278 THE KORAN. 



curable character of her Asiatic scholarship. His 

 translation of the Koran is that with which we are 

 most familiar, and has received the approbation of 

 every master of the Arabic tongue. His Prelimi- 

 nary Dissertations are a valuable mine of Arabian 

 history. Perhaps the only fault in his version is 

 its being given in the form of solid and compact 

 prose instead of being separated, as in the original, 

 into verses. Maracci attended to this division, but 

 he rendered it word for word; and has often dis- 

 guised the thoughts and idioms of the flowery pro- 

 phet in the unseemly garb of a barbarous latinity. 

 Savary has also preserved this distinction ; but he 

 . has done more, — he has infused into his French 

 translation inuch of the spirit and beauty of the 

 origmal. Among the numerous oriental versions, 

 those into the Persic and Turkish are held in the 

 highest estimation. Yet, with all these advantages, 

 it will be difficult to impregnate the mind of a 

 " European infidel" with any sentiment approach- 

 ing that enthusiasm of respect and veneration in 

 which the Koran is held by its own believers. He 

 will peruse with impatience the endless repetition 

 of pious declamation, the incoherent rhapsody of 

 fable and precept, of promises, threats, and admo- 

 nitions, w^hich seldom excite any definite feeling or 

 i(jea, — which sometimes, as Gibbon justly remarks, 

 crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the 

 clouds. 



Its materials are entirely borrowed from the Jew- 

 ish and Christian Scriptures, from the legends of 

 the Talmudists, the Apocryphal gospels then cur- 

 rent in the East, the traditions and fables of the 

 Arabian and Persian mythology, — all heaped toge- 

 ther without any fixed principle or visible connexion. 

 When describing the various attributes of the Divine 

 Being, whether physical or moral, it conveys no 

 clearer notions of the inscrutable essence than we 

 before possessed. It only re-echoes the language, 



