Englishmen know the Game well (on Foot too...

Englishmen know the Game well (on Foot too, and with such Leather Balls as the Persians perhaps knew not how to harden), under many Forms and Names-Golf, Stow-Ball, Shinty, Hocky, Bandy, etc. And now with regard to the Frontispiece.

It is "accurately copied" from an Engraving in Sir William's Book, which he says (and as those who care to look into the Bodleian for it may see), is " accurately copied from a very beautiful Persian MS., containing the Works of Hafíz, transcribed in the Year 956 of the Hejirah, 1549 of Christ; the MS. is in my own Collection.

This Delineation exhibits the Horsemen contending for the Ball; their short Jackets seem peculiarly adapted to the Sport; we see the Míl, or Goals; Servants attend on Foot Holding Chúgáns in readiness for other Persons who may join in the Amusement, or to supply the place of any that may be broken.

A young Prince-as his Parr, or Feather, would indicate-receives on his Entrance into the Meidan, or Place of Exercise, a Chúgán from the hands of a bearded Man very plainly dressed; yet (as an intelligent Painter at Ispahan assured me, and as appears from other Miniatures in the same Book) this Bearded Figure is meant to represent Hafíz himself," etc. The Persian legend at the Top Corner is the Verse from Hafíz which the Drawing illustrates; Shahsuvára Khúsh bemeidán ámedy gúiy bezann.

Though the Sticks, or Bats, are here represented long , they really were (as Chardin and others report) so short as to cause the Rider to stoop below the Saddlebow to strike; which, the Horse going full gallop, was great part of the Difficulty.

And Tabri describes Events in the Eighth Century (just before his own Time), when Harun Alraschid was still little, so that when on Horseback, "he could not reach to strike the Ball with a Chúgán." Ouseley also, judging from the Illustration (in which Persian Artists are not very accurate), thinks the Chúgán sticks were only generally , or partially. semicircular at the striking End.

But that they were so (varying perhaps a little in degree as our Bandy sticks do) is proved by the Text of the Present Poem, as also by a previous line in the Original, where- "The Realm of Existence is the space of his Meidan, "The Ball of Heaven in the Crook of his Chúgán." And passages in Hafíz speak of his Heart as being carried off by his Beloved's Eyebrow; which no Persian Lover ever dreamt of but as arched indeed.