'A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English; with a Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations' [‎13r] (30/1826)

DISSERTATION.
IX
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with the noblest efforts of genius: and he has stamp
ed a dignity on the monsters and fabling of the
East, equal to that which the prince of epic poetry
has given to the mythology of ancient Greece.
His language may, at the same time, be consider
ed as the most refined dialect of the older Persian
or Dari, the Arabic being introduced with a very
sparing hand : whilst Sadi, Jami, Hafiz, and othei
succeeding writers, in prose as well as verse, have
blended in their works the Arabic without re
serve j gaining, perhapS, in the neivous luxuriance
of the one language, what may seem to have been
lost in the softer delicacy of the other . 17
From the above period, a literary rivalship seems
to have subsisted amongst the Muhammadan
princes who had dismembered the Caliphat j eveiy
Sultan considering it as an object of the first con
sequence, to number amongst his friends the most
celebrated poets or philosophers of their age; no
expense was therefore spared to allure them to
their courts, and no respect was wanting to fix a
continuance of their attachment . 18
Amongst the most magnificent of those royal
patrons of Persian literature were three contem
porary princes, who reigned towards the end of the
eleventh century ; and were remarkable not only
for their abilities and liberality, but for the singular
and uninterrupted harmony which distinguished
their correspondence. These were Malikshah
Jalalu’d’din, king of Persia $ Radar bin Ibrahim,
Sultan of the Ghaznavides ; and Radar Rlian, the
Rhakan, or king of Turkistan, beyond the Jlhun.
The Rhakan was uncommonly splendid: when he
appeared abroad he was preceded by 'JOO horsemen
with silver battle-axes, and was followed by an
equal number bearing maces of gold. He sup
ported, with most magnificent appointments, a
literary academy in his palace, consisting of a hun
dred men of the highest reputation in the East:
Amak, called also Abu’n’najlb Al Bukhari, who
was the Ustadu'sh'shuara, or chief of the Poets, ex
clusive of a great pension, having, amongst othci
articles of Eastern luxury, a vast number of male
and female slaves; with thirty horses of state richly
caparisoned, and a retinue in proportion, which
attended him wherever he went. The Rhakan
used often to preside at their exercises of genius :
on which occasions, by the side of his throne, were
always placed four large basons filled with gold and
silver, which he distributed with a liberal hand to
those who principally excelled . 19
But the invasions of Changlz Rhan and Tamer
lane, in the beginning of the thirteenth and end
of the fourteenth centuries, gave violent checks to
all the arts of peace. The Caliphat and all its
feudatory princes were overwhelmed: and although
Tamerlane, in a variety of instances, was a liberal
patron of learned men; that was but a feeble com
pensation for the general desolation which he
spread around ; and the destruction of a number
of magnificent patrons of the arts, who sunk under
the torrent of his irresistible power.—The Turks
soon after stretched theirgovernment, unfavourable
to liberty and science, from Europe to the banks
of the Tigris: whilst, in Persia, the bloody reigns
of the detested house of Safi concurred effectually
in plunging those noble countries into that melan
choly barbarism from which Europe, during that
period, had been gradually emerging . 20
For near three hundred years, the literary fire
of the Persians and Arabians seems indeed to
have been almost extinguished; nothing hardly,
during that time, which deserves attention, being
known, at least in Europe : yet enough exists, to
give us a very high opinion of the genius of the
East. 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
bonders sometimes upon obscurity. The Persians
affect, on the contrary, a rhetorical luxuriance;
which, to a European, wears the air of unnecessary
redundance. If, to these leading distinctions we
add a peculiarity of imagery, of metaphor, of
allusion; derived from the difference of govern
ment, of manners, of temperament; and of such
natural objects as characterize Asia from Europe;
c