his opinion when he learns that,
according to certain grave Persian writers, Layla was really of a
swarthy visage, and far from being the beauty her infatuated lover
conceived her to be: thus verifying the dictum of our great dramatist,
in the ever-fresh passage where he makes "the lunatic, the lover, and
the poet" to be "of imagination all compact," the lover seeing "Helen's
beauty in the brow of Egypt!"--Notwithstanding all this, the ancient
legend of Layla and Majnun has proved an inspiring theme to more than
one great poet of Persia, during the most flourishing period of the
literature of that country--for which let us all be duly thankful.

_ADDITIONAL NOTES._

'WAMIK AND ASRA,' p. 289.

This is the title of an ancient Persian poem, composed in the reign of
Nushirvan, A.D. 531-579, of which some fragments only now remain,
incorporated with an Arabian poem. In 1833, Von Hammer published a
German translation, at Vienna: _Wamik und Asra; das ist, Gluehende und
die Bluehende. Das aelteste Persische romantische Gedicht. Jun fuenftelsaft
abgezogen_, von Joseph von Hammer (Wamik and Asra; that is, the Glowing
and the Blowing. The most ancient Persian Romantic Poem. Transfer the
Fifth, etc.) The hero and heroine, namely, Wamik and Asra, are
personifications of the two great principles of heat and vegetation, the
vivifying energy of heaven and the correspondent productiveness of
earth.--This noble poem is the subject of a very interesting article in
the _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. xviii, 1836-7, giving some of the
more striking passages in English verse, of which the following may
serve as a specimen:

'The Blowing One' Asra was justly named,
For she, in mind and form, a blossom stood;
Of beauty, youth, and grace divinely framed,
Of holiest spirit, filled with heavenly good.
The Spring, when warm, in fullest splendour showing,
Breathing gay wishes to the inmost core
Of youthful hearts, and fondest influence throwing,
Yet veiled its bloom, her beauty's bloom before;
For her the devotee his very creed forswore.
Her hair was bright as hyacinthine dyes;
Her cheek was blushing, sheen as Eden's rose;
The soft narcissus tinged her sleeping eyes,
And white her forehead, as the lotus shows
_'Gainst Summer's earliest sunbeams shimmering fair._

A curious story is related by Dawlat Shah regarding this poem, which
bears a close resemblance to the story of the des