A brief notice of some of the 



[Oct. 



lion among the people of Shiran who expressed a different opinion; 

 insomuch that it was finally agreed on to open at hazard the works of 

 the deceased poet for some passage, by which the point under discus- 

 sion might be decided. This plan was eagerly adopted and put into 

 execution, when, to the great joy of the relatives and friends of Ilafiz, 

 the first words that met their eyes were these : — 



Avoid not the tomb of Hafiz, for, though not free from guilt, he 

 will notwithstanding be admitted into Paradise. 



This quite convinced the most sceptical ; the poet's remains were 

 interred pith due solemnity, and his tomb became in after times a place 

 of pilgrimage, deemed as holy as that of the shrine of our Lady of 

 Loretto, where lungs and emirs have consulted with implicit faith the 

 fortuitous oracles of the divining volume previously alluded to. 



There can be, I think, no doubt that a large proportion of the odes 

 which appear to the general reader as referring to sensual pleasures, 

 merely have an abstruse connexion with the mystic doctrines of the 

 Sufis, sometimes so remote as scarcely to be traced by the initiated 

 themselves. Hence the half-read literati of India finding themselves 

 at a loss to touch the clue, and to separate the physical from the meta- 

 physical, cut at once the Gordian knot by boldly averring the whole of 

 Hafiz's poetry to have a spiritual meaning. It seems clear on the 

 other hand that he could not have given such vivid descriptions of the 

 gradual intoxicating effects of wine, and the voluptuous sensations of 

 love, had he not some time or other experienced them. The way he 

 lived too, bears out the opinion that he was half-sensualist — half-de- 

 votee — a sort of union frequently occurring among the dreamy fanatics 

 of the east. Most native authorities agree that he passed his time part- 

 ly among the gay and dissipated, and partly among Faquirs and asce- 

 tics. The former sang his odes as Anacreontics and Chansons a boire, 

 the latter studied them as sacred mysteries. 



As Firdousi is generally allowed to be the Homer of the Persians, 

 with equal correctness may Hafiz be called their Anacreon. His style 

 is original, full of vigour and sweetness of thought, his ideas fresh and 

 racy. He never rises to the sublime, but is generally concise, and 

 always elegant. He is copiously quoted by Persian authors, particu- 

 larly by the author of that pot-pourri the Nigaristan. Distiches 

 from his Ghazls are in every well educated Persian's mouth, and many 

 are applied as proverbs in the ordinary occurrences of life. His pro- 

 ductions resemble those of the lyric poets of Greece, being a collec- 

 tion of odes and elegies — chiefly on love and wine. 



The lyric style in Persia, as in Greece and elsewhere, succeeded the 

 epic. The Grecian minstrels were wont to sing to the notes of the 

 KiOapa or \vpa, the odes of Archilochus, Sappho and Anacreon, while 



