JULY— SEPT. 1857.] Oriental Literature. 
311 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Oriental. 
Salaman and Absal, an Allegory translated from the Persian of 
Jami. London, 1856, m,8vo. XVI. et 84 pages. 
The Journal Asiatiqiie for February and March 1857, No. 34, 
announces the publication of the above poem in English blank 
verse, and says of the translator : — 
" He is a pupil of M'Cowel, tlje Editor of the Grammaire pracrite de 
Vararuchi, a favorite with men of letters generally and especially with 
the friends of Persian literature with the translation of which he occupies 
himself. We know that in the greater part of Persian Poems the narra- 
tive is interspersed with anecdotes intended to place in relief the opinions 
the author; but these do not detach themselves sufficiently from the 
original text, and a certain obscurity sometunes arises thereby. The 
author of the translation has remedied this inconvenience by putting 
the anecdotes into shorter verses, and by using italics so as to distin- 
guish them entirely from the principal narrative and to permit the reader 
to pass them over, should he so choose, without losing the thread 
the story. ♦ ♦ * * Jami was born at the commencement of the 15th 
century, and lived 81 years. He was already an old man, when he wrote 
Salaman o Absal and he complains in the introduction of his poem, " that 
his 2 eyes were no longer of any use to him, and that European spectacles 
had not given him four eyes"* 
A new Persian grammar is announced by Mr. A. H. Bleeck un- 
der the title of a Concise Gratjunar of the Persian Language 
(Quaritch), It is a small but useful nork, and to the great majori- 
ty of students, who do not pretend to acquire more than a fair know- 
ledge of Persian, it will be found preferable to the large voluminous 
dictionary of Mirza Ibrahim and others. Mr. Bleeck has given a 
brief notice of Persian literature in the preface to bis grammar, and 
a list of books which he recommends to the attention Oi beginners. 
* The translator by the substitution of one word for another has rendered the 
reading. 
* « * " My two eyes see no more 
Till by Feringhe glasses turned to four." 
