appendix to Hyde's Veterum Persarum Religio, p. 529; and D'Herbelot alludes to it in his Bibliothèque, under Khiam:-1 "It is written in the chronicles of the ancients 'that this King of the Wise, Omar Khayyám, died at 'Naishápúr in the year of the Hegira, 517 (A. D. 1123); in science he was unrivalled,-the very paragon of 'his age. Khwajah Nizámi of Samarcand, who was 'one of his pupils, relates the following story: 'I often 'used to hold conversations with my teacher, Omar 'Khayyám, in a garden; and one day he said to me, "My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind 'may scatter roses over it.' I wondered at the words 'he spake, but I knew that his were no idle words.2 'Years after, when I chanced to revisit Naishápúr, I went to his final resting-place, and lo! it was 'just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit 'stretched their boughs over the garden wall, and 'dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so as the stone 6 was hidden under them."" 1 66 Philosophe Musulman-qui a vêcu en Odeur de Sainteté vers la Fin du premier et le Commencement du second Siècle,” no part of which, except the "Philosophe," can apply to our Khayyám. 2 The Rashness of the Words, according to D'Herbelot, consisted in being so opposed to those in the Korán: "No Man knows where he shall die.”—This Story of Omar reminds me of another so naturally-and, when one remembers how wide of his humble mark the noble sailor aimed-so pathetically told by Captain Cook-not by Doctor Hawkesworth-in his Second Voyage. When leaving Ulietea, "Oreo's last request was for me to return. When he saw he could not obtain that promise, he 术 Thus far-without fear of Trespass-from the Calcutta Review. The writer of it, on reading in India this story of Omar's Grave, was reminded, he says, of Cicero's Account of finding Archimedes' Tomb at Syracuse, buried in grass and weeds. I think Thorwaldsen desired to have roses grow over him; a wish religiously fulfilled for him to the present day, I believe. However, to return to Omar. Though the Sultan "shower'd Favours upon him," Omar's Epicurean Audacity of Thought and Speech caused him to be regarded askance in his own Time and Country. He is said to have been especially hated and dreaded by the Súfis, whose Practice he ridiculed, and whose Faith amounts to little more than his own when stript of the Mysticism and formal recognition of Islamism under which Omar would not hide. Their Poets, including Háfiz, who are (with the exception of Firdausi) the most considerable in Persia, borrowed largely, indeed, of Omar's material, but turning it to a mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and the People they addressed; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief; as keen of Bodily Sense as of asked the name of my Marai-Burying-place. As strange a question as this was, I hesitated not a moment to tell him 'Stepney,' the parish in which I live when in London. I was made to repeat it several times over till they could pronounce it; and then 'Stepney Marai no Toote' was echoed through a hundred mouths at once. I afterwards found the same question had been put to Mr. Forster by a man on shore; but he gave a different, and indeed more proper answer, by saying, 'No man who used the sea could say where he should be buried.'" Intellectual; and delighting in a cloudy composition of both, in which they could float luxuriously between Heaven and Earth, and this World and the Next, on the wings of a poetical expression, that might serve indifferently for either. Omar was too honest of Heart as well as of Head for this. Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding any Providence but Destiny, and any World but This, he set about making the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them, than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might be. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous or perverse pleasure in exalting the gratification of Sense above that of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight, although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in common with all men, was most vitally interested. For whatever Reason, however, Omar, as before said, has never been popular in his own Country, and therefore has been but scantily transmitted abroad. The MSS. of his Poems, mutilated beyond the average Casualties of Oriental Transcription, are so rare in the East as scarce to have reacht Westward at all, in spite of all the acquisitions of Arms and Science. There is no copy at the India House, none at the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris. We know but of one in England: No. 140 of the Ouseley MSS. at the Bodleian, written. at Shiraz, A. D. 1460. This contains but 158 Rubáiyát. One in the Asiatic Society's Library at Calcutta (of "Oh Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn "How long be crying, 'Mercy on them, God!' The Bodleian Quatrain pleads Pantheism by way of "If I myself upon a looser Creed "Have loosely strung the Jewel of Good deed, The Reviewer, to whom I owe the Particulars of "Since this Paper was written" (adds the Reviewer in a note), "we have met with a Copy of a very rare Edition, printed at Calcutta in 1836. This contains 438 Tetrastichs, with an Appendix containing 54 others not found in some MSS." 示 with Lucretius, both as to natural Temper and Genius, and as acted upon by the Circumstances in which he lived. Both indeed were men of subtle, strong, and cultivated Intellect, fine Imagination, and Hearts passionate for Truth and Justice; who justly revolted from their Country's false Religion, and false, or foolish, Devotion to it; but who fell short of replacing what they subverted by such better Hope as others, with no better Revelation to guide them, had yet made a Law to themselves. Lucretius, indeed, with such material as Epicurus furnished, satisfied himself with the theory of a vast machine fortuitously constructed, and acting by a Law that implied no Legislator; and so composing himself into a Stoical rather than Epicurean severity of Attitude, sat down to contemplate the mechanical Drama of the Universe which he was part Actor in; himself and all about him (as in his own. sublime description of the Roman Theatre) discoloured with the lurid reflex of the Curtain suspended between the Spectator and the Sun. Omar, more desperate, or more careless of any so complicated System as resulted in nothing but hopeless Necessity, flung his own Genius and Learning with a bitter or humorous jest into the general Ruin which their insufficient glimpses only served to reveal; and, pretending sensual pleasure as the serious purpose of Life, only diverted himself with speculative problems of Deity, Destiny, Matter and Spirit, Good and Evil, and other such questions, easier to start than to run down, |