themselves made entertainments, at which the women assisted, dressed in their nuptial ornaments, singing to the sound of timbrels the happiness of their tribe, who had now one to protect their honour, to preserve their genealogies and the purity of their language, and to transmit their actions to posterity;3 for this was all performed by their poems, to which they were solely obliged for their knowledge and instructions, moral and economical, and to which they had recourse, as to an oracle, in all doubts and differences.1 No wonder, then, that a public congratulation was made on this account, which honour they yet were so far from making cheap, that they never did it but on one of these three occasions, which were reckoned great points of felicity, viz., on the birth of a boy, the rise of a poet, and the 4 Ebn Khalicân. Yet others attribute the honour of the invention of this character to Ebn Moklah's brother, Abdallah al Hasan; and the perfecting of it to Ebn Amîd al Kâteb, after it had been reduced to near the present form by Abd'alhamîd. Vide D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 590, 108, and 194. 1 Poc. Orat. ante Carmen Tograi, p. 10. 2 Poc. Spec. 161. 3 Ebn Rashik, apud Poc. Spec. 160. 1 Poc. Orat. præfix. Carm. Tograi, ubi supra. fall of a foal of generous breed. To keep up an emulation among their poets, the tribes had, once a year, a general assembly at Ocadh,2 a place famous on this account, and where they kept a weekly mart or fair, which was held on our Sunday.3 This annual meeting lasted a whole month, during which time they employed themselves, not only in trading, but in repeating their poetical compositions, contending an vieing with each other for the prize; whence the place, it is said, took its name.4 The poems that were judged to excel, were laid up in their kings' treasuries, as were the seven celebrated poems, thence called al Moallakât, rather than from their being hung upon the Caaba, which honour they also had by public order, being written on Egyptian silk, and inn letters of gold; for which reason they had also the name of al Modhahabât, or the golden verses.5 The fair and assembly at Ocadh were suppressed by Mohammed, in whose time, and for some years after, poetry seems to have been in some degree neglected by the Arabs, who were then employed in their conquests; which being completed, and themselves at peace, not only this study was revived,6 but almost all sorts of learning were encouraged and greatly improved by them. This interruption, however, occasioned the loss of most of their ancient pieces of poetry, which were then chiefly preserved in memory; the use of writing being rare among them, in their time of ignorance.7 Though the Arabs were so early acquainted with poetry, they did not at first use to write poems of a just length, but only expressed themselves in verse occasionally; nor was their prosody digested into rules, till some time after Mohammed;8 for this