420 General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. [No. 125. 



Mr. Veth has published at Leyden the first half of the text of Lob- 

 bal Lobab by Soyouti. 12 It is a Dictionary of patronymic names, and 

 of others under which the Arabic authors are much more frequently 

 quoted than under their proper names. The confusion under which the 

 Arabs labour themselves to identify men known under different names, 

 has induced them to prepare dictionaries for obviating this difficulty. 

 Samani in the sixth century of the Hegira has published one, in which he 

 does not only explain the sense and origin of these names, but also men- 

 tions with regard to every word the true names of the authors who 

 have had them. This work was abbreviated in the succeeding century 

 by Ibnal-Athir, and this extract again shortened by Soyouti. The work 

 of Samani is at present unknown, if not lost, and the extract of Ibnal- 

 Athir is only known by the specimen given by Mr. Wustenfeld, accord- 

 ing to an incomplete manuscript of Gotha. Under these circumstances, 

 Mr. Veth has resolved on publishing the text of Soyouti, who has pre- 

 served the definitions of the names, omitting, however, the enumeration 

 of the authors who have borne them, and also the literary details his 

 predecessors had added. The work of Soyouti, is therefore, far from 

 containing all we would wish, but the excellent edition by Mr. Veth is 

 nevertheless an acceptable present, not only because the Lobbal-Lobab 

 explains the often bizarr surnames of the authors, but especially be- 

 cause it contains a great number of names of places, which we in vain 

 are searching in the most complete geographical treatises. It is here 

 perhaps not out of place to call the attention of Oriental travellers to 

 the importance of the treatise of Samani, entitled " Fi'1-Ansab," the 

 discovery of which would much contribute to the progress of Arabic 

 bibliography. 



This brings me back to two editions of Ibn Khalli-kan, which at this 

 moment are printing at Gottingen and Paris. Mr. Wustenfeld has 

 published the 7th book of his, while Mr. Slane has finished the excel- 

 lent text he is editing. 13 A pamphlet has been lately published by Mr. 

 Cureton, on an autograph manuscript of Ibn Khalli-kan, discovered by 



12. This work has appeared in the form of an academical thesis under the title " Spe- 

 cimen Litterio Orientalibus exhibens majorem partem libri. As. Soyouti de nominibus 

 relativis inscripti proponit Johan. Veth. Lugduni Batavorum, 1480 in 4to. 



13. Kitab Wefayat Al-aiyan; Vies des Hommes illustres dePIslamisme en Arabe. 

 par lbn-Khalli-kan, publiees par M. le Baron MacGurkin de Slane. Paris, Fermin 

 Didot, 1838-40, in 4to. cahiers i. iv. 



