﻿ON THE PERSIANS. 49 



can rely on this evidence, which to me appears 

 unexceptionable, the Iranian monarchy must have 

 been the oldest in the world ; but it will remain du- 

 bious to which of the three stocks Hindu, jlrahan, 

 or Tartar, the first Kings of Iran belonged, or whe- 

 ther they sprang from a fourth race distinct from any 

 of the others; and these are questions which we shall 

 be able, J imagine, to answer precisely, when we 

 have carefully inquired into the languages and letters, 

 religion and philosophy, and incidentally into the arts 

 and sciences, of the ancient Persians. 



1. In the new and important remarks which I am 

 going to offer on the ancient languages and characters 

 of Iran, I am sensible that you must give me credit 

 for many assertions which, on this occasion, it is im- 

 possible to prove; for I should ill deserve your indul- 

 gent attention, if I were to abuse it by repeating a 

 dry list of detached words, and presenting you with 

 a vocabulary instead of a dissertation ; but, since I 

 have no system to maintain, and have not suffered 

 imagination to delude my judgment ; since I have ha- 

 bituated myself to form opinions of men and things 

 from evidence, which is the only solid basis of civil, 

 as experiment is of natural knowledge ; and since I 

 have maturely considered the questions which I mean 

 to discuss, you will not, I am persuaded, suspect my 

 testimony, or think that 1 go too far, when I as- 

 sure you, that I will assert nothing positively which 

 1 am not able satisfactorily to demonstrate. When 

 Muhawmedwas born, and Atiushiravan, whom he calls 

 the Just King, sat on the throne of Persia, two lan- 

 guages appear to have been generally prevalent in the 

 great empire of Iran ; that of the Court, thence named 

 Deri, which was only a refined and elegant dialect ot 

 the Parsi, so called from the province, of which Shi- 

 raz is now the capital, and that of the learned, in 

 which most books were composed, and which had the 



Vol. II. & 



