82 LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 



nia, who wrote verses in praise of the caliphs ; and 

 of Maria, who has been honoured with the title of 

 the Arabian Corinna. So great was the number of 

 poets, that Abul Abbas, son of the Caliph Motas- 

 sem, wrote an abridgment of their lives, which 

 contains notices of 130. Casiri has further record- 

 ed the fragment of a work entitled the " Theatre 

 of the Poets," which originally consisted of twenty- 

 four volumes. Hejiaz composed a biography of the 

 Arabian bards in fifty volumes ; and Safadi another 

 in thirty, besides the lives of illustrious men distin- 

 guished for extraordinary valour. In the large Mis- 

 cellany of Thaalebi, called Yatima, may be seen a 

 specimen of the united beauty, elegance, and dignity 

 of the Arabian muse. It contains the lives and some 

 of the verses of the finest writers who flourished in 

 Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Arabia, Persia, 

 and Tartary. Numerous collections of poems exist 

 in Spain, termed Divans or Academical Prolusions, 

 from the circumstance of their having been honour- 

 ed with a recital in the colleges or academies. 

 These comprise idyls, elegies, epigrams, odes, sa- 

 tires, and almost every other species of poetry fami- 

 liar to the Greeks and Romans. 



The structure of the rhymes and verses, as may 

 be seen in the Commentaries of Sir William Jones, 

 was subjected to particular laws, which imparted a 

 degree of harmony and regularity to the whole com- 

 position. The two forms of versification most in use 

 were the Gazetta and the Cassida; both of which 

 were compositions in distichs, the alternate lines in 

 every couplet being made to rhyme with each other 

 throughout the whole poem. The Gazella was an 

 amatory or lyrical ode, which ought not to contain 



