, that 

 Kaikhosrou is the grandson of his immediate predecessor, but not by his mother's 

 side ; the Persian historians give him this relationship through his father, whom 

 they describe as the eldest son of Kaikaus, and state that his mother was the 

 daughter of a Tartar king. Yet Sir William Jones was so possessed with the 

 notion of the identity of the characters under consideration, that, In his sixth 

 discourse on the Persians, he declares, — •" I shall then only doubt, that the 

 Khosrau of Firdausi, was the Cyrus of the first Greek historian, and the hero 

 of the oldest political and moral romance, when I doubt that Louis Quatorze, 

 and Lewis the Fourteenth were one and the same French king." — Asiatic 

 Researches, vol. ii, p. 45. Even In the particulars of the birth and early life of 

 the two heroes, on which alone Sir William had to rely for the identity he 

 insisted upon, there is a discrepance which is quite sufficient to prove them diffe- 

 rent persons ; and I do not hesitate to assert, that the imaginary character which 

 he wished to fasten on the Grecian portrait, belongs much more appropriately to 



* In this comparison Cyaxares II. is passed over, as not forming one of a pair, there being no 

 sovereign to correspond to him in the Persian list ; and besides, he is not found even in the Grecian 

 list, as far as it is given by Herodotus. 



