16 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



There is reason to regret, however, that 

 this eminent Oriental scholar, instead of 

 giving ns a treatise on the text, which he 

 alone has consulted, shonld not have rather 

 first published the text itself. The posi- 

 tion of a critic is extremely painful when 

 he is obliged to combat the opinions 

 which a conscientious scholar has formed 

 on a work which he alone has read in its 

 entirety, and from which he only gives 

 extracts which bear out his own theory. 

 Until " The Eook of NabathaBaii Agricul- 

 ture " is published in its full integrity, 

 the judgment brought to bear on the sub- 

 ject must be received with great allowance. 

 Nevertheless, so great is the interest of the 

 question, that thanks are due to Dr. Chwol- 

 son for having forestalled the tedious delay 

 inseparable from a publication so volumin- 

 ous as that of " The Eook of Nabathaean 



Arabisclien Uebersetzungen" (1859), extracted from vol. VIII. of 

 u Memoires des Savants etrangers," of the Academy of St. Peters- 

 burg. Dr. Chwolson has already announced these results in his 

 u Ssiibier" (1856), vol. I., p. 705, and vol. II., pp. 910 and 911 ; 

 and in the "Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlanden Gcsellschaft," 

 1857, pp. 583 ft. 



