surnamed MOSLIH EDDIN, one of the most celebrated of the Persian poets, was born at Shiraz about 1175, and after receiving his education at the college of Bagdad, became a dervish. In the early part of his life he was known as a great traveller. His frame was strong and vigorous, and his temperament healthy and sunny. The free air and the light of many-coloured life were pleasant to his soul. He was ever on foot venturing into all sorts of countries, associating with all sorts of people, and meeting with all sorts of adventures. He cracked his jokes in India, fought against the infidels in Asia Minor, and was for some time a prisoner in the hands of the Crusaders at Tripoli. At the end of thirty years, however, Saadi settled down. Building a hermitage near the walls of Shiraz, he secluded himself from the world. His time was chiefly engrossed in digesting his large experience of men and manners, and in embodying it in his poetry and prose works. Many persons of rank broke in upon his retire-

ment and heaped his board with gifts, but they could not affect his spirit of austerity. He appropriated part of their bounty for his own simple wants, and bestowed the rest upon the poor. Thus did the peaceful years pass by until his death, which occurred in 1291, at the advanced age of 116. Saadi's collected works were printed in the original in 2 vols., Calcutta, 1791. They consist of the Gulistan, Bostan, odes, elegies, fragments, quatrains, and essays of various kinds. By far the best known is the Gulistan and Bostan. The former is a composition of eight chapters of prose, with occasional intermixtures of verse, either from the author's own pen, or from that of some of his predecessors. The chapters treat of the morals of kings, the morals of dervishes, the excellency of contentment, the advantages of taciturnity, on love and youth, on imbecility and old age, on the effects of education, and rules for the conduct of life. They consist for the most part of unconnected moral stories, unlike in their mutual relation to other oriental collections, such as the Arabian Nights, or the Fables of Pilpay or Bidpai, whose consecration is ordinarily that of subordination to the more general story. All the connection manifest in these Persian tales is that of their allusion to a common subject. There have been numerous versions of this book. It has been translated into French by Du Ryer, 1634; by another Du Ryer in 1789; and by Semelet, Paris, 1834; a spirited German translation by Olearius, 1654; another more recent one by K. H. Graf, 1846; into Dutch, 1654; into English by Gladwin, 1808; by Ross for the Asiatic Society, and by Eastwick in prose and verse, who edited the original two years before, Hartford, 1852. The Gulistan is considered the best text-book for students learning Persian. There is a good life of Saadi given by Harrington, in his edition of his works (1791), translated from the Persian of Dowlet Shah.