VII.

ON PERSIAN POETRY-BY MR. NATHANIEL HOWARD, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION.

THE difficulty of writing on Oriental subjects, particularly in this country, arises, in a great degree, from having so little access to manuscripts, and from the paucity of publications connected with the literature of the East. I feel much diffidence in entering on this dark and extensive region; but trust from this avowal, great allowances will be made, especially if it be considered, that not more than half a century has elapsed, since the strong efforts were made by that accomplished Orientalist Sir William Jones, to excite a popular taste in the British nation for the literary productions of Asia; and since his time, the march of Oriental learning, though not rapid, has been progressive. It is true, that a few Europeans have been eminent in Arabian learning before this stated period; but it was reserved for the genius of Sir William Jones, to shed a more general lustre on the languages of Asia.*

* Much valuable information may now be expected from the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, in conjunction with the Branch Societies in India; also from the Oriental Society of Translation, which has recently been established in London.

Before we can speak satisfactorily of the poetry of Iran or Persia, it is necessary to take a rapid view of the state of Arabian poetry before, and about the time of, the Mohammedan Conquest.

The compositions of the old Arabian poets, preserved in a written form, are more or less descriptive of their primitive manners, of their tents and camels, of their deserts and pastures. Love and Pity, the two keys of the human heart in the poetry of all nations, impart an irresistible charm to the shorter pieces of the Orientals. Their gazels, generally expressive of gay and lively images, and their casidahs, appropriated to serious and grave subjects, are without number: many of their productions breathe a fine spirit of independence; inculcate a noble contempt of riches; and are profuse in praise of liberality, a virtue for which the Eastern nations are pre-eminently distinguished.

Some authors imagine that the art of writing was not much in practice among the Arabians before the time of Mohammed, who on account of his ignorance of the written character, was styled by his enemies "The Illiterate."* This ignorance perhaps extended only to the kind of writing introduced just

*It has been suspected that the term "Illiterate" was purposely assumed by Mohammed, or given to him by his friends as a pretended proof of the Koran being of divine origin. M. Renaud in his “Description des Monumens Musulmans," observes that Mohammed was fond of retirement, and that every year, during the month of the Ramadan, he withdrew to a cave on Mount Hira near Mecca, and declared, that in his meditation on divine subjects, he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who saluted him with the title of "Apostle of God," and, "as he knew not how to read, at least at first, the angel brought his instructions in writing, and read them to him. Mohammed repeated them, and afterwards revealed what he had learned to his disciples. Hence is the origin of the term coran, which in Arabic means reading, and is pronounced with the article, al-coran, which implies, emphatically, "the reading." Asiatic Journal for Jan. 1829.