with notes and remarks, have been reprinted by
Mr. W.A. Clouston, in his 'Arabian Poetry for English Readers,' at
Glasgow in 1881, and is a work well worthy of a perusal by any persons
who may be interested in the subject.

The names of the three ancient Arab poets considered to have been
possessed of equal talent with the authors of the Mua'llakat, are
Nabiga, Al-Kama, and Al-Aasha, and some specimens of their
composition, as also of those of other pre-Islamite poets, are to be
found in the fifteenth volume, No. 39, pages 65-108, of the 'Bombay
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,' translated by Mr. E. Rehatsek in
1881.

Second Period.

From Muhammad and his immediate successors (Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and
Ali), through the Omaiyide and Abbaside dynasties, to the end of the
Khalifate of Baghdad, A.D. 1258.

The legislator of Islam, whose era began on the 16th July, A.D. 622
(though his actual departure from Mecca has been calculated to have
taken place on the 20th June, A.D. 622), is here to be considered not
from an historical, but from a poetical point of view. Although
Muhammad despised the metres in which the bards of his nation chanted
their Kasidas, and himself gave utterance in the name of Heaven to the
inspirations of his genius only in richly-modulated and rhymed prose,
nevertheless, according to the Oriental idea, he was regarded as a
poet. Those who declare that he was not a poet overlook the
circumstance that he was vehemently assailed by contemporary poets,
who attempted to degrade his heaven-inspired Surahs into mere poetical
fables. He himself protested against this insinuation, and declared at
the end of the 26th Surah, entitled 'The Poets,' that those are in
error who believe poets, as follows:

'And those who err follow the poets; dost thou not see how they roam
(as bereft of their senses) through every valley (of the imagination)
and that they say things which they do not perform? ... Except those
who believe, and do good works, and remember God frequently, and those
who defend themselves after they have been unjustly treated by poets
in their lampoons, and they who act unjustly shall know hereafter with
what treatment they shall be treated.'

These lines are important as far as the history of literature is
concerned. They are written against inimical poets, but distinguish
the friendly ones, who, taking the part of Muhammad, repaid the
lampooning poets in their own coin.

Some of the ho