Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/47

1864.] the subjects; then you will bestir yourself, and snatch them from him, and will fill your treasury. But what good will that do to your poor and miserable people?" The Caliph was ashamed, and ordered the instant punishment of the offender.

It appears, from the anecdotes which Professor Graf has rendered from the Calcutta manuscripts, that Saadi enjoyed very high respect from the great in his own time, and from the Sultan of the Mongolian court,—and that he used very plain dealing with this last, for the redress of grievances which fell under his notice. These, with other passages, mark the state of society wherein a shepherd becomes a robber, then a conqueror, and then sultan. In a rude and religious society, a poet and traveller is thereby a noble and the associate of princes, a teacher of religion, a mediator between the people and the prince, and, by his exceptional position, uses great freedom with the rulers. The growth of cities and increase of trade rapidly block up this bold access of truth to the courts, as the narrator of these events in Saadi's life plainly intimates. "The Sultan, Abake Khan, found great pleasure in the verses. Truly, at the present time, no learned men or Sheiks would dare to utter such advice, even to a grocer or a butcher; and hence, also, is the world in such bad plight as we see."

The Persians have been called "the French of Asia"; and their superior intelligence, their esteem for men of learning, their welcome to Western travellers, and their tolerance of Christian sects in their territory, as contrasted with Turkish fanaticism, would seem to derive from the rich culture of this great choir of poets, perpetually reinforced through five hundred years, which again and again has enabled the Persians to refine and civilize their conquerors, and to preserve a national identity. To the expansion of this influence there is no limit; and we wish that the promised republication may add to the genius of Saadi a new audience in America.

, from many a little throat,

A warble interrupted long;

I hear the robin's flute-like note,

The bluebird's slenderer song.

Brown meadows and the russet hill,

Not yet the haunt of grazing herds,

And thickets by the glimmering rill

Are all alive with birds.

O Choir of Spring, why come so soon?

On leafless grove and herbless lawn

Warm lie the yellow beams of noon;

Yet winter is not gone.

For frost shall sheet the pools again;

Again the blustering East shall blow,