234 



A brief notice of some of the 



[April 



" nightingale of the rose-garden of literature," as he is called, when 

 young, spent a considerable time in the acquisition of the sciences at 

 Shiraz, and then travelled into Hindustan e to the court of Shahjehan. 

 He died on the road to Cashmir, whither he had been sent to versify 

 the Badshah-ndmeh. Mahomed Afzal, the author of the Tuzkiret-i- 

 Sirklu'ish, says that he retired to Cashmir after the completion of his 

 Zefer-nameh. He wrote an account of Akber-abad, of a famine in the 

 Deccan, and of his travels to Cashmir, in form of a Masnavi. He is also 

 author of a Diioan. 



Kemal uddin Ismail Isfahdni. 



This poet flourished in the seventh century of the Hejira, and died 

 A. H. 639 ; or, according to some authors, was slain by infidels. Doulet 

 Shah fixes the date of his demise in 635 A. H. Among the compositions 

 of Isfahdni is a Diivan comprizing about 9,900 couplets — a poem in eulo- 

 gy of the sultans of the Syed dynasty, particularly of Sultan Jelal-ud- 

 din. A collection of tracts entitled the Bussdib alFani ; and, according 

 to D'Herbelot, " un poeme allegorique sur les cheveux, dont le sens 

 est fort cache, quoique le nom de cheveux soit enferme dans chaque 

 vers." There is much beautiful imagery interspersed throughout the 

 compositions of this poet. Isfahdni was compelled to quit his native 

 city Ispahan, on account of the persecutions of several of the 

 principal inhabitants, w 7 ho w r ere envious of the honouik he receiv- 

 ed at court. He assumed the habit of a dervise and retired to 

 a secluded spot ; where, however, the horrors of the Tartar inva- 

 sion under Genghiz Khan soon reached him. The people of the 

 neighbouring villages had consigned to his care all their scanty sav- 

 ings, in order to conceal them from their rapacious invaders. Isfahdni 

 humanely acceded to their wishes and deposited the sums in a deep 

 dry well near the hermitage. One day it unluckily happened, that a 

 Tartar archer, shooting at a bird perched on the top of the building, 

 dropped the ivory ring of his bow down a crevice, communicating with 

 the well. The Tartar, in his search after the ring, found the concealed 

 treasure. The circumstance soon became noised abroad, and the 

 archer's comrades imagining that Isfahdni had more valuables hidden, 

 put him to the torture and threw him into imprisonment. The unfor- 

 tunate poet, deprived of the ordinary means of writing, was wont to 

 pour forth the lamentations of his soul in the Tasso-like bitterness of 

 despair, in stanzas written with his ow 7 n blood on the walls of the dun- 

 geon. For farther particulars regarding Isfahdni the Persian reader 

 is referred to Doulet Shah, the Nigaristan and the Mandr-us-suwdbit, 

 He was styled " Malek-us-Shora" '—-the prince of poets. 



