JULY — SEPT. 1857.] 



Oriental Literature. 



311 



NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Oriental. 



Salaman and Absal, an Allegory translated from the Persian of 

 Jami. London, 1856, in 8vo. XVI. et 84 pages. 



The Journal Asiatique 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, the 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 sometimes 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 0£ 

 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 A Concise Grammar of the Persian Language 

 (Quaritch). It is a small but useful work, 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 his grammar, and 

 a list of books which he recommends to the attention of 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." 



