The poet’s life had been such that the clergy refused to read the burial service over his body when he died, his friends, however, obviated the difficulty by stratagem, and it was decided that scattered couplets from his odes should be placed in a bowl and drawn therefrom by a child, the disposition of the body to be settled by the sense of the couplet thus drawn out. The child took out the following distich: “Withhold not your step from the bier of Hāfiz, For, though sunk in sin, he goes to Paradise.” And upon the strength of the evidence thus received the body was given an honorable burial. FIFTH PERIOD. The fifth period of her literature, beginning with the fourteenth century, and ending about the close of the fifteenth, marks a stationary condition in the Persian world of letters. The sons and grandsons of Timūr, although at variance in their political interests, vied with each other in the encouragement of scholars, and for a time the literary world retained its brilliancy. Astronomy as well as history flourished at this period, and great mathematicians were also in favor with royalty. JĀMI. The most distinguished poet of this period was Nuruddīn Abdurrahman, who very wisely chose the briefer and more euphonious name of Jāmi. He was a native of Jām, a small town near Herāt, the capital of Khorasān, and it was from this circumstance that he called himself Jāmi, which signifies a drinking cup, as well as a native of Jām. It is said that he began his career as a student of science, and attained great proficiency in his chosen field of investigation, but wishing to learn the mysteries of the philosophy of the Sufis, he became a pupil of the Shaikh al Islām Saaduddin, and remained with him until he became a master of the mystic doctrine. On the death of the Shaikh, he succeeded to his position, and filled it so well that kings and princes came from distant lands to obtain his advice, while his home was the resort of scholars, as well as court officials. He was not only the most celebrated poet of his time, but, in the opinion of many, he was superior to his predecessors, and being also a Doctor of the Musselman law, he was honored by all the princes and nobles of the age in which he lived. He was the last great poet and mystic of Persia, and he seemed to combine the moral tone of Sā’dī, with the imagination of Jalal-uddin, the ease of Hāfiz, and the pathos of Nizāmī. He was a master of the Persian language and a most prolific author; Shir Khān Lūdi, in his “Memoirs of the Poets,” claims that he was the author of ninety-nine different works, which continue to be admired in all parts of Īrān and Hindūstān. The enormous expense which has been incurred in the illumination of fine transcripts of his manuscripts, indicates the high position which his works still occupy in the literature of the East.