﻿4 THE FOURTH DISCOURSE : 



logical tables, from which chronology might be 

 better ascertained, are prefixed to many compositions 

 of the old Arabian Poets, yet most manuscripts are 

 so incorrect, and so many contradictions are found in 

 the best of them, that we can scarce lean upon tra- 

 dition with security, and must have recourse to the 

 same media for investigating the history of the Arabs 

 that I before adopted in regard to that of the Indians; 

 namely, their language, letters, and religion, their an- 

 cient monuments, and the certain remains of their arts; 

 on each of which heads I shall touch very concisely, 

 having premised that my observations will in general 

 be confined to the state of Arabia before that singular 

 revolution at the beginning- of the sc-venth century, 

 the effects of which we feel at this day from the Pyre- 

 nean mountains and the Danube, to the farthest parts 

 of the Indian Ewfircyand even to the Eastern Islands. 



I. For the knowledge which any European who 

 pleases may attain of the Arabian language, we are 

 principally indebted to the university of Ley den; for, 

 though several Italians have assiduously laboured in 

 the same wide field, yet the fruit of their labours has 

 been rendered almost useless by more commodious 

 and more accurate works printed in Holland; and, 

 though Pocock certainly accomplished much, and was 

 able to accomplish any thing, yet the academical ease 

 which he enjoyed-, and his theological pursuits, in- 

 duced him to leave unfinished the valuable work of 

 Maidani which he had prepared for publication; nor, 

 even if that mine of Arabian philology had seen 

 the light, would it have borne any comparison with 

 the fifty dissertations of Hariri, which the first Al- 

 bert Schultens translated and explained, though he 

 sent abroad but few of them, and has left his wcrthy 

 grandson, from whom perhaps Maidani also may 

 be expected, the honour of publishing the rest: 

 but the palm of glory in this branch of litera- 



