, or Anvari, one of the most celebrated poets of Persia, was born in the twelfth
, or Anvari, one of the most celebrated poets of Persia, was born in the twelfth century, and was incited to turn poet from the honours bestowed on that class by the sultan Sandjar. He presented a composition to that sultan, who admitted him to his court, and here Raschidi was his rival. These two poets were for some time of opposite parties; Anvari was in the camp of Sangiar when he attacked Alsitz, governor and afterwards sultan of the Kouarasmians, with whom Raschidi had shut himself up. Whilst the two sultans were assailing and repulsing each other, the two versifiers were skirmishing in their own method, reciprocally throwing at one another rhymes fastened to the end of an arrow. Our poet was at the same time an astrologer; but in his predictions he was particularly unfortunate, and his enemies took advantage of this to injure him with the sultan, and he was obliged to retire to the town of Balke, where he died in 1200. This Persian bard corrected the licentiousness that had been customary in the poetry of his country, but nothing of his remains except two small pieces, one of which is inserted in the Asiatic Miscellany, No. I. 1786, and translated by capt. Kirkpatrick; the other, translated into German by Chezy, was published in the secoud number of the Oriental Mine, a journal printed at Vienna, under the patronage and at the expense of count Rzewuski.