30 JANUARY 1892, Page 19

No one seems to have noticed or have cared about

the paper on " Hafiz " which appears in the Quarterly Review for January. We have not an idea who wrote it, unless, perhaps, Sir Alfred Lyall has excelled himself ; but the writer, who- ever he is, not only knows Persian poetry, but is a master of prose melody such as rarely makes its appearance in an English review. Its exceeding merit may be partly hidden from the new generation by the fact that it is the older kind of melody, that with an organ roll in it ; but to ourselves that does but increase the charm.