33 S Notices respecting New Books. 



surnaiTies, which intimate that his family was originally from 

 INIosul, but that he was born at Bagdad. Many individuals 

 Jiave, besides^, certain nicknames, or surnames taken from 

 some illustrious ancestor, or circumstance of their life. This 

 multitude of names and surnames contributes in several 

 ways to throw much confusion upon literary history, and 

 chiefly because they rarely designate a person by the whole 

 of these names, and the same individual is sometimes- called 

 by his honorary tith only, as Djelal-eddin, or by his name 

 without any surname, as Abd-allatif, or by the name of his 

 son, as Aboulabbas, (the father of Abbas,) or by that of 

 his father, as Ebn-Arabschah, (the son of Arabschah,) or 

 lastly, by the surname taken from the place of his birth, as 

 Djordjani, Schahrestani, Soyouti. We may be often led 

 into error, therefore, by supposing several personages to be 

 p ie only, and vice versa. In ihc second place, the copyists, 

 by omiiting the words Abou, (father,) or Ebn, (son,) o.r 

 confoundin"- topelhcr these two words, often call Abd-allah, 

 or Abd-alrahnian, the person who is really called father 

 or son of Abdallah, or Abd-alrahman. Lastly, there is so 

 <;reat a number of celebrated men, whom we are accustomed 

 to know merely by one of thoir surnames, that the Oriental 

 biographers themselves can neither discover their names or 

 surnames. There are none of the learned who are occupied 

 with the literature of the East, without excepting Ilerbelot 

 and Caziri, who have not been often led into error from some 

 of these causes. The titles of books being also ahiiost al- 

 ways conceived in an indistinct manner, and several work^J 

 of various writers having either the same or very similar 

 titles, this is also a new source of mistakes, from which the 

 Eastern historians themselves have not always been exempt. 

 From all these considerations, it is evident, we are not ytt 

 competent to the task of a general history of the literature 

 a:id science of the Arabs, Persians, and Turks ; and we 

 must begin by clearing away this chaos, and by putting the 

 malerials into tlie hands of a greater number of persons, by 

 publishing successively, either entire or in extracts, the 

 nibst important works of this kind. It is also to be wished, 



that 



