ram. Yet there is so little of that lightness which should
characterize an epigram that we can scarcely put Omar in the same
category with Martial, and it is easy to understand why the author
should have been contented to name his book the "Rubaiyat," or
Quatrains, leaving it to each individual to make, if he chooses, a more
definite description of the work. To English readers, Mr. Edward
Fitzgerald's version of the poem has provided one of the most masterly
translations that was ever made from an Oriental classic. For Omar, like
Hafiz, is one of the most Persian of Persian writers. There is in this
volume all the gorgeousness of the East: all the luxury of the most
refined civilization. Omar's bowers are always full of roses; the notes
of the nightingale tremble through his stanzas. The intoxication of wine
and the bright eyes of lovely women are ever present to his mind. The
feast, the revel, the joys of love, and the calm satisfaction of
appetite make up the grosser elements in his song. But the prevailing
note of his music is that of deep and settled melancholy, breaking out
occasionally into words of misanthropy and despair. The keenness and
intensity of this poet's style seem to be inspired by an ever-present
fear of death. This sense of approaching Fate is never absent from him,
even in his most genial moments; and the strange fascination which he
exercises over his readers is largely due to the thrilling sweetness of
some passage which ends in a note of dejection and anguish.

Strange to say, Omar was the greatest mathematician of his day. The
exactness of his fine and analytic mind is reflected in the exquisite
finish, the subtile wit, the delicate descriptive touches, that abound
in his Quatrains. His verses hang together like gems of the purest water
exquisitely cut and clasped by "jacinth work of subtlest jewelry." But
apart from their masterly technique, these Quatrains exhibit in their
general tone the revolt of a clear intellect from the prevailing bigotry
and fanaticism of an established religion. There is in the poet's mind
the lofty indignation of one who sees, in its true light, the narrowness
of an ignorant and hypocritical clergy, yet can find no solid ground on
which to build up for himself a theory of supernaturalism, illumined by
hope. Yet there are traces of Mysticism in his writings, which only
serve to emphasize his profound longing for some knowledge of the
invisible, and his foreboding that t