The 13th c. cannot better be closed than with Sheik Muslih Eddimi, Sadi of Shiraz (died 1291), the first and unrivaled Persian didactic poet. His Boston and autistan (rose and fruit garden) are not only of eastern but also of European celebrity, and most deservedly. embodying as they do all the mature wisdom, the gTace, and happiness of composition of a true poet, ripe in years as in experience. At the beginning of the 14th c. we meet several meritorious imitators of Sadi in didactic poetry.
But far above all these, as alcove all other Persian lyrical and erotic poets. shines Hilfiz (q.v.), the "sugar-lip," who sang of wine and love, and nightingales and flowers, and who so offended mock-piety that it even would have tried to refuse him a proper burial, had not the oracle of the Koran interposed. After him, the full glory of Persian poetry begins to wane. Among these that came after him, stands highest Djiimi, who died in 1492. a poet of most varied genius, second only in every one of the manifold branches to its chief master—in panegyric to Enveri, in didactic to in romance to Nizami, in mysticism to Jelal-ed-din, in lyric to Stith; and he, with these and Firdusi, form the brightest representatives of Persian poetry. Most brilliant, however, is Djanii as it roinantic poet. Of prose works, we have by him a history of Sufis, and an exceed ingly valuable collection of epistolary models. Before concluding this branch of litera ture, we must take notice of the dramatic poetry of the Persians, which is not without merit, but of small extent, and to be compared principally with the ancient French mysteries.
The numerous tales, stories, novels, anecdotes, anthologies, and all the miscellaneous entertaining literature in which Persia abounds—and of which the best known, perhaps, are the adaptation of Bidpai's fables; Anvari &Mali, by Husein Vais Kashili; the Toti nameh, or book of parrots, a collection of fairy tales, by Neclishebi; the Behari Danish, Inajeth Allah, etc.—form a fit transition from poetry to prose, for little more is to be said of Persian poetry after the 15th century. Modern imitations of ancient classical works, such as the New Book of Kings, the '81tahinsltah-.Nainek, which treats of modern Persian history; the George Namelt, which sings the English conquests in India, etc., are hardly worth pointing out in so brief a summary as ours. Of native writers on the poets, are to be named Dewlet Shah (who describes the poets from the 10th to the 15th c.), Sam
irsa (the poets of the 16th); and Luft Ali Beg (the poets of modern time). In prose, it is chiefly history which deserves our attention. Able rivals of the great Arabic historio graphers sprang up at an early period. For the mythical times, or those of which no knowledge, save through a medium of half-legend, has reached later generations, Firdusi's .i.gantic.cpos remains the only source. But after the chroniclers we find Fadill Allah Iteshid Eddiii, the vizier of Gliazan, born 1247 at Hamadan, who was executed in 1320. He wrote the Collector of Histories, in three volumes, to which he afterwards added a fourth geographical volume: a summary of the history of all Mohammedan countries and times, containing besides a complete history of sects. Worthy and contemporaneous Fachr Eddin Mohammed Bina Kiti, author of a universal history; and Khodja Ahdallah Wassaf, the panegyrist, the model of grand and rhetorical. style. His most successful imitator in the 14th c. is Abdel Ressak; and in the 15th, Sheref Eddin All Yezdi, who wrote the history of Tamfir. Up to that period, pomposity of diction was considered the principal beauty, if not the chief merit, of a classical Persian history. From the 15th c. downwards a healthy reaction set in, and simplicity and the striving after the real representation of facts became the predominant fashion. As the facile princeps among these modern historians is to be mentioned, Mirkhond, whose Universal History (Thanset Essafa) comprises the period from creation to the reign of Sultan Hasan 13cikara, in seven books. After him are to be mentioned his son Khondemir, Gaffari, Mosiili Eddin Mohammed LaH, and Abu Tahir, of Tortosa, in Spain, who wrote the Derab Nameh, a biographical work on the Persian and Macedonian kings, and the ancient Greek physicians and philosophers.
Among Indian historians—and they form a most important class—who wrote in Per sian, we have Mohammed Kasim Ferishtah (1640), who wrote the ancient history of India up to the European conquest; Mohammed Hashim, Abul Fadel Mobarrek (Atelier Nameh); further, Abdel Ressak (Histo•y of the Padishahs), Mirza Mehdi, Gholam Hussein Khan, and others. One of the most recent works of this description is the Neasiri Sul taniye, which contains the history of the present dynasty of Persia, and which was pub lished in Teheran, 1825, and translated by Bridges (Loud. 1833).