360 Notices respecting New Books, 



particular, and leaving to his re-aders the care of comparing 

 and combining them. This arrangement is disadvantageous 

 to ihe a . hor, and favourable to the critic, who may thus 

 compare more easily each of these extracts or abridged 

 translations with the originals, and thus ascertain and rec- 

 tify the errors which may have escaped the tiansiator. 



Frequently, persons who devote their attention to one 

 branch of literature, and who have wasted much time and 

 labour in acquiring profound knowledge, contract a kind of 

 enthusiastic love ior the object of their studies, which some- 

 times appears excessive to readers who judae with greater 

 coohiess. The author of the work, now before us does not 

 appear altogether free from this weakness ; and there are 

 few who will consent to allow Hadji Khalfa the epithet? 

 bestowed upon him by our anonymous author, of the triple 

 Hermes of the literature of the East, the Bacon, the Meusel 

 of the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. We may, however, 

 excuse this exaggeration in a man of letters, who has had 

 courage enough to undertake a drv and painful task ; and 

 we ought to rt-member, that, without this enthusiasm, the 

 most of those works which have extended our knowledge, 

 and placed the siud}- of the sciences and literature in the 

 ilourishing state thev now are, would never have existed. 



We find, innnediately after the preface, the Life of Hadji 

 Khalfa, whose name is Mustafa, the son of Abd-allah ; his 

 surname, Hadji Khalfa, is composid of two Arabian words, 

 Hadji (pilgrim), and Khnlifa, or, as the Tiu'ks write and 

 pronounce it, Khalfa or KalJ'a (assessor) : he takes the name 

 of Hadji from having accomplished the pilgrimage to Mecca 

 in the year 1043 of the Hegira, (A. D. 1633,) and he 

 added Khalfa to it when he obtained the place of second 

 assessor in the ottice of Basch-mohaescbe, or cliief of the 

 accounts. He was also known by the name of Catil) Tche- 

 jcbi. His father had tilled the place of secretary to the 

 Porte, which produced him the name of Catib, and his son 

 iiilierllcd it from him : Tchelebi is a Turkish word signifv- 

 ing a man of genteel birth. 



This Life of Hadji Khrdfa, written bv liintself, was printetl 



niih his Chronological Tables, a work of which llierc is aa 



4 Italian 



