Firdausi's success in attaining accuracy in his archæology we can hardly be asked to decide a priori on the cor ceivability of an epic poet writing deliberately as literary antiquary without recalling the fact that on great epic poet at least has done so. It is therefore no inconceivable that Homer may have done the like; it is a question of such evidence as we can find.

More interesting, however, is a comparison of the way in which the two epics were put together. For the actua compilation of the Shahnama, Firdausi, as we have seen was not responsible; the work was done before his time. by the commission of four which composed the pros Book of Kings for Abu Mansur. We have seen toc that this work was part of a national movement, &. Persian renascence. Persian intellectual activity had long been enlisted under Arabic influences and con centrated at Baghdad, where Arabian and Persian races marched, forming a mixed population which religious unity had fused into a more or less homogeneous mass. Persian statesmen and men of letters had almost lost the sense of nationality, and contented themselves with directing the affairs of an Arabian Califate, and glorifying the beauties of the Arabic tongue. It was in the far east of Persia, in the province of Khorasan, that the national revolt took place. The rebellion was at once political and literary; the leaders of the revolt, as a matter of statesmanship, encouraged the vernacular literature; and the composition of the Book of Kings was clearly a step meant to consolidate popular feeling in resistance to Arab domination. However much the fanatically religious Moslems of Ghazni might hate the religion of the heathen fire-worshippers, yet they did not hesitate, surely at some cost to their consciences, to vivify by all means in their power the old Zoroastrian legends, and recall to the minds of their subjects the glories of ancient Persia.

Fifteen hundred years before Abu Mansur the Hellenic world had found itself in a not dissimilar position. Greek intellect had its home, not in the centre of Greece, but on the eastern frontier, in the Asiatic Ionia; and there it was becoming rapidly orientalised. Persia was exercising over Greece much the same domination as she had afterwards to undergo from Arabia. Many Greek states had

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already learnt to regard themselves as integral parts of
the Persian empire. Greek statesmen took office under
Persian satraps even under the Great King himself-
and ruled for him almost as the Persian Barmecides
ruled for Harun. The Greeks of the motherland had
fallen sadly behind in the race; it seemed only too likely
that Gree might medise' in the mass, and become
absorbed into an Oriental empire. From this fate she
was sared by the Athenian renascence under Pisistratus
and the tyrants' of the mainland, as Persia was after-
ward saved by her petty dynasties, Samanid, Buwayhid,
and Garavi. What more likely than that Pisistratus
should have recourse to like means in aid of his national
ovement, and seek to bring before the Greeks their old
treasures of national legend, duly consolidated and issued
under the sanction of the State, just as the minister of
the Samanids collected and issued the legends of Persia?
Dr Verrall, in a recent number of this Review (July
1908), has strikingly pointed out how the Athenians
practically invented the idea of national education as a
condition of empire. Persia, it is true, was in no need of
education; learning in every form was at its height when
the Shahnama was in the birth. But the problem was
Dot essentially different, for it was imperative that educa-
tion should take a Persian dress instead of an Arabian;
that those who wished to learn in the language of their
fathers should have more solid material provided for
them than the lyric poems which were the main outcome
of the single century during which the tender plant of
national literature had taken growth. The old saying
at the songs of a people was justified by the opinion
the statesmen of Bukhara and Khorasan, as we have

little doubt it was by the statesmen of Athens.

That Persia succeeded in completing its epic cycle in
mogeneous form was largely due to accident. Had
lived a few years longer, and had Firdausi
essed a less devouring energy of composition, it
i have had what the Greeks had-two poems
likely enough that instead of one Shahnama we
dealing with portions of the national history, and

'Fansi himself says that before his time there was no Persian poem

of more than three thousand couplets.

1

gaps filled up by inferior hands, such as those which after Firdausi, endeavoured to extend the compass of hi gigantic work. But in one respect the two main poem: would never have resembled the Iliad and Odyssey; then would have been no sutures in them. no confusion o motive or forgetfulness of the conditions of the story That was ensured by the conditions of the compilation The prose form of the Book of Kings made it easy & well as necessary to avoid them. The compilers wer under no obligation to retain the actual words in whic the stories were collected: their aim was to give a cor tinuous tale in the barest outline, where no glamour poetry could excuse or hide any want of evenness in th narrative. Their concern was solely with the matter an not with the form; it was the work of the later poet t invest with artistic merit what was before him, not, lik the Greek, to create the form in indissoluble union with the substance. It is only in such points as the repetition of large episodes differing in treatment, and presumably differing in antiquity, that we can hope to find any traces of sutures in the work: and, as has been pointed out, a few such repetitions are to be found in the Shahnama. If it were ever possible to scrutinise the whole work with such minuteness as has been applied in the dissection of the Iliad, others might be found; but the magnitude of the task is such that it may never be carried out. It is not likely that, among Western scholars at least, the Shahnama will arouse such loving devotion as Homer; and without a host of devotees the task could not be carried through. But it is at least certain that Firdausi has composed an epic of enormous length without any such slips of forgetfulness or carelessness such as some Homeric critics seem to look upon as necessary incidents of composition, if they do not actually defend them as

beauties.

