190 The Rev. Dr. Wall on the Nature, Age, and Origin of the 



the Persian representation. Both points will, I apprehend, appear very evident 

 from the following abstract of the Persian account, which I quote from Dr. Hales's 

 Chronology, although the Doctor does not himself seem to have been aware of 

 the direct bearing of his own statement. " Mirkhond represents Kaikosru, or 

 Cyrus, as the grandson of Kaikaus, by his eldest son, Siavek, who was assas- 

 sinated shortly after his birth ; and Khosru was then concealed by his mother, 

 Franghiz, the daughter of the king of Turan. Kaikaus long sought his grand- 

 son, who, at length, was discovered at a hunt, by a Persian nobleman, and 

 brought to the Persian court, received with great joy, and made commander-in- 

 chief [is there no romancing here ?] of the Persian forces. That some time after, 

 a competition for the succession to the crown took place between Cyrus and his 

 uncle, Fraiborz, or Cyaxares, the surviving son of Astyages. [In the two lists 

 the name Cyaxares, on its first occurrence, where it forms one of a pair, is 

 matched, not with Fraiborz, but with Kaikobad. Dr. Hales certainly had a very 

 strange way of identifying characters, and it would be difficult to decide, in refe- 

 rence to the several persons whom he here confounds together in pairs, whether 

 those of each pair were more unlike one another in names or In the whole course 

 of their actions^. When Astyages, unwilling to decide between his son and 

 grandson, told them both, that he would appoint his successor, whichever of the 

 two should first, with equal forces, reduce a rebel town, investing it on both 

 sides. The skill and valour of Cyrus prevailed, and to him the town surrendered. 

 Whereupon, his grandfather declared him his heir ; and soon after retired from 

 the world to solitude, and left Cyrus in peaceable possession of the kingdom." — 

 Hales's Chron. vol. lii, p. 94. 



Upon the total difference which subsists not only between the lives of 

 Kaikhorsrou and Cyrus, but also between every part ofthe Grecian and Persian 

 representations of the ancient history of Persia, the opinion of Richardson is 

 valuable, because he was most extensively conversant with Persian and Arabic 

 literature. " From every research (he says, in the dissertation I have already 

 referred to) which I have had an opportunity to make, there seems to be nearly 

 as much resemblance between the annals of England and Japan, as between the 

 European and Asiatic relations ofthe same empire. The names and numbers of 

 their kings have no analogy ; and in respect to the most splendid facts of the 

 Greek historians, the Persians are entirely silent. We have no mention of the 



