known, especially in Upper India. Both as a written and a spoken
language it has a reputation throughout Asia for elegance and
expressiveness. Until the time of Muhammad Shah, Indian poetry was
written in Persian. But that monarch, who mounted the throne of Delhi
in 1719, greatly desired to make Urdu the vogue, and under his patronage
and approval, Hatim, one of his ministers, and Wali of the Deccan,
wrote Diwans in Urdu. This patronage of poets was continued by his
successors, and exists indeed to the present day; and the cultivation
of Urdu poetry has always been encouraged at the many Courts of India.
Some of the Indian Rulers are themselves poets, and find their duty
and pleasure in rewarding with gifts and pensions the literary men
whose works they admire. The Court of Hyderabad has for long had a
circle of poets: the late Nizam was himself eminent as a writer of
verse. The Maharaja-Gaekwar of Baroda is a generous patron of literary
men, and the present Rulers of lesser States such as Patiala, Nabha,
Tonk, and Rampur, are deeply interested in the cultivation of poetry
in their Dominions.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many towns in India had
extensive and flourishing literary coteries, and it is from the poets
of that period that this handful of verses is gathered. The Mushaira--a
poetical concourse, wherein rival poets meet to try their skill in
a tournament of verse--is still an institution in India. Delhi, Agra,
Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, Calcutta, and
Hyderabad, have all been, and some still are, nests of singing birds.
Of the extent of Urdu literature some idea may be gained from the fact
that a History of it written about 1870 gives the names of some three
thousand authors, and that Tazkiras or anthologies containing
selections from many poets are very numerous.