The Persian Epic could be reconstructed only when the national feeling began to reassert itself, and it was at this period that the patriotism of the people began to recover from the benumbing pressure of Mohammedan rule, and especially in the eastern portions of the empire, a distinctively Persian spirit was revived. It is true that Mohammedanism had taken root even in the national party, but the Arabic tongue was no longer favored by the governors of the eastern provinces. Persian again became the court language of these dignitaries, the native poets were encouraged and began to collect once more the traditions of the empire. It is claimed that Jacob, the son of Leis,[23] the first prince of Persian blood, who declared himself independent of the Caliphs, procured fragments of the early National Epic, and had it rearranged and continued. Then followed the dynasty of the Samanians who claimed descent from the Sassanian kings, and they pursued the same popular policy. The later dynasty of the Gaznevides also encouraged the growth of the national spirit, and the great Persian Epic was written during the reign of Mahmūd the Great, who was the second king of the Gaznevide dynasty. By his command, collections of old books were made all over the empire, and men who knew the ancient poems were summoned to his court. It was from these materials that Firdusī composed his Shāh-Nāmah. “Traditions,” says the poet, “have been given me; nothing of what is worth knowing has been forgotten; all that I shall say others have said before me.” Hence the heroes in the Shāh-Nāmah exhibit many of the traits of the Vedic deities—traits which have lived through the Zoroastrian period, the Achæmenian dynasty, the Macedonian rule, the Parthian wars, and even the Arabian conquest, to be reproduced in the poem of Firdusī. The modern phase of their literature is emphatically an age of poetry; the Persians of these later centuries seem to have been born with a song on their lips, for their poets are numbered by thousands. Not only their books of polite literature, but their histories, ethics and science, nay, even their mathematics and grammar are written in rhyme. There are many volumes of these productions that cannot be dignified by the name of poetry, but their literature is tropical in its development and their annals bear the names of many illustrious poets. Firdusī, author of the great Epic, must always stand at the head of Persian poetry; but Sā’dī with his Būstān and Gūlistān, will ever be a favorite with his own people. Nizāmī of the twelfth century has given us, perhaps, the best version of the beautiful Arabian tragedy of Lilī and Majnūn, and Hāfiz says of the author: “Not all the treasured lore of ancient days Can boast the sweetness of Nizāmī’s lays.”