100 



Mr. Arthur Branson on two 



We miss here the anonymous preface which heralds in 

 the quatrains in the Calcutta MS. the following trans- 

 lation of which is given in the sixth and seventh pages 

 of Major Bell's valuable reprint : already cited. " It 

 is written in the chronicles of the ancients that this king 

 of the wise, 'Omar Khayyam, died at Naish&pur in the 

 year of the Hijra 517 (A.D. 1123), in science he was unri- 

 valled, the very paragon of his age. Khwajah Nizami of 

 Samarcand, who was one of his pupils, relates the following 

 story : " I often used to hold conversations with my teacher, 

 'Omar Khayyam, in a garden ; and one day he said to me, 

 • my tomb shall be in a spot, where the north-wind may 

 scatter roses over it.' I wondered at the words he spoke, 

 but I knew that his were no idle words ; years after, when 

 I chanced to re- visit Naishapur, I went to his final resting- 

 place, and lo ! it was just outside a garden, and trees laden 

 with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden- wall, and 

 dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so as the stone was 

 hidden under them." 



The Secretary has also shown us a second MS. on paper 

 containing 122 pages, and written lately in Madras. Great 

 credit is due to the scribe, Muhammad Wazir, for the ex- 

 treme care and clearness with which he has executed his 

 task — a credit which he is unwilling to bestow on the 

 copyist of the MS. which was his original, for at page 113, 

 after the preface which we have just cited and which he, 

 following the copy from which he has transscribed, places 

 at the end of the quatrains, he has the following: 



^il ^ a ^ j s-Jj*> a t 1 J* U IS <jw USj U ) 

 &<&j£j »XA"U3 ^ <S\& £j*> JLjL ^USj <xL£y ^iw.sr' i 



