viii LECTURES AND ESSAYS 



their kind, will, the editors hope, be of more than an 

 antiquarian or even a purely biographical interest. 



The task of making the selection from Professor Smith s 

 later writings which is presented in the last two sections 

 was comparatively simple. The two reviews of Wellhausen 

 and Renan respectively were chosen by the editors as 

 good examples of the great mass of occasional writing to 

 which Professor Smith gave so much of his time, and in 

 which so much of his best work was done. No representa 

 tive collection of his papers would be complete which did 

 not include the paper on Animal Worship, which was one 

 of his most original contributions to knowledge, and the 

 desirability of reprints of the Letters from the Hejaz, 

 which at the time of their publication received the highest 

 commendation from the most eminent Orientalists of the 

 day was equally obvious. 



The difficulty of presenting a correct and scholarly 

 version of these letters was considerable, and the editors 

 are deeply indebted to the invaluable help of Mr. Stanley A. 

 Cook, ex-Fellow and Lecturer, Gonville and Caius College, 

 Cambridge, to whom they wish to express their obligation. 

 Mr. Cook kindly agreed to read the proofs, and to deal with 

 the necessary alterations of detail. The editors are per 

 mitted to quote the following observations by Mr. Cook 

 on the text of this section as it is now presented : 



&quot; Professor Smith unfortunately left no marked copy of 

 the letters, and the task of seeing that they were reprinted 

 in a satisfactory manner was one of some difficulty. They 

 were written at intervals and for popular publication, and 

 contained various not altogether scientific spellings ; 

 these it did not seem necessary to change. But there were 

 some inconsistencies of transliteration and several obvious 

 misprints, and these have been corrected. The dialect 

 spoken in the Nejd has certain peculiarities of its own, 



