The favor of the climate, making subsistence easy, and encouraging an outdoor life, allows to the Eastern nations a highly intellectual organization,—­leaving out of view, at present, the genius of the Hindoos, (more Oriental in every sense,) whom no people have surpassed in the grandeur of their ethical statement.  The Persians and the Arabs, with great leisure and few books, are exquisitely sensible to the pleasures of poetry.  Layard has given some details of the effect which the improvvisatori produced on the children of the desert.  “When the bard improvised an amatory ditty, the young chief’s excitement was almost beyond control.  The other Bedouins were scarcely less moved by these rude measures, which have the same kind of effect on the wild tribes of the Persian mountains.  Such verses, chanted by their self-taught poets, or by the girls of their encampment, will drive warriors to the combat, fearless of death, or prove an ample reward, on their return from the dangers of the ghazon, or the fight.  The excitement they produce exceeds that of the grape.  He who would understand the influence of the Homeric ballads in the heroic ages should witness the effect which similar compositions have upon the wild nomads of the East.”  Elsewhere he adds, “Poetry and flowers are the wine and spirits of the Arab; a couplet is equal to a bottle, and a rose to a dram, without the evil effect of either.”

The Persian poetry rests on a mythology whose few legends are connected with the Jewish history, and the anterior traditions of the Pentateuch.  The principal figure in the allusions of Eastern poetry is Solomon.  Solomon had three talismans:  first, the signet ring, by which he commanded the spirits, on the stone of which was engraven the name of God; second, the glass, in which he saw the secrets of his enemies, and the causes of all things, figured; the third, the east wind, which was his horse.  His counsellor was Simorg, king of birds, the all-wise fowl, who had lived ever since the beginning of the world, and now lives alone on the highest summit of Mount Kaf.  No fowler has taken him, and none now living has seen him.  By him Solomon was taught the language of birds, so that he heard secrets whenever he went into his gardens.  When Solomon travelled, his throne was placed on a carpet of green silk, of a length and breadth sufficient for all his army to stand upon,—­men placing themselves on his right hand, and the spirits on his left.  When all were in order, the east wind, at his command, took up the carpet, and transported it, with all that were upon it, whither he pleased,—­the army of birds at the same time flying overhead, and forming a canopy to shade them from the sun.  It is related, that, when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, he had built, against her arrival, a palace, of which the floor or pavement was of glass, laid over running water, in which fish were swimming.  The Queen of Sheba was deceived thereby, and raised her robes, thinking she was to pass through the water.  On the occasion of Solomon’s marriage, all the beasts, laden with presents, appeared before his throne.  Behind them all came the ant with a blade of grass:  Solomon did not despise the gift of the ant.  Asaph, the vizier, at a certain time, lost the seal of Solomon, which one of the Dews, or evil spirits, found, and, governing in the name of Solomon, deceived the people.