Leman yatarica, waconto' themalan, Waconto dagiyyï' lleili fihi belalan. that is; the stranger and the pilgrim well know, when the sky is dark, and the north-wind rages, when the mothers leave their fucking infants, when no moisture can be feen in the clouds, that thou art bountiful to them as the fpring, that thou art their chief support, that thou art a fun to them by day, and a moon in the cloudy night. The hint of the next poem, or The Palace of Fortune, was taken from an Indian tale, translated a few years ago from the Perfian by a very ingenious gentleman in the fervice of the India-company; but I have added several defcriptions, and episodes, from other Eastern writers, have given a different moral to the whole piece, and have made fome other alterations in it, which may be seen by any one, who will take the pains to compare it with the ftory of Rofbana, in the fecond volume of the tales of Inatulla. I have taken a ftill greater liberty with the moral allegory, which, in imitation of the Perfian poet Nezami, I have entitled The Seven Fountains: * See this paffage verfified, Solima, line 71. etc.. a 2 the the general subject of it was borrowed from a story in a collection of tales by Ebn Arabshab, a native of Damafcus, who flourished in the fifteenth century, and wrote feveral other works in a very polifhed style, the most celebrated of which is An history of the life of Tamerlane*: but I have ingrafted, upon the principal allegory, an episode from the Arabian tales of A thousand and one nights, a copy of which work in Arabick was procured for me by a learned friend at Aleppo. The fong, which follows, was first printed at the end of a Perfian grammar; but, for the fatisfaction of those who may have any doubt of its being genuine, it seemed proper to fet down the original of it in Roman characters at the bottom of the page. The ode of Petrarch was added, that the reader might compare the manner of the Afiatick poets with that of the Italians, many of whom have written in the true fpirit of the Eafterns: *The Hiftory of Tamerlane was published by the excellent Golius, in the year 1636; and the book of fables, called in Arabick Facabato'lkholafa, or, The Delight of the Caliphs, is among Pocock's manuscripts at Oxford, No. 334. See the ftory of Prince Agib, or the third Calander in the Arabian tales, Night 57. etc. fome fome of the Perfian fongs have a ftriking refemblance to the fonnets of Petrarch; and even the form of those little amatory poems was, I believe, brought into Europe by the Arabians: one would almost imagine the following lines to be tranflated from the Perfian, Aura, che quelle chiome bionde e crefpe E poi 'l raccogli, e'n bei nodi l'increfpe. fince there is scarce a page in the works of Hafez and Jami, in which the fame image, of the breeze playing with the treffes of a beautiful girl, is not agreeably and variously expreffed. The elegy on the death of Laura was inferted with the fame view, of forming a comparison between the Oriental and the Italian poetry: the description of the fountain of Valchiufa, or Vallis Claufa, which was close to Petrarch's house, was added to the elegy in the year 1769, and was compofed on the very fpot, which I could not forbear vifiting, when I paffed by Avignon. The The Turkish Ode on the spring was felected from many others in the fame language, written by Mefibi, a poet of great repute at Constantinople, who lived in the reign of Soliman the Second, or the Lawgiver it is not unlike the Vigil of Venus, which has been afcribed to Catullus; the measure of it is nearly the fame with that of the Latin poem; and it has, like that, a lively burden at the end of every stanza: the works of Mefibi are preferved in the archives of the Royal Society. It will be needlefs, I hope, to apologize for the Paftoral, and the poem upon Chefs, which were done as early as at the age of fixteen or seventeen years, and were faved from the fire, in preference to a great many others, because they seemed more correctly verfified than the reft. It must not be fuppofed from my zeal for the literature of Afia, that I mean to place it in competition with the beautiful productions of the Greeks and Romans; for I am convinced, that, whatever changes we make in our our opinions, we always return to the writings of the ancients, as to the ftandard of true taste. If If the novelty of the following poems fhould recommend them to the favour of the reader, it may, probably, be agreeable to him to know, that there are many others of equal or fuperiour merit, which have never appeared in any language of Europe; and I am perfuaded that a writer, acquainted with the originals, might imitate them very happily in his native tongue, and that the publick would not be displeased to see the genuine compofitions of Arabia and Perfia in an English drefs. The heroick poem of Ferdufi might be verfified as easily as the Iliad, and I fee no reafon why the delivery of Perfia by Cyrus fhould not be a fubject as interefting to us, as the anger of Achilles, or the wandering of Ulyffes. The Odes of Hafez, and of Mefibi, would fuit our lyrick meafures as well as thofe afcribed to Anacreon; and the feven Arabick elegies, that were hung up in the temple of Mecca, and of which there are feveral fine copies at Oxford, would, no doubt, be highly acceptable to the lovers of antiquity, and the admirers of native genius: but when I pro. pole a translation of these Oriental pieces, as a work likely to meet with fuccefs, I only mean to invite my readers, who have leifure and induftry, to the study of the languages, in which they are written |