Notices respecting New Books. 355 



hiind it might be, v/6re we in possession of a good literary 

 Iiisiory of the Arabs, Persians, and Turks, there has been 

 no work of this description yet attempted, from the insur- 

 mountable difticulties hitherto attending it; execution. These 

 difficuhies do not arise from the three Eastern nations al- 

 luded to having neglected to transmit to posterity the history 

 of those of their countrymen who have cultivated the va- 

 rious branches of science and literature. It is rather the 

 abundance of the books of this description they have com- 

 posed, than the want of materials, which has been the ob- 

 stacle to the execution of a literary history of the East. 

 Grammarians, interpreters and lecturers upon the Alcoran, 

 theologians of all classes, doctors and jurisconsults of all 

 sects, philosophers, physicians, historians, prose-writers, 

 poets; — in short, from the immediate companions of the 

 Prophet down to those who in the last century were the 

 honour of Turkish literature, all have found thtir historians, 

 as well as the khalifs, the sultans, and their ministers. Be- 

 sides all this, we have histories of celebrated men of all 

 kinds, of each of the principal cities in the counfrv of the 

 Mussulmen, such as Mecca, Medina, Sanaa, Dumas, Bag- 

 dad, Cairo, &c. We may add, that in most of the ainials 

 composed by the Arab historians, such as Ebn-Athir, 

 Aboulfeda, Makrizi, Aboulmahasen and others, we find, 

 after the recital of the political events of each year, a ne- 

 crological article, containing the names of all the celebrated 

 men who died in the course of the year, with more or less 

 detailed accounts of their lives and writinos. With these 



c 



materials, however, for composing a literary history of the 

 Eastern countries, there is a multitude of difficulties to 

 be renioved before we can render our materials of any 

 service. 



The literary history of a nation may be divided into txvo 

 principal parts : the history of letters and sciences, and that 

 of the persons who have cultivated them. The first ouuht 

 to make us acquainted with the commencement, and the 

 various revoluti jns, of each science or particular branch of 

 literature, and the causes which have concurred to accelerate 

 '.>T retard its progress. It is the jy^/ewa/fc part of literary 

 Z 2 historv> 



