[FN#299] See pp. 5-6 Avertissement des Editeurs, Le Cabinet des Fees, vol. xxxviii:  Geneva 1788.  Galland’s Edit. of mdccxxvi ends with Night ccxxxiv and the English translations with ccxxxvi and cxcvii.  See retro p. 82.

[FN#300] There is a shade of difference in the words; the former is also used for Reciters of Traditions—­a serious subject.  But in the case of Hammad surnamed Al-Rawiyah (the Rhapsode) attached to the Court of Al-Walid, it means simply a conteur.  So the Greeks had Homeristae = reciters of Homer, as opposed to the Homeridae or School of Homer.

[FN#302] Vol. i, Preface p. v