The ambition of the latter burst forth even in his youth, when he endeavoured to lay the foundation of his fortune, with his two school-fellows, by mutual promises. One of them, the vizier, Nisam-ol-mulk, that is, _order of rule_, himself relates, in his character of historian, the obligations into which they entered, and their sequel. “The general opinion is,” said Hassan, one day, to the other two, “that the imam’s pupils are certain of their fortune; now, let us promise each other, that if this proves true of only one of us three, he will share his good fortune with the other two.” Omar Khiam and Nisam-ol-mulk agreed to Hassan’s proposal, with mutual engagements; the first too indolent to involve himself in politics, the second too magnanimous not to wish to share with the restless ambition of the third, that prosperity, which his great talents and honest industry ensured him in that career. Years elapsed, during which Nisam-ol-mulk travelled through the countries of Khorassan, Mawarainehr, Khasnin, and Kabul, and filled the lower offices of the state, till he at last attained, under Alparslan, the great prince of the Seljuks, the highest post in the empire,—that of vizier. He received with honour his old school-fellow, Omar Khiam, who was the first to visit him, and mindful, as he himself relates, of his youthful promise, offered him his credit and influence, in procuring him an office; which is the more probable, as Nisam’s knowledge of the world convinced him that Khiam’s love for epicurean enjoyments would reject the offer; and that, in any case, such a rival, as vizier, could never prove dangerous to him. Omar Khiam thanked him, and merely requested peaceful leisure to devote himself, undisturbed, to the pursuit of the sciences; and, as he constantly gave the same answer to Nisam-ol-mulk’s repeated offers to make him vizier, the latter granted him an annual pension of one thousand ducats, out of the revenues of Nishabur, in which place, removed from the turmoil of public affairs, and in the bosom of luxurious independence, he henceforward devoted his life to the cultivation of his genius and the sciences, and gained great fame as a poet and astronomer. Although his love of ease did not permit him to transmit his glory to posterity, by any considerable work, yet he has preserved it in the history of Persian poetry, merely by his four-line strophes. These are unique in their kind, by the licentiousness of their overwhelming wit, which, without the least scruple, indulged itself in pleasantries, at the expense of all pious persons, and particularly the mystics, not only on the doctrines of the Sofis, but also the Koran itself; so much, as to be held by the orthodox in the worst reputation for impiety. Omar Khiam, in the collection of his quatrains (Rubayat), and Ibn Yemen, in that of his fragments (Mokataat), merit, before all Persian poets who have gained a name, that, more particularly, of philosophical. The