1836..} 



Persian poets. 



8! 



Thou art to the world height and profundity : 



All is mortal ; thou alone, of all that has existence, art eternaL 



The death of Firdousi took place A.H. 411, in the reign of Caliph 

 Kddir the twenty-fifth Caliph of the house of the Abbassides. 



The poem of the Shah-ndmeh, the splendid pedestal on which rests 

 the monument of Firdousi's fame, comprizes upwards of 60,000 cou- 

 plets, the first thousand of which, according to the author of the Tarikh- 

 i-Guzideh, and also Ferishta, were composed by the poet Dakiki 

 (vide " Dakiki," vol. III. p. 46. of this Journal), who was prematurely 

 cut off by assassination, four thousand by Assedi, as has been previous- 

 ly stated, and the remainder by Firdousi. 



In the Shah-ndmeh is found the history of the ancient sovereigns and 

 great men of Persia, from Kaiumeras, who is said to have reigned be- 

 fore the deluge, cotemporary with Enoch, and to have founded the 

 dynasty of Peshdadians, from whom the first kings of Babylonia, Assy- 

 ria and Media, are supposed to have their origin, down to Fezjerd, who 

 was treacherously slain by some inhabitants* of Merov, after his defeat 

 by the Arabian conquerors of Persia, at the battle of Kadessia, in the 

 31st year of the Hejira, when the religion of the fire-worshippers, the 

 institutions of the Magi, and the ancient laws of Persia were abolished, 

 by those zealous promulgators of the tenets of Islam. 



It was compiled from the ancient chronicles of Persia, which, it is 

 most probable, were written in Pdhlevi, although Mr. Richardson,, in 

 his dissertation on the languages, &c. of Eastern nations, gives the 

 preference to the Par si dialect, which he states to have been peculi- 

 arly cultivated by the great and learned, above 1,200 years before the 

 Mohammedan era. 



On the other hand it must be stated, that the opinions of several 

 Persian authors, Sir William Jones, and many learned Mussulmans 

 of India, with whom I have conversed on the subject, are in favour of 

 the Pdhlevi. 



Firdousi prided himself on not having introduced one Arabic word 

 in the composition. On a friend's denying this, and pointing out thq 

 line 



