ITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 73 



not be surprised to find a portion of their beauty 

 gone, and our gratification diminished. 



"With the Arabs the want of epic and dramatic 

 poetry was abundantly compensated by a species of 

 composition which in some degree combined the 

 nature of both. It is to their brilliant imagination 

 that we owe those beautiful tales, which surprise us 

 not more by their prodigious number than their ex- 

 haustless variety. With the Arabian Nights' Enter- 

 tainments, the AUf Lila wa Lilin, or the Thousand- 

 and-One Stories told by the Sultaness of the Indies, 

 who is not acquainted T The pleasure we derive 

 from their perusal makes us regret that we possess 

 only a comparatively small part of these truly en- 

 chanting fictions. The author or authors of this 

 immense collection of tales are unknown, and the 

 learned in Europe differ as to their origin. Von 

 Hammer, on the authority of Masoudi, suggested 

 some years ago that they were not originally Ara- 

 bian, but translated from the Indian or Persian in 

 the reign of the Caliph Almamoun, — an opinion cer- 

 tainly opposed by the circumstance, that a foreigner 

 could scarcely have succeeded in giving so accurate 

 a description of Arabian life and scenery. Mons. 

 Galland, who first supplied a French version (A. D. 

 1706), supposed that not more than a six-and-thir- 

 tieth part of them were known in Europe ; and a 

 late traveller (Dr. Daniel Clarke) has given a list of 

 172 tales contained in a manuscript purchased by 

 him in Egypt, divided in the same manner as the 

 celebrated Nights' Entertainments. It rarely hap- 

 pens, this author remarks, that any two copies of 

 the Alif Lila wa Lilin resemble each other ; and the 

 title is indiscriminately bestowed on every compila- 

 tion of popular stories that embraces the same num- 

 ber of parts, — a fact which may help to account for 

 our comparative deficiency in this department of 

 oriental literature. 



Besides those committed to writing, a vast num- 



VoL. II.— G 



