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 and independent scholar and poet, he does not escape the inconsistency which often follows in the wake of cavil. Read this, for instance:

And this, not on the same page perhaps, but close to it:

(g) Biography of Abu'l-Ala by Adh-Dhahabi.

(h) "The Letters, which abound in quotations, enable us to gauge the power of his memory better than these wonder-loving narrators."—D. S. Margoliouth.

(i) In one of his poems he speaks of three prisons, his body being the third. Here is Professor Nicholson's translation:
 * Methink I am thrice-imprisoned—ask not me
 * Of news that need no telling—
 * By loss of sight, confinement in my house,
 * And this vile body for my spirit's dwelling.

(j) Also his Commentary on the works of the poet Al-Mutanabbi.

(k) Adh-Dhahabi gives the titles of forty-eight of his works, to which Safadi adds fourteen. A literary baggage of considerable bulk, had not most of it