Rizâ Koolee is also an old servant of the Kajir princes. He is a man of talent; his manners are peculiarly pleasing, and he is one of the most eloquent persons I have heard in Persia. I had not the same opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with this minister, as with others; but, if common report is to be believed, he has few superiors in good sense or good feeling. He has evinced none of that precocious ambition which is so common with his countrymen. He is reputed to be a modest as well as a deserving man, and the favour and fortune he has attained have not been acquired by means which could make him enemies. By not pressing into the front rank, he has long combined safety with advancement.[148] These are the principal ministers of the king; but Meerzâ Boozoorg, who has long presided, under the title of Kâim Mekâm, over the councils of the heir-apparent, may be said to have much more influence than any of them in the political department. He has greater experience, and understands the foreign interests of his country, better than any other minister; and joins to an equal temper, a thorough knowledge of the nature of his own situation, and the characters of those it is his duty to serve and obey. He amused me one day, by telling me the rule by which he had hitherto escaped, and trusted he should continue to escape, the common fate of Persian ministers. "I never," said he, "accumulate money or property; I have a small inheritance in land, which has been in my family for centuries; this cannot, in accordance with usage, be confiscated: and as to every thing else, I spend it as I get it. This principle is known; and the king," he added, "often laughs, and says, 'I should not gain one piastre by the death and plunder of that extravagant fellow, Meerzâ Boozoorg.'"[149] I must not forget in this place to mention Meerzâ Abd-ool-Wahhâb, who has long been, and still continues, the Moonshee-ool-Memâlik, or chief letter-writer of the state; and well he merits his eminence. I recognised his talent for the sublime, from the difficulty I had in discovering his meaning, amidst the clouds of tropes and metaphors with which it is always enveloped. That, however, is the taste of his country; and the man must have merit, who stands acknowledged to be the first in an art, in which all Persians of liberal education strive to excel. His character, in other respects, is that of a very sensible and respectable man; though an old Moollâh, a friend of mind, shook his head when I praised him, and whispered, "All you say may be true, but he is an inveterate Soofee."