The seventh period, beginning near the close of the sixteenth century and continuing until about the end of the eighteenth, shows a marked decline in Persian literature. With Shāh Akbar[283] and Shāh Abbas,[284] who occupied respectively the thrones of India and of Persia, the brilliancy of Persian literature, and especially of her poetry, entirely disappeared. During this period no poet has arisen above mediocrity, and no historian has appeared who could be compared with his predecessors. The successors of Akbar, it is true, left contributions to the history at their time, and a valuable dictionary of the Persian language was compiled from forty similar works, but in lieu of poetry and history, letter-writing began to flourish in both India and Persia. Elegant calligraphy was now carried to an extreme, and a vast amount of time and labor were expended upon private as well as official letters. The state secretaries vied with each other in the production of elaborate credentials for their ambassadors, and generally men of education who were well read in the best Persian poets, and able to recite their best passages, when occasion permitted, were selected for ambassadors. From the time of Nadīr Shāh up to the present, Persia has suffered many revolutions, wars and famines, and although they could not destroy the admiration still bestowed upon their great poets, the genius of the race appears to have become extinct. The poetry of the eighteenth century is of little value, and the dominant spirit of the nineteenth is pure mysticism, as embodied in the doctrines of the Sufis. Nations, as well as individuals, have their periods of mental growth and decay, and when once fallen they seldom rise again. History, however, has some splendid exceptions to this rule, and Persia has had three successive periods of intellectual prosperity,—three times has the national spirit awakened as from a torpor, and for a season it has gleamed like a star in the Orient, but three times it has either died out, or been crushed beneath the storm of conquest. Elated with their success under the brilliant leadership of Cyrus, a change which was almost fatal took place in Persian character, between his reign and that of Darius. Thus his own people proved the truth of the warning words of Cyrus, to the effect that “the effeminate clime produces effeminate inhabitants, nor can the same soil produce excellent fruits and men who are valiant in war.”[285] Under the Sassanian kings, however, the national spirit revived, and the literature of Persia sprang to life, only to be trampled beneath the foot of the Arabian invader. Toward the close of the ninth century her world of letters again revived and flourished in various forms during the six periods which have been previously discussed.