2Q INTRODUCTION. 



depends greatly on the degree of intimacy with 

 Avhich their memory or their achievements are asso- 

 ciated with om- present habits. The preference is 

 naturally given to those countries whose language 

 and manners are familiar to us, and incorporated as 

 it were with our ideas and institutions. It is from 

 this circumstance that the Greeks and Romans have 

 engrossed so large a portion of our study. Their 

 authors are the guides and text books of our educa- 

 tion From them, it may be said, we have bor- 

 rowed the rudiments of our literature, our philoso- 

 phy, our laws, and our civilization. 



With the Arabs the case stands very differently ; 

 and they might, not without reason, complain of an 

 apathy which has allowed a veil of ignorance and 

 preiudice so long to rest on their country and their 

 true character. Their language forms no element- 

 ary part of our studies, and is seldom approached, 

 except from motives of professional necessity, or a 

 taste which is more admired for its singularity than 

 its usefulness. No Eastern tongue, except the Chi- 

 nese is so little cultivated or understood m Europe 

 as the Arabic, notwithstanding the efforts of trans- 

 lators and grammarians,— of Schultens, Reiske, 

 Golius, Erpenius, Se Sacy, D'Herbelot Casiri As- 

 seman, Pocock, Gagnier, Ockley, Sale, Jones, Rich- 

 ardson, Price, and various others, who have contrib- 

 uted by their learned labours to clear a passage for 

 future adventurers into this vast treasury of oriental 



knowledge. . . , 



There are certain impressions, too, witn wnicn 

 Europeans have been wont to associate the charac- 

 ter of this ancient and celebrated people, which have 

 had an unfavourable effect, and attached a sort ot 

 stio-ma to their very name. We are accustomed to 

 re|ard them in the light of robbers and^ pirates 

 merely, " whose hand is against every man ;]' whose 

 primeval destiny was a sentence of implacable and 

 ceaseless hostility with their neighbours ; and on 



