This is the monument he left to mankind, and great and small have celebrated his name.' The collector of this first epic poem, under Yezdegird, is called a Dihkan by Firdusi. Dihkan, according to the Persian dictionaries, means (1) farmer, (2) historian; and the reason commonly assigned for this double meaning is, that the Persian farmers happened to be well read in history. Quatremère, however, has proved that the Dihkans were the landed nobility of Persia; that they kept up a certain independence, even under the sway of the Mohammedan Khalifs, and exercised in the country a sort of jurisdiction in spite of the commissioners sent from Baghdad, the seat of the government. Thus Danishver even is called a Dihkan, although he lived previous to the Arab conquest. With him, the title was only intended to show that it was in the country and among the peasants that he picked up the traditions and songs about Jemshid, Feridun, and Rustem. Of his work, however, we know nothing. It was destroyed by Omar; and, though it survived in an Arabic translation, even this was lost in later times. The work, therefore, had to be recommenced when in the eastern provinces of Persia a national, though no longer a Zoroastrian, feeling began to revive. The governors of these provinces became independent as soon as the power of the Khalifs, after its rapid rise, began to show signs of weakness. Though the Mohammedan religion had taken root, even among the national party, yet Arabic was no longer countenanced by the governors of the eastern provinces. Persian was spoken again at their courts, Persian poets were encouraged, and ancient national traditions, stripped of their religious garb, began to be collected anew. It is said that Jacob, the son of Leis (870), the first prince of Persian blood who declared himself independent of the Khalifs, procured fragments of Danishver's epic, and had it rearranged and continued. Then followed the dynasty of the Samanians, who claimed descent from the Sassanian kings. They, as well as the later dynasty of the Gaznevides, pursued the same popular policy. They were strong because they rested on the support of a national Persian spirit. The national epic poet of the Samanians was Dakiki, by birth a Zoroastrian. Firdusi possessed fragments of his work, and has given a specimen of it in the story of Gushtasp. The final accomplishment, however, of an idea, first cherished by Nushirvan, was reserved for Mahmud the Great, the second king of the Gaznevide dynasty. By his command collections of old books were made all over the empire. Men who knew ancient poems were summoned to the court. One of them was Ader Berzin, who had spent his whole life in collecting popular accounts of the ancient kings of Persia. Another was Serv Azad, from Merv, who claimed descent from Neriman, and knew all the tales concerning Sam, Zal, and Rustem, which had been preserved in his family. It was from these materials that Firdusi composed his great epic, the