directions that it should be read to Mahmud on some occasion when his mind
was perturbed with affairs of state, and his temper ruffled, as it was a
poem likely to afford him entertainment. Ferdusi having thus prepared his
vengeance, quitted the ungrateful court without leave-taking, and was at a
safe distance when news reached him that his lines had fully answered
their intended purpose. Mahmud had heard and trembled, and too late
discovered that he had ruined his own reputation forever. After the satire
had been read by Shah Mahmud, the poet sought shelter in the court of the
caliph of Bagdad, in whose honor he added a thousand couplets to the poem
of the Shah Namah, and who rewarded him with the sixty thousand gold
pieces, which had been withheld by Mahmud. Meantime, Ferdusi's poem of
Yussuf, and his magnificent verses on several subjects, had received the
fame they deserved. Shah Mahmud's late remorse awoke. Thinking by a tardy
act of liberality to repair his former meanness, he dispatched to the
author of the Shah Namah the sixty thousand pieces he had promised, a robe
of state, and many apologies and expressions of friendship and admiration,
requesting his return, and professing great sorrow for the past. But when
the message arrived, Ferdusi was dead, and his family devoted the whole
sum to the benevolent purpose he had intended,--the erection of public
buildings, and the general improvement of his native village, Tus. He died
at the age of eighty. The Shah Namah contains the history of the kings of
Persia down to the death of the last of the Sassanide race, who was
deprived of his kingdom by the invasion of the Arabs during the caliphat
of Omar, 636 A.D. The language of Ferdusi may be considered as the purest
specimen of the ancient Parsee: Arabic words are seldom introduced. There
are many episodes in the Shah Namah of great beauty, and the power and
elegance of its verse are unrivaled.

Essedi of Tus is distinguished as having been the master of Ferdusi, and
as having aided his illustrious pupil in the completion of his great work.