In these times, when from the difference of manners, and a variety of other circumstances and causes, even the most successful poets cannot boast of the friendship, and profuse liberality of kings, the manner in which the monarchs of the East rewarded them, is almost incredible. The presents, which Abou Teman Habib, a native of Damascus, but who spent his life chiefly at the court of Bagdad, is reported to have received, are enormous. He is said to have had a present of fifty thousand pieces of gold for a single poem. He died before he was forty, and his early death was predicted by a contemporary writer, in these words: “The mind of Abou Teman must soon wear out his body, as the blade of an Indian scimitar destroys its scabbard.” When his mistress accused him of extravagance, he addressed her in the following words: Ungenerous and mistaken maid, To scorn me thus because I'm poor! Canst thou a liberal hand upbraid For dealing round some worthless ore? To spare’s the wish of little souls, The great but gather to bestow; Yon current down the mountain rolls, And stagnates in the swamp below. To these specimens of the elegant and pathetic I cannot avoid adding the three sweet stanzas of Ebn Alrumi, who flourished in the tenth century of the Christian æra, on a lady weeping. When I beheld thy blue eyes shine Thro’ the bright drops that pity drew, I saw beneath those tears of thine A blue eyed violet bath’d in dew. The violet ever scents the gale, Its hues adorn the fairest wreath, But sweetest through a dewy veil Its colours glow, its odours breath. And thus thy charms in brightness rise-- When wit and pleasure round thee play, When mirth sits smiling in thine eyes, Who but admires their sprightly ray? But when thro’ pity’s flood they gleam, Who but must love their soften’d beam?