Erskine further quotes,[14] from a manuscript copy of the Dabistán which he saw in the possession of Mulla Firuz, in Bombay, the following marginal note annexed to the close of chapter XIV.: “In the city of Daurse, a king of the Parsis, of the race of the imperial Anushirván, the Shet Dawer Huryár, conversed with _Amír Zulfikar Ali-al-Husaini_ (on whom be the grace of God!), whose poetical name was Mobed Shah.” This Zulfikar Ali, whoever he was, the Mulla supposes to be the author of the Dabistán. Erskine judiciously subjoins: “On so slight an authority, I would not willingly set up an unknown author as the compiler of that work; but it is to be remarked that many verses of Mobed’s are quoted in the Dabistán, and there is certainly reason to suspect that the poetical Mobed, whoever he may be, was the author of that compilation.” “To this let it be added, that the author of the Dabistán; in his account of Mobed Serosh, says[15] that one Muhammed Mohsan, a man of learning, told him that he had heard Mobed Serosh give three hundred and sixty proofs of the existence of God. This at least makes Muhammed Mohsan, whoever he may be, a different person from the author of the Dabistán.” I cannot omit adding the following notice annexed to the note quoted above: “Between the printed copy and Mulla Firuz’s manuscript before alluded to, a difference occurs in the very beginning of the work. After the poetical address to the Deity and the praise of the prophet, with which the Dabistán, like most other Muselman works, commences, the manuscript reads: ‘Mohsan Fani says,’ and two moral couplets succeed. In the printed copy, the words ‘Mohsan Fani says,’――which should occur between the last word of the first page and the first word of the second――are omitted. As no account of the author is given in the beginning of the book, as is usual with Muselman writers, Mulla Firuz conjectures that a careless or ignorant reader may have considered the words ‘Mohsan Fáni says’ as forming the commencement of the volume, and as containing the name of the author of the whole book; whereas they merely indicate the author of the couplets that follow, and would rather show that Mohsan Fani was not the writer of the Dabistán. This conjecture, I confess, appears to me at once extremely ingenious and very probable. A comparison of different manuscripts might throw more light on the question.” Concerning the opinion last stated, I can but remark, that in a manuscript copy of the Dabistán, which I procured from the library of the king of Oude, and caused to be transcribed for me, the very same words: “Mohsan Fani says,” occur (as I have observed in vol. I. p. 6, note 3), preceding a _rabaâ_, or quatrain, which begins: “The world is a book full of knowledge and of justice,” etc. etc.