From this summary of Tha‘álibí's criticism the reader will easily perceive that the chief merits of poetry were then considered to lie in elegant expression, subtle combination of words, fanciful imagery, witty conceits, and a striking use of rhetorical figures. Such, indeed, are the views which prevail to this day throughout the whole Muḥammadan world, and it is unreasonable to denounce them as false simply because they do not square with ours. Who shall decide when nations disagree? If Englishmen rightly claim to be the best judges of Shakespeare, and Italians of Dante, the almost unanimous verdict of Mutanabbí's countrymen is surely not less authoritative--a verdict which places him at the head of all the poets born or made in Islam. And although the peculiar excellences indicated by Tha‘álibí do not appeal to us, there are few poets that leave so distinct an impression of greatness. One might call Mutanabbí the Victor Hugo of the East, for he has the grand style whether he soars to sublimity or sinks to fustian. In the masculine vigour of his verse, in the sweep and splendour of his rhetoric, in the luxuriance and reckless audacity of his imagination we recognise qualities which inspired the oft-quoted lines of the elegist:-- "Him did his mighty soul supply With regal pomp and majesty. A Prophet by his _diction_ known; But in the _ideas_, all must own, His miracles were clearly shown."[576] One feature of Mutanabbí's poetry that is praised by Tha‘álibí should not be left unnoticed, namely, his fondness for sententious moralising on topics connected with human life; wherefore Reiske has compared him to Euripides. He is allowed to be a master of that proverbial philosophy in which Orientals delight and which is characteristic of the modern school beginning with Abu ’l-‘Atáhiya, though some of the ancients had already cultivated it with success (cf. the verses of Zuhayr, p. 118 _supra_). The following examples are among those cited by Bohlen (_op. cit._, p. 86 sqq.):-- "When an old man cries 'Ugh!' he is not tired Of life, but only tired of feebleness."[577] "He that hath been familiar with the world A long while, in his eye 'tis turned about Until he sees how false what looked so fair."[578] "The sage's mind still makes him miserable In his most happy fortune, but poor fools Find happiness even in their misery."[579] [Sidenote: Abu ’l-‘Alá al-Ma‘arrí (973-1057 A.D.).] [Sidenote: His visit to Baghdád.]