THE following were pretended as Poems from the Persian and Arabic. A hundred copies were printed for friends. One of these caused them to be written, by remarking to the author, who perhaps undervalued the Orientals, that “he should be glad to see how anyone would succeed in an attempt to imitate them.”
What now appear, after sixty years’ occultation, were preceded by the words below. [PREFACE. Some poems have lately reached the continent, in number not exceeding nine, represented as translations from the Arabic and Persian. The few that I ever have met with are chiefly the odes of Hafez, in which the final stanza contains the poet’s name. If this be peculiar to the Persian, as I think it is said to be, these are not genuine.]