WALTER LEAF.

Art. 3.-A JOURNAL OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

1. A Journal of Occurrences at the Temple, during the
Confinement of Louis XVI, King of France. By M.
Cléry. Translated by R. C. Dallas. London, 1798.
2. Journal de ce qui s'est passé à la Tour du Temple,
pendant la Captivité de Louis XVI, Roi de France.
Par Cléry. London, 1798.

3. La Captivité et la Mort de Marie Antoinette

d'après

de Relations de Témoins Oculaires et des Documents
Iit. Par G. Lenotre. Paris, 1897.

4 The Last Days of Marie Antoinette. From the French
of G. Lenotre. By Mrs Rodolph Stawell. London:
Heinemann, 1907.

For the last few years there has been a marked renewal

of interest in the little group of royal personages who, having sought shelter with the French Legislative Assembly, were, on the 13th of August, 1792, consigned by that body to the tender mercies of the Paris Commune. Much of this reawakened curiosity is no doubt Owing to the persistence of modern research among revolutionary archives, and particularly to the indefatigable labours of M. G. Lenotre in connexion with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, with Madame Royale, and with other members of the party. Translations of M. Lenotre's fast-following volumes have appeared successively in England; and to these again must be attributed a corresponding and independent activity on the subject in this country. Within short space we have tal, not only a version of M. Lenotre's latest effort, a vame on the Duchesse d'Angoulême (Madame Royale), but an exceedingly lucid and readable account of 'The Line Dauphin' (Louis XVII) by Miss Catharine Welch, Hardy, on the Princesse de Lamballe. In this abundance and an excellently illustrated monograph, by Miss B. C. of new and newly published material we may perhaps be pardoned if, acting on a well-worn precept, we revert Welder classic in this kind, the once famous-and deservedly famous Journal of Occurrences at the Temple, during the Confinement of Louis XVI, King of There is the better justification for taking this course, Free, by M. Cléry, the King's Valet de Chambre.'

in

that many of the recent investigators not only mak mention of Cléry's record, but materially confirm an complete what, since the date of its appearance, ha always been regarded as a most trustworthy historica document, emanating from an eye-witness who recount only what he saw, and, in his own words, had 'neither the talent nor the pretension to compose Memoirs.'

6

Concerning its author, Jean-Baptiste-Cant Hanet surnamed Cléry, not much, previous to the 'Occurrences which he chronicles, can or need be said; but of his sub sequent doings we may perhaps later add a few little known particulars. Born in May 1759, at Jardy, in the Park of Versailles, he was, at the period of the Journal, a married man, holding the position of valet de chambre to the Prince Royal, or Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVII. On the memorable 10th of August, when the mob from the faubourgs attacked the Tuileries, and the royal family had quitted the palace for the Legislative Assembly, then sitting in the neighbouring riding school, Cléry contrived to escape by jumping from a window, and eventually made his way over the corpse-strewn Pont Louis Seize, and through an unguarded breach in the city walls, to Versailles. Here he soon learned that Pétion, the mayor of Paris, and head of the newly constituted revolutionary Commune, was casting about for persons to attend the prisoners in the Temple; and he at once volunteered his services. With the King's concurrence, he was accepted by the municipal authorities; and on August 26, when the royal family had already been thirteen days in the Little Tower, where they were at first housed, he entered upon his duties. At this date the prisoners consisted of Louis XVI, the Queen, their daughter, Madame Royale, the little Dauphin, a boy of seven, the King's sister, the Princesse Elizabeth, and M. Hue, the King's valet, a great favourite with the family, who, however, was speedily withdrawn from his post by the suspicious Commune. The Dauphin's governess, Mme de Tourzel, and the hapless Princesse de Lamballe, who, in her capacity of superintendent of the Queen's household, originally accompanied the fugitives from the Tuileries, had already, before Cléry's arrival, been transferred to the prison of La Force at the end of the Rue du Roi de Sicile.

As may be anticipated, it is chiefly with those episodes