Sháh Námeh contained in the present collection. When we consider that the Persian original consists of some one hundred and twenty thousand lines, it will easily be understood that a literal rendering of the whole would make a volume whose bulk would put it far out of reach to the general reader. Atkinson has very wisely furnished us with a masterly résumé of the chief episodes, each of which he outlines in prose, occasionally flashing out into passages of sparkling verse, which run through the narrative like golden threads woven into the tissue of some storied tapestry. The literary style of the translator is admirable. Sometimes, as when he describes the tent of Manijeh, he becomes as simple and direct as Homer in depicting the palace of Alcinous. The language of his Sohrab recalls the pathos of Vergil’s Nisus and Euryalus, and the paternal love and despair of Dante’s Ugolino. But in Rustem the tears of anguish and sorrow seem to vanish like morning dew, in the excitement of fresh adventure, and human feeling, as depicted by Firdusi, lacks not only the refined gradations, but also the intensity, which we see in the Florentine poet. Atkinson’s versification is rather that of Queen Anne’s time than what we of the Victorian age profess to admire in Browning and Tennyson. But it is one of the chief praises of Tennyson that he has treated Sir Thomas Malory very much in the same way as Mr. Atkinson has treated Abul Kasim Mansur, by bringing the essential features of an extinct society within the range of modern vision, and into touch with modern sympathies. All that is of value in Firdusi, to the reader of to-day, will be found in this version of Atkinson, while the philologist or the antiquarian can satisfy their curiosity either in the original, or in the French versions whose fidelity is above suspicion. For it is bare justice to say that James Atkinson’s Firdusi is one of those translations, even though it be at the same time an abridgment, which have taken their place in the rank of British classics. It is the highest praise that can be given to a work of this character to say that it may be placed on the bookshelf side by side with Jeremy Collier’s “Marcus Aurelius,” Leland’s “Demosthenes,” and the “Montaigne” of Charles Cotton. It embalms the genuine spirit and life of an Oriental poem in the simple yet tasteful form of English narrative. The blending of verse and prose is a happy expedient. If
