BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 85 



recognisable. Their translations themselves 

 are nothing more than free reproductions, 

 accommodated to their habits of writing, and 

 we are told expressly that all the transla- 

 tions of Ibn Wahshiya were dictated by 

 him to one of his disciples, who subse- 

 quently adapted them to the taste of his 

 times. 1 



I would ask permission to hazard, if only 

 under the form of a mere conjecture, a sup- 

 position which, however, it is very difficult 

 not to entertain — I mean the possibility of a 

 literary fraud, or some degree of bad faith, 

 on the part of the author. Most un- 

 doubtedly the book is of an epoch which 

 always gives rise to suspicions, and not 

 without cause. The instance of the Desatir 

 occurs to me, as a case in point, whether 

 we like it or not, to confuse the mind 

 of a critic. The hypothesis of the Desatir 

 being apocryphal is surrounded by as many 

 difficulties as that which declares the history 

 fabricated upon which " The Book of Naba- 



1 Pp. 15-16. 



