gether with all the dæmons, giants, and enchanters of Afia, had carried his conquefts very far, and become exceedingly formidable to the Perfians. This poem is longer than the Iliad; the characters in it are various and ftriking; the figures bold and animated; and the diction every where fonorous, yet noble; polished, yet full of fire. A great profufion of learning has been thrown away by fome criticks, in comparing Homer with the heroick poets, who have fucceeded him; but it requires very little judgment to fee, that no fucceeding poet whatever can with any propriety be compared with Homer: that great father of the Grecian poetry and literature, had a genius too fruitful and comprehenfive to let any of the ftriking parts of nature efcape his obfervation; and the poets, who have followed him, have done little more than transcribing his images, and giving a new dress to his thoughts. Whatever elegance and refinements, therefore, may have been introduced into the works of the moderns, the spirit and invention of Homer have ever continued without a rival: for which reasons I am far from pretending to affert that the poet of Perfia is equal to that of Greece; but there is certainly a very great resemblance between the works of those extraordinary men : both drew their images from nature herself, without catching them only by reflection, and painting, in the manner of the modern poets, the likeness of a likeness; and both poffeffed, in an eminent degree, that rich and creative invention, which is the very foul of poetry.

As the Perfians borrowed their poetical measures, and the forms of their poems from the Arabians, fo the Turks, Bb 2

when

when they had carried their arms into Mefopotamia, and Affyria, took their numbers, and their tafte for poetry from the Perfians;

Gracia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes

Intulit agrefti Latio.

In the fame manner as the Greek compofitions were the models of all the Roman writers, fo were those of Persia imitated by the Turks, who confiderably polished and enriched their language, naturally barren, by the number of fimple and compound words, which they adopted from the Perfian and Arabick. Lady Wortley Mountague very justly observes that we want thofe compound words, which are very frequent, and strong in the Turkish language; but her interpreters led her into a mistake in explaining one of them, which the tranflates tag-eyed, and thinks a very lively image of the fire and indifference in the eyes of the royal bride: now it never entered into the mind of an Afiatick to compare his mistress's eyes to those of a stag, or to give an image of their fire and indifference; the Turks mean to express that fullness, and, at the same time, that foft and languishing lustre, which is peculiar to the eyes of their beautiful women, and which by no means resembles the unpleafing wildness in those of a stag. The original epithet, I fuppofe, was * Ahû cheshm, or, with the eyes of

* This epithet feems to answer to the Greek ixis, which our gramma – rians properly interpret Quæ nigris oculis decora eft et venufta: if it were permitted to make any innovations in a dead language, we might express the Turkish adjective by the word doguπic, which would, I dare say, have founded agreeably to the Greeks themselves.

a young

a young fawn: now I take the Abû to be the fame animal with the Gazâl of the Arabians, and the Zabi of the Hebrews, to which their poets allude in almost every page. I have seen one of these animals; it is a kind of antelope, exquifitely beautiful, with eyes uncommonly black and large. This is the fame fort of roe, to which Solomon alludes in this delicate fimile: Thy two breafts are like two young roes, that are twins, which play among the lilies.

A very polite scholar, who has lately translated fixteen Odes of Hafiz, with learned illuftrations, blames the Turkish poets for copying the Perfians too fervilely: but, furely, they are not more blameable than Horace, who not only imitated the measures, and expreffions of the Greeks, but even tranflated, almoft word for word, the brightest paffages of Alcæus, Anacreon, and others; he took lefs from Pindar than from the rest, because the wildness of his numbers, and the obfcurity of his allufions, were by no means fuitable to the genius of the Latin language: and this may, perhaps, explain his ode to Julius Antonius, who might have advised him to use more of Pindar's manner in celebrating the victories of Auguftus. Whatever we may think of this objection, it. is certain that the Turkish empire has produced a great number of poets; fome of whom had no small merit in their way the ingenious author just-mentioned affured me, that the Turkish fatires of Ruhi Bagdadi were very forcible and ftriking, and he mentioned the opening of one of them, which seemed not unlike the manner of Juvenal. At the beginning of the last century, a work was published at Conftantinople, containing the finest verses

of

of five hundred and forty nine Turkish poets, which proves at least that they are fingularly fond of this art, whatever may be our opinion of their fuccefs in it.

The defcendants of Tamerlane carried into India the language, and poetry of the Perfians; and the Indian poets to this day compose their verses in imitation of them, The beft of their works, that have paffed through my hands, are thofe of Huzein, who lived fome years ago at Benares, with a great reputation for his parts and learning, and was known to the English, who refided there, by the name of the Philofopher. His poems are elegant and lively, and one of them, on the departure of his friends, would fuit our language admirably well, but is too long to be inferted in this effay. The Indians are foft, and voluptuous, but artful and infincere, at least to the Europeans, whom, to fay the truth, they have had no great reafon of late years to admire for the oppofite virtues : but they are fond of poetry, which they learned from the Perfians, and may, perhaps, before the clofe of the century, be as fond of a more formidable art, which they will learn from the English.

I must once more request, that, in bestowing these praifes on the writings of Afia, I may not be thought to derogate from the merit of the Greek and Latin poems, which have juftly been admired in every age; yet I cannot but think that our European poetry has fubfifted too long on the perpetual repetition of the fame images, and inceffant allufions to the same fables: and it has been my endeavour for several years to inculcate this truth, That, if

the

the principal writings of the Afiaticks, which are repofited in our publick libraries, were printed with the ufual advantage of notes and illuftrations, and if the languages of the Eaftern nations were ftudied in our places of education, where every other branch of useful knowledge is taught to perfection, a new and ample field would be opened for speculation; we should have a more extenfive infight into the hiftory of the human mind, we should be furnished with a new fet of images and fimilitudes, and a number of excellent compofitions would be brought to light, which future scholars might explain, and future poets might imitate.