only do I find no manuscript, printed edition, or even phraseology, to sanction it, but the opinions of intelligent and learned Persians whom I have had the opportunity to consult, directly against it.
- ↑ I have in one place written, &c. در تصریف, which is not quite so good.
I know: and, until I am informed to the contrary, I shall contend that M. de Sacy left this phrase nearly as bad as he found it. But the phrase is in other respects wrong; نحو is applied generally to the Syntax. To make this title suit the work, therefore, we should have در صرف ونحو پارسي[1] as it has been given in this edition, and not در نحو زبان پارسي which is not Persian phraseology. There is another trifling mistake in M. de Sacy's article, which is in the measure he gives of some verses occurring in the Praxis, (p. ib. 202), Gram. p. 198. The measure he gives is مفاعیان مفاعیلن مفاعیلن, which will neither suit the verse in question, nor his own scansion of it as given a little lower down; viz. Ghŭlēsch sĭrā-[bĭ zābī zīn-]dĕghānī, where it is impossible, as I conceive, to make dĕghānī, equal in measure to مفاعیلن, i.e. the quantity ⏑–– equal to ⏑–––; but this must be an oversight. There is still another trifling mistake made by us both in the word عطر (p. 203) which he writes at-rĭ, instead of it-rĭ, (عِطْر) as given by Golius and the Author of the Kamoos, and which I have corrected in this edition. We differ in one instance more. It is the second example given at p. 197 of the Grammar. The measure proposed by M. de Sacy is مَفْغُولُ فاعِلَاتُنْ مَفَاعِیلُ فَاعِلَاتْ, which, I am sorry to say, is like that proposed by myself, to be found in no treatise on the Persian Prosody, although the verses in question may be scanned by either of them. The proper measure is مفعولُ فاعلاتُ مفعایلُ فاعلات, and is to be found in Mr. Gladwin's work in p. 124.
