you injured me in sending me away from this station for ten dínars; for where I went they will give me twenty dínars to remove to another place, to which I have not consented." The intendant laughed, and said: "Take care-don't accept of the offer, for they may be willing to give you fifty."

are

To those who have "music in their souls," and are "moved by concord of sweet sounds," the tones of a harsh voice are excruciating; and if among our statesmen and other public speakers "silver tongues rare, they are much more so among our preachers. The Church of Rome does not admit into the priesthood men who have any bodily shortcoming or defect; it would also be well if all candidates for holy orders in the English and Scottish Churches whose voices are not at least tolerable were rejected, as unfit to preach! Saádí seems to have had a great horror of braying orators, and relates a number of anecdotes about them, such as this: A preacher who had a detestable voice, but thought he had a very sweet one, bawled out to no purpose. You would say the croaking of the crow in the desert was the burden of his song, and that this verse of the Kurán was intended for him, "Verily the most detestable of sounds is the braying of an ass." When this ass of a preacher brayed, it made Persepolis tremble. The people of the town, on account of the respectability of his office, submitted to the calamity, and did not think it advisable to molest him, until one of the neighbouring preachers, who was secretly ill-disposed towards him,

came once to see him, and said: "I have had a dream -may it prove good!" "What did you dream?" "I thought you had a sweet voice, and that the people were enjoying tranquility from your discourse." The preacher, after reflecting a little, replied: “What a happy dream is this that you have had, which has discovered to me my defect, in that I have an unpleasant voice, and that the people are distressed at my preaching. I am resolved that in future I will read only in a low tone. The company of friends was disadvantageous to me, because they look on my bad manners as excellent: : my defects appear to them skill and perfection, and my thorn as the rose and the jasmin."

Our author, as we have seen, enlivens his moral discourses occasionally with humorous stories, and one or two more of these may fittingly close the present section: One of the slaves of Amrúlais having run away, a person was sent in pursuit of him and brought him back. The vazír, being inimical to him, commanded him to be put to death in order to deter other slaves from committing the like offence. The slave prostrated himself before Amrúlais and said: "Whatever may happen to me with your approbation is lawful-what plea can the slave offer against the sentence of his lord? But, seeing that I have been brought up under the bounties of your house, I do not wish that at the resurrection you shall be charged with my blood. If you are resolved to kill your slave, do so comformably to the interpretation of the

law, in order that at the resurrection you may not The king asked: "After what

suffer reproach."

The slave replied:

vazír, and then, in

manner shall I expound it?" "Give me leave to kill the retaliation for him, order me to be put to death, that you may kill me justly." The king laughed, and asked the vazír what was his advice in this matter. Quoth the vazír: "O my lord, as an offering to the tomb of your father, liberate this rogue, in order that I may not also fall into this calamity. The crime is on my side, for. not having observed the words of the sages, who say, 'When you combat with one who flings clods of earth, you break your own head by your folly: when you shoot at the face of your enemy, be careful that you sit out of his aim."—And not a little wit, too, did the kází exhibit when detected by the king in an intrigue with a farrier's daughter, and his Majesty gave order that he should be flung from the top of the castle, "as an example for others"; to which the kází replied: "O monarch of the universe, I have been fostered in your family, and am not singular in the commission of such crimes; therefore, I ask you to precipitate some one else, in order that I may benefit by the example." The king laughed at his wit, and spared his life.-Nor is this tale without a spice of humour: An astrologer entered his house and finding a stranger in company with his wife abused him, and called him such opprobrious names that a quarrel and strife ensued. A shrewd man, being informed of this, said to the astrologer: "What

do you know of the heavenly bodies, when you cannot tell what goes on in your own house?"-Last, and perhaps best of all, is this one: I was hesitating about concluding a bargain for a house, when a Jew said: I am an old householder in that quarter; inquire of me the description of the house, and buy it, for it has no fault." I replied: "Excepting that you are one of the neighbours!"

BESIDES the maxims comprised in the concluding chapter of the Gulistán, under the heading of "Rules for the Conduct of Life," many others, of great pith and moment, are interspersed with the tales and anecdotes which Saádí recounts in the preceding chapters, a selection of which can hardly fail to prove both instructive and interesting.

It is related that at the court of Núshírván, king

1 There is a similar story to this in one of our old English jest-books, Tales and Quicke Answeres, 1535, as follows (I have modernised the spelling): As an astronomer [i.e. an astrologer] sat upon a time in the market place, and took upon him to divine and to show what their fortunes and chances should be that came to him, there came a fellow and told him (as it was indeed) that thieves had broken into his house, and had borne away all that he had. These tidings grieved him so sore that, all heavy and sorrowfully, he rose up and went his way. When the fellow saw him do so, he said: "O thou foolish and mad man! goest thou about to divine other men's matters, and art ignorant of thine own?"

of Persia, a number of wise men were discussing a difficult question; and Buzurjmihr (his famous prime minister), being silent, was asked why he did not take part in the debate. He answered: "Ministers are like physicians, and the physician gives medicine to the sick only. Therefore, when I see your opinions are judicious, it would not be consistent with wisdom for me to obtrude my sentiments. When a matter can be managed without my interference it is not proper for me to speak on the subject. But if I see a blind man in the way of a well, should I keep silence it were a crime." On another occasion, when some Indian sages were discoursing on his virtue, they could discover in him only this fault, that he hesitated in his speech, so that his hearers were kept a long time in suspense before he delivered his sentiments. Buzurjmihr overheard their conversation and observed: "It is better to deliberate before I speak than to repent of what I have said."1

A parallel to this last saying of the Persian vazír is found in a "notable sentence" of a wise Greek, in this passage from the Dictes, or Sayings of Philosophers, printed by Caxton (I have modernised the spelling):

"There came before a certain king three wise men, a

1 The sayings of Buzurjmihr, the sagacious prime minister of King Núshírván, are often cited by Persian writers, and a curious story of his precocity when a mere youth is told in the Latá’yif atTaw'áyif, a Persian collection, made by Al-Káshifí, of which a translation will be found in my Analogues and Variants" of the Tales in vol. iii of Sir R. F. Burton's Supplemental Arabian Nights, pp. 567-9-too long for reproduction here.

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