LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 



85 



the world. The same remark is true of the figures 

 and images drawn from those beautiful and agree- 

 able scenes with which the Eastern nations are 

 perpetually conversant. The Hebrew muse delight- 

 ed in the roses of Sharon, the verdure of Carmel, 

 and the cedars of Lebanon ; so did the Arabs 

 adorn their verses with the pearls of Oman, the 

 musk of Hadramaut, the woods and nightingales of 

 Aden, and the spicy odours of Yemen. Compared to 

 our idiom such emblems may appear fantastic and 

 extravagant, however striking and just, in the glow- 

 ing language of the East. They differ essentially 

 from those we meet with in the schools of Greece 

 and Rome. The acacia and the tamarisk of the 

 rocks bloomed not in their famed Parnassus, nor 

 in the groves of their Academy ; and were we to 

 attempt to transplant these exotic flowers to the 

 gardens of Europe, perhaps we should not be sur- 

 prised 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 

 exhaustless variety. With the Arabian Nights' 

 Entertainments, the Alif Lila iva Lilin, or the 

 Thousand-and-One Stories told by the Sultaness 

 of the Indies, who is not acquainted ? The plea- 

 sure we derive from their perusal makes us regret 

 that we possess only a comparatively small part of 

 these truly enchanting fictions. The author or 

 authors of this immense collection of tales are un- 



