'The Ghazel or Eastern Ode—says Richardson—is a species of poem, the subject of which is in general _Love_ and _Wine_, interspersed with moral sentiments, and reflections on the virtues and vices of mankind. It ought never to consist of less than 5 _beits_ or distichs, nor exceed 18, according to D'Herbelot; if the poem is less than five, it is then called _rabat_ or quartain; if it is more than eighteen, it then assumes the name of _kasside_ or elegy. Baron Revizky[17] says, that all poems of this kind which exceed 13 _beits_ [couplets], rank with the _kasside_; and, according to Meninski, the ghazel ought never to have more than 11.—Every verse in the same _ghazel_ must rhyme with the same letter; and when a poet has completed a _series_ of such poems (the rhymes of the first class being in _alif_ [a], the second in _be_ [b], and so on through the whole alphabet), it is called a _Divan_, and he obtains the title of _Hafez_, or as the Arabians pronounce it, _Hafedh_.... The _ghazel_ is more irregular than the Greek or Latin Ode, one verse having often no apparent connection either with the foregoing or subsequent couplets. Ghazels were often, says Baron Revizky, written or spoken _extempore_ at banquets or public festivities, when the poet, after expressing his ideas in one distich, impatient of confinement, roved through the regions of fancy, as wine or a luxuriant imagination inspired.'[18] This is excellent, and thoroughly intelligible. But let us take from Rückert's most learned work, the more authoritative concise statement of the 'Heft Kolzum': 'The Ghazel is a poem of several Beits, which have all one measure and one rhyme. According to some, there should not be more than 11 Beits, according to others 12; but some are found having as many as 19.'[19]