and honours; and protected him, as long as he chufed to continue at his court, against the all-powerful refentment of that formidable monarch.!

AMONGST the most magnificent of the royal patrons of Perfian literature were three contemporary princes, who reigned towards the end of the eleventh century; and were remarkable not only for their abilities and liberality, but for the fingular and uninterrupted harmony which distinguished their correfpondence. These were Malekshah Jelaleddin, king of Perfia; Keder ben Ibrahim, Sultan of the Gheznevides; and Keder Khan, the Khakan, or king of Turqueftan, beyond the Gihon. The Khakan was uncommonly fplendid when he appeared abroad he was preceded by 700 horsemen with filver battleaxes, and was followed by an equal number bearing maces of gold. He fupported, with moft magnificent appointments, a literary academy in his palace, confifting of a hundred men of the higheft reputation in the Eaft: Amak, called alfo Abou'l'najib Al Bokhari, who was the Uftadu'l'fhoara, or chief of the Poets, exclufive of a great penfion, having, amongst other articles of Eaftern luxury, a vast number of male and female flaves; with thirty horses of state richly capa

rifoned, and a retinue in proportion, which attended him wherever he went. The Khakan used often to prefide at their exercises of genius: on which occafions, by the fide of his throne were always placed four large bafons filled with gold and filver; which he diftributed with a liberal hand, to those who principally excelled.

But the invasions of Jengiz Khan and Tamerlane, in the beginning of the thirteenth, and end of the fourteenth centuries, gave violent checks to all the arts of peace. The Khalifat and all its feudatory princes were overwhelmed and altho' Tamerlane, in a variety of inftances, was a liberal patron of learned men; that was but a feeble compenfation for the general defolation which he fpread around; and the deftruction of a number of magnificent patrons of the arts, who funk under the torrent of his irresistible power. The Turks foon after stretched their government, unfavourable to liberty and fcience, from Europe to the banks of the Tigris: whilft, in Perfia, the bloody reigns of the detefted houfe of Sefi concurred effectually in plunging thofe noble countries into that melancholy barbarifm, from which Europe, during that period, had been gradually emerging.

C

FOR near three hundred years, the literary fire of the Perfians and Arabians feems indeed to have been almost extinguished; nothing hardly, during that time, which deferves attention, being known, at least, in Europe: yet enough exifts, to give us a very high opinion of the genius of the Eaft. In taste they are undoubtedly inferior to the Greeks, to the Romans, and to the best writers of modern Europe; but, in invention, they are excelled, perhaps equalled by none. The Arabians are distinguished by a conciseness of diction, which borders fometimes upon obfcurity. The Persians affect, on the contrary, a rhetorical luxuriance; which, to a European, wears the air of unneceffary redundance. If, to these leading distinctions, we add a peculiarity of imagery, of metaphor, of allusion; derived from the difference of government, of manners, of temperament; and of fuch natural objects as characterise Asia from Europe; we shall fee, at one view, the great points of variation between the writers of the Eaft and Weft. Amongst the Oriental historians, philofophers, rhetoricians, and poets, many will be found, who would da honour to any age or people: whilft their romances, their tales, and their fables, ftand

upon a ground, which Europeans, in fome points, have hardly yet found powers to reach.

In various other lights, the usefulness of the Perfian and Arabic languages will appear evident, on the flighteft examination. The high political confequence of the Perfian, in the affairs of India, is too obvious and too generally acknowledged to require arguments to enforce it; whilft the Arabic, totally neglected, or studied with inattention, has never been viewed, in Hindoftan, by Europeans, in the important light it seems to merit. Yet the intercourse which the Arabians have maintained with that country, is ancient and intimate. For many centuries, previous to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, they were the chief traders in the Eaft; and the commodities of India flowed into Europe, by the way of Egypt and Syria, almost solely through their hands. Their commercial fettlements fkirted the Indian coafts: their tranfactions with the Gentoos were extenfive; and their language found its way where even their arms and their religion had made no impreffion. The tranfactions, fometimes amicable, but oftener hoftile, in which the Hindoo Rajahs were engaged with the Mohammedan princes, long before the acceffion of the house of Timur, opened likewise num

berless channels for the introduction and incorporation of this great Mohammedan language; and gave it, in time, fuch an univerfal currency in Hindoftan, that not only two thirds of the Perfian, now in general ufe there, is pure Arabic; but a half perhaps of the Hindoftan or Moors is Arabic and Perfian: in the Malay, they alfo both abound; and they appear even to have found a place in the vulgar Nagree and Bengal. But that which has chiefly astonished me, is to find Arabic technically used, even in the Code of Gentoo Laws. If fuch words are actually in the original Shanferit, it is a circumstance which will require a very nice explanation: for, upon general principles, we must, on that ground, question the antiquity of those laws; having at present no foundation to believe, that the Arabic was introduced into Hindoftan earlier than the Mohammedan invafion A. D. 08, during the Khalifat of the first Al Walid. But if they are not in the original Shanscrit, and only occur in the Perfian translation by the Pundits; there appears to be the fame impropriety in their modernizing or tranflating those ancient law words, as there would have been, had Sir William Blackstone given only the English of fuch terms as Certiorari or Fieri facias, and omitted the original names of the writs.