The conflagration which Hassan had kindled, by the revelation of the secret doctrine, was not extinguished by his blood, but, on the contrary, extended its flames through all Asia during the reign of his son and successor, Mohammed II. The first act of his government was to revenge his father’s death; whose murderer, Hassan Nanwer, together with all his kindred, both male and female, bled under the executioner’s axe. Instead of profiting by this bloody example, to strike into a better road, he constantly pursued the same path. He preached, even more loudly than his father, the doctrine of impiety; and, like him, asserted his rights to the dignity of supreme imam. Deeply versed in philosophical studies, he considered himself to be in these, as in other branches of knowledge, alone and unequalled. Many of his philosophical and legal apothegms have been handed down by tradition; we shall not, however, cite them in this history. He did homage by these studies, not only to the institution of the founder of the order, who, profoundly acquainted with the mathematical and metaphysical sciences, had collected books and instruments in his castle of Alamut, but also to the spirit of the ages in which the civilization of modern Persia approached the summit of its splendour; and philosophy as well as poetry were at the epoch of their greatest glory in that country. Cotemporary with his long reign of forty-six years (for so long did the clemency of heaven endure the monster on earth), lived and died a pleiad of Persian poets, greater and more illustrious than that of the Alexandrines under the Ptolemies, or that of the French poets under Francis the First.[166] During this period flourished the lyric poets, Suseni[167] and Watwat,[168] of whom the former may be considered the creator of the metrical system, and the latter as the legislator of Persian poetry; the two great panegyrists, Khakani[169] and Sohair Faryabi,[170] who, together with their predecessor, Enweri, stand the great columns of the splendid edifice of oriental eulogium; the two great mystics, Senayi[171] and Attar,[172] the former writer of the “Ornamental Garden,” Kadikat, which the well-known author of the “Garden of Roses and Fruit,” Saadi, seems to have kept in view; the latter the composer of the “Dialogues of Birds” (Mantikettair) and other celebrated works, in whose footsteps trod Jelaleddin Rumi,[173] the great mystic poet of the east; lastly, Nisami, the greatest romantic poet of the Persians, the immortal bard of Khosru and Shirin.