mischief of
the amusement of kings. In the peaceful prosperity of his reign, the
cities of Asia were adorned with palaces and hospitals with moschs and
colleges; few departed from his Divan without reward, and none without
justice. The language and literature of Persia revived under the house
of Seljuk; [42] and if Malek emulated the liberality of a Turk less
potent than himself, [43] his palace might resound with the songs of a
hundred poets. The sultan bestowed a more serious and learned care
on the reformation of the calendar, which was effected by a general
assembly of the astronomers of the East. By a law of the prophet, the
Moslems are confined to the irregular course of the lunar months; in
Persia, since the age of Zoroaster, the revolution of the sun has been
known and celebrated as an annual festival; [44] but after the fall of
the Magian empire, the intercalation had been neglected; the fractions
of minutes and hours were multiplied into days; and the date of the
springs was removed from the sign of Aries to that of Pisces. The reign
of Malek was illustrated by the Gelalaean aera; and all errors, either
past or future, were corrected by a computation of time, which surpasses
the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian, style. [45]

[Footnote 41: The Bibliotheque Orientale has given the text of the reign
of Malek, (p. 542, 543, 544, 654, 655;) and the Histoire Generale des
Huns (tom. iii. p. 214-224) has added the usual measure of repetition
emendation, and supplement. Without those two learned Frenchmen I should
be blind indeed in the Eastern world.]

[Footnote 42: See an excellent discourse at the end of Sir William
Jones's History of Nadir Shah, and the articles of the poets, Amak,
Anvari, Raschidi, &c., in the Bibliotheque Orientale. ]

[Footnote 43: His name was Kheder Khan. Four bags were placed round
his sopha, and as he listened to the song, he cast handfuls of gold and
silver to the poets, (D'Herbelot, p. 107.) All this may be true; but I
do not understand how he could reign in Transoxiana in the time of Malek
Shah, and much less how Kheder could surpass him in power and pomp. I
suspect that the beginning, not the end, of the xith century is the true
aera of his reign.]

[Footnote 44: See Chardin, Voyages en Perse, tom. ii. p. 235.]

[Footnote 45: The Gelalaean aera (Gelaleddin, Glory of the Faith, was
one of the names or titles of Malek Shah) is fixed to the xvth of March,
A. H. 471,