language with the utmost exactness; let him then lay aside the original, and after a proper interval let him turn the same chapter back into Persian by the assistance of the grammar and dictionary: let him afterwards compare his second translation with the original, and correct its faults according to that model. This is the exercise so often recommended by the old rhetoricians, by which a student will gradually acquire the style and manner of any author, whom he desires to imitate, and by which almost any language may be learned in six months with ease and pleasure. When he can express his sentiments in Persian with tolerable facility, I would advise him to read some elegant history or poem with an intelligent native, who will explain to him in common words the refined expressions that occur in reading, and will point out the beauties of learned allusions and local images. The most excellent book in the language, is, in my opinion, the collection of tales and fables called Anwārī Suhaili, by Hussein Vaés, surnamed Cashefi, who took the celebrated work of Bidpai or Pilpay for his text, and has comprised all the wisdom of the Eastern nations, in fourteen beautiful chapters. At some leisure hour he may desire his Munshi or writer to transcribe a section from the Gulistán, or a fable of Cashefi, in the common broken hand used in India, which he will learn perfectly in a few days by comparing all its turns and contractions with the more regular hands of the Arabs and Persians: he must not be discouraged by the difficulty of reading the Indian letters, for the characters are in reality the same with those in which our books are printed, and are only rendered difficult by the frequent omission of the diacritical points, and the want of regularity in the position of the words: but we all know that we are often at a loss to read letters which we receive in our native tongue; and it has been proved that a man who has a perfect knowledge of any language, may with a proper attention decypher a
