The slaves of buttons and tight breeches !
Yet, though they thus their knee-pans fetter,
(They're Christians, and they know no better)*
In some things they're a thinking nation,
And on Religious Toleration,

I own I like their notions quite,
They are so Persian and so right!

You know our SUNNITES,† hateful dogs '
Whom every pious SHIITE flogs
Or longs to flogt-'tis true, they pray
To God, but in an ill-bred way;
With neither arms, nor legs, nor faces
Stuck in their right, canonic places !!

"C'est un honnête homme," said a Turkish governor of De Ruyter, "c'est grand dommage quil soit Chrétien."

+ Sunnites and Shiites are the two leading sects into which the Mahometan world is divided; and they have gone on cursing and persecuting each other, without any intermission, for about eleven hundred years. The Sunni is the established sect in Turkey, and the Shia in Persia; and the differences between them turns chiefly upon those important points, which our pious friend Abdallah, in the true spirit of Shiite Ascendancy, reprobates in this Letter.

+ "Les Sunnites qui etaient comme les Catholiques de Musulmanisme.”—D'Herbelot.

"In contradistinction to the Sounis, who in their prayers cross their hands on the lower part of the breast, the Schiahs drop their arms in straight lines; and as the Sounis, at certain periods of the prayer, press their foreheads on the ground or carpet, the Schish," etc. etc.-Forster's Voyage,

'Tis true, they worship ALI's name- * Their Heaven and ours are just the same; (A Persian Heaven is eas'ly made, 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade.) Yet-though we've tried for centuries back, We can't persuade the stubborn pack, By bastinadoes, screws or nippers,

To wear th' establish'd pea-green slippers! † Then-only think-the libertines!

They wash their toes-they comb their chinst

With many more such deadly sins!

And (what's the worst, though last I rank it) Believe the Chapter of the Blanket!

Yet, spite of tenets so flagitious,
(Which must at bottom be seditious;
As no man living would refuse

Green slippers, but from treasonous views;
Nor wash his toes, but with intent
To overturn the government!)
Such is our mild and tolerant way,
We only curse them twice a day,
(According to a form that's set)
And, far from torturing, only let

"Les Turcs ne détes ent pas Ali réciproquement; au contaire ils le reconnaissent," etc. etc.-Chardin. "The Shiites wear green slippers, which the Sunnites consider as a great abomination."-Mariti.

For these points of difference, as well as the Chapter of the Blanket, I must refer the reader (not having the Book by me) to Picart's Account of the Mahometan Sects

All orthodox believers beat 'em,

And twitch their beards, where'er they meet them.

As to the rest, they're free to do
Whate'er their fancy prompts them to,
Provided they make nothing of it
Tow'rds rank or honour, power or profit ;
Which things, we nat'rally expect,
Belong to us, (the Establish'd sect,)
Who disbelieve (the Lord be thanked!)
Th' aforesaid Chapter of the Blanket.

The same mild views of Toleration
Inspire, I find, this button'd nation,
Whose Papists (full as giv'n to rogue,
And only Sunnites with a brogue)
Fare just as well, with all their fuss,
As rascal Sunnites do with us.

The tender Gazel I enclose
Is for my love, my Syrian Rose;
Take it, when night begins to fall,
And throw it o'er her mothers wall.

GAZEL.

Rememberest thou the hour we past,
That hour, the happiest and the last?
Oh! not so sweet the Siha thorn
To summer bees, at break of morn;
Not half so sweet through dale and dell,
To Camels' ears the tinkling bell,
As is the soothing memory

Of that sweet precious hour to me!

How can we live, so far apart?
Oh! why not rather heart to heart,
United live and die;

Like those sweet birds, that fly together,
With feather always touching feather,
Link'd by a hook and eye!*

LETTER VII.

FROM MESSRS. L-CK-GT-N AND CO.

PER Post, Sir, we send your MS.-look'd it

thro'

[do.

Very sorry-but can't undertake-'twould not Clever work, Sir! would get up prodigiously well,

Its only defect is-it never would sell!

And though Statesmen may glory in being unbought,

In an Author, we think, Sir, that's rather a fault.

*This will appear strange to an English reader, but it is literally translated from Abdallah's Persian, and the curious bird to which he alludes is the Juflak, of which I find the following account in Richardson."A sort of bird that is said to have but one wing; on the opposite side to which the male has a hook and the female a ring, so that, when they fly, they are fastened together."

From motives of delicacy, and indeed, of fellowfeeling, I suppress the name of the Author whose reJected manuscript was inclosed in this letter.-See the Appendix.

}

Hard times, Sir,-most books are too dear to be read,

Though the gold of Good-sense and Wit's
small-change are fled,

Yet the paper we Publishers pass, in their stead,
Rises higher each day, and ('tis frightful to

think it,

[sink it.)
Not even such names as F-TZG-R-D'S can
However, Sir, if you're for trying again,
And at somewhat that's vendible-we are your

men.

Since the Chevalier C-RR took to marrying lately,

The trade is in want of a Traveller greatly— No job, Sir, more easy-your Country once plann'd,

A month aboard ship and a fortnight on land Puts your Quarto of Travels, Sir, clean out of hand.

An East-India pamphlet's a thing that would
tell!

And a lick at the Papists is sure to sell well.
Or, supposing you've nothing original in you,
Write Parodies, Sir, and such fame it will win

you,

You'll get to the Blue-stocking Routs of
ALB-N-A!*
[Muse
(Mind-not to her dinners-a second hand

*This alludes, I believe, to a curious correspondence, which is said to have passed lately between Alb-n-a, Countess of B-ck-gh-ms-e, and a certain ingenious Parodist.