d by special revelation; but these ideas were the common stock
of the Iranic peoples, and were inherited by the Persians from a remote
ancestry, not excogitated by themselves. Their taste for art, though
marked, was neither pure nor high. We shall have to consider, in a
future chapter, the architecture and mimetic art of the people to weigh
their merits in these respects, and, at the same time, to note their
deficiencies.

Without anticipating the exact verdict then to be pronounced, we may say
at once that there is nothing in the remains of the Persian architecture
and sculpture that have come down to us indicative of any remarkable
artistic genius; nothing that even places them on a par with the best
works of the kind produced by Orientals. Again, if the great work of
Firdausi represents to us, as it probably does, the true spirit of the
ancient poetry of the Persians, we must conclude that, in the highest
department of art, their efforts were but of moderate merit. A tone of
exaggeration, an imagination exuberant and unrestrained, a preference
for glitter over solid excellence, a love of far-fetched conceits,
characterize the Shahnameh; and, though we may fairly ascribe something
of this to the idiosyncrasy of the poet, still, after we have made all
due allowance upon this score, the conviction presses upon us that there
was a childish and grotesque character in the great mass of the old
Persian poetry, which marks it as the creation of moderate rather than
of high intellectual power, and prevents us from regarding it with the
respect with which we view the labors of the Greeks and Romans, or,
again, of the Hebrews, in this department. A want of seriousness, a
want of reality, and, again, a want of depth, characterize the poetry
of Iran, whose bards do not touch the chords which rouse what is noblest
and highest in our nature. They give us sparkle, prettiness, quaint and
ingenious fancies, grotesque marvels, an inflated kind of human heroism;
but they have none of the higher excellencies of the poetic art, none of
the divine fire which renders the true poet, and the true prophet, one.

Among moral qualities, we must assign to the Persians as their most
marked characteristics, at any rate in the earlier times, courage,
energy, and a regard for truth. The valor of their troops in the great
combats of Platsea and Thermopylae extorted the admiration of their
enemies, who have left on record their belief that, "in boldnes