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The Persian writers frequently compare their poets to nightingales; and, indeed, Hafez has acquired the constant appellation of the Persian Nightingale;' to this the bard alludes in his sixth ode, as

has been noticed in the Introduction to our ne (p. xliv); Hafez, speaking of our eagernjoy the pleasures of the Spring, beautierves, We drop, like nightingales, into the The rose. Again, in his seventh ode, he Hafez, thou desirest, like the nightingales, nce of the rose: let thy very soul be a ranthe earth, where the keeper of the rosealks!' In the eighth ode, also, we have the

The youthful season's wonted bloom
Renews the beauty of each bow'r,
And to the sweet-songed bird is come

Glad welcome from its darling flow'r.

sixth stanza of the ninth ode, the bard again co this favourite fiction, which, literally transould stand thus:- When the rose rides in like Solomon', the bird of morn comes forth melody of David.' In Ode XIII, on the f Spring, we are presented with the following 1 stanza on the same subject:

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The love-struck nightingale's delightful strain,
The lark's resounding note are heard again;
Again the rose, to hail Spring's festive day,
From the cold house of sorrow hastes away.

William Ouseley, who resided for some time az in the year 1811, says that he passed many n listening to the melody of the nightingales pounded in the gardens in the vicinity of this and he was assured by persons of credit that of these birds had expired while contending musicians in the loudness or variety of their Sir William Jones2 records a similar conot mortal, but of extraordinary result.

An

= comparison of the beauty of a flower to the richness of King 's attire, was, perhaps, a favourite figure among the Eastern and may be found in holy writ. (Luke xii, 27.)

atic Researches, vol. iii, p. 57. Lond. 1801, 8vo.

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intelligent Persian, who repeated his story again and again, and permitted Sir William to write it down from his lips, declared, that he had more than once been present when a celebrated lutanist, Mirza Mohammed, surnamed Bulbul (nightingale), was playing to a large company in a grove near Shiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument whence the melody proceeded; and, at length, dropping on the ground in a kind of ecstasy from which they were soon raised, by a change of the mode.

In confirmation of the Persian report given by Sir William Ouseley, it may be mentioned, that, according to Pliny (Nat. Hist. lib. xc, 29), in vocal trials among nightingales, the vanquished bird terminated its song only with its life; and Strada (lib. ii, prolus. vi) supposes the spirit of emulation so powerful in the nightingale, that, having strained her little throat, vainly endeavouring to excel the musician, she breathes out her life in one last effort, and drops upon the instrument which had contributed to her defeat. Strada's poem on this subject, though long, is too interesting to be omitted; we give it in the beautiful version of Crashaw, an undeservedly neglected poet who lived in the time of Charles I:

Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams
Of noon's high glory, when hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection of an oak, there sate
A sweet lute's-master; in whose gentle airs
He lost the day's heat, and his own hot cares.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A nightingale, come from the neighbouring wood:..
(The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree,
Their muse, their syren, harmless syren she)
There stood she list'ning, and did entertain
The musick's soft report, and mold the same

man perceived his rival, and her art,
osed to give the light-foot lady sport,
kes his lute, and 'gainst the fight to come
ms it, in a sweet præludium

oser strains, and e'er the war begin,
ightly skirmishes on every string

ged with a flying touch; and streightway she ves out her dainty voice as readily,

- a thousand sweet distinguished tones, reckons up in soft divisions

rk volumes of wild notes; to let him know,
that shrill taste, she could do something too.
His nimble hand's instinct then taught each string
apʼring cheerfulness; and made them sing
their own dance; now negligently rash
throws his arm, and with a long-drawn dash
uds all together; then distinctly trips
om this to that, then quick returning skips
d snatches this again, and pauses there.
= measures every measure, every where
eets art with art; sometimes as if in doubt
ot perfect yet, and fearing to be out,

ails her plain ditty in one long-spun note,
rough the sleek passage of her open throat,
clear unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
ith tender accents, and severely joynt it
y short diminutives, that being reared
controverting warbles evenly shared,

ith her sweet self she wrangles; he amazed,
hat from so small a channel should be raised
he torrent of a voice, whose melody

ould melt into such sweet variety,

trains higher yet, that tickled with rare art
The tatling strings, each breathing in his part,
Tost kindly do fall out; the grumbling base
In surly groans disdains the treble's grace;
The high-perch't treble chirps at this, and chides,
Until his finger (moderator) hides

And closes the sweet quarrel, ronsing all
Hoarse, shrill at once; as when the trumpets call
Hot Mars to th' harvest of death's field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands: this lesson too
She gives them back; her supple breast thrills out
Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o'er her skill,
And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill,

The plyant series of her slippery song;
Then starts she suddenly into a throng

Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float,
And roll themselves over her lubrick throat

In panting murmurs, stilled out of her breast;
That ever-bubbling spring, the sugred nest
Of her delicious soul, that there does lye
Bathing in streams of liquid melodie;
Musick's best seed-plot; when in ripened airs
A golden-headed harvest fairly rears

His honey-dropping tops, ploughed by her breath
Which there reciprocally laboureth.

In that sweet soyl it seems a holy quire,
Sounded to th' name of great Apollo's lyre;
Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes

Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats
In cream of morning Helicon, and then

Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men,

To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their mattens sing: (Most divine service) whose so early lay

Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day.

There might you hear her kindle her soft voice,
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise;
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song,
Still keeping in the forward stream, so long
Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out)
Heaves her soft bosome, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast,
Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest;
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky
Winged with their own wild echo's pratling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the waved back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train ;
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool epode of a graver note.

Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat

Would reach the brazen voice of war's hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravisht: and so poured

Into loose ecstacies, that she is plac't

Above herself, musick's enthusiast.

Shame now and anger mixt a double stain

In the musician's face; yet, once again,

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