And if more were needed to disprove M. Nicolas' theory, there is the Biographical Notice which he himself has drawn up in direct contradiction to the interpretation of the Poems given in his notes. Indeed I hardly knew poor Omar was so far gone till his apologist informed me. For here we see that, whatever were the wine that Hafiz drank and sang, the veritable juice of the grape it was which Omar used, not only when carousing with his friends, but (says M. Nicolas) in order to excite himself to that pitch of devotion which others reached by cries and «hurlemens.» And yet, whenever wine, wine-bearer, etc., occur in the text--which is often enough--M. Nicolas carefully annotates «_Dieu_,» «_La Divinité_,» etc.: so carefully indeed that one is tempted to think that he was indoctrinated by the Sufi with whom he read the Poems. A Persian would naturally wish to vindicate a distinguished countryman: and a Sufi to enrol him in his own sect, which already comprises all the chief poets in Persia. What historical authority has M. Nicolas to show that Omar gave himself up «_avec passion à l'étude de la philosophie des Soufis_»? The doctrines of Pantheism, Materialism, Necessity, etc., were not peculiar to the Sufi; nor to Lucretius before them; nor to Epicurus before him; probably the very original irreligion of thinking men from the first; and very likely to be the spontaneous growth of a philosopher living in an age of social and political barbarism, under shadow of one of the Two-and-Seventy Religions supposed to divide the world. Von Hammer (according to Sprenger's «Oriental Catalogue») speaks of Omar as «a Free-thinker and _a great opponent of Sufism_»; perhaps because, while holding much of their doctrine, he would not pretend to any inconsistent severity of morals. Sir W. Ouseley has written a note to something of the same effect on the fly-leaf of the Bodleian MS. And in two Rubaiyat of M. Nicolas' own Edition Suf and Sufi are both disparagingly named.