Anwari: Passing the
market-place of Balkh one day, he saw a crowd of people standing in a
ring, and going up, he put his head within the circle and found a fellow
reciting the poems of Anwari himself as his own. Anwari went up to the
man, and said: "Sir, whose poems are these you are reciting?" He
replied: "They are Anwari's." "Do you know him, then?" said Anwari. The
man, with cool effrontery, answered: "What do you say? I am Anwari." On
hearing this Anwari laughed, and remarked: "I have heard of one who
stole poetry, but never of one who stole the poet himself!"--Talking of
"stealing poetry," Jami tells us that a man once brought a composition
to a critic, every line of which he had plagiarised from different
collections of poems, and each rhetorical figure from various authors.
Quoth the critic: "For a wonder, thou hast brought a line of camels; but
if the string were untied, every one of the herd would run away in
different directions."

There is no little humour in the story of the Persian poet who wrote a
eulogium on a rich man, but got nothing for his trouble; he then abused
the rich man, but he said nothing; he next seated himself at the rich
man's gate, who said to him: "You praised me, and I said nothing; you
abused me, and I said nothing; and now, why are you sitting here?" The
poet answered: "I only wish that when you die I may perform the funeral
service."

V

UNLUCKY OMENS--THE OLD MAN'S PRAYER--THE OLD WOMAN IN THE MOSQUE--THE
WEEPING TURKMANS--THE TEN FOOLISH PEASANTS--THE WAKEFUL SERVANT--THE
THREE DERVISHES--THE OIL-MAN'S PARROT--THE MOGHUL AND HIS PARROT--THE
PERSIAN SHOPKEEPER AND THE PRIME MINISTER--HEBREW FACETIAE.

Muslims and other Asiatic peoples, like Europeans not so many centuries
since, are always on the watch for lucky or unlucky omens. On first
going out of a morning, the looks and countenances of those who cross
their path are scrutinised, and a smile or a frown is deemed favourable
or the reverse. To encounter a person blind of the left eye, or even
with one eye, forebodes sorrow and calamity. While Sir John Malcolm was
in Persia, as British Ambassador, he was told the following story: When
Abbas the Great was hunting, he met one morning as day dawned an
uncommonly ugly man, at the sight of whom his horse started. Being
nearly dismounted, and deeming it a bad omen, the king called out in a
rage to have his head cut off. The poor peasant, whom the attendants had
seized and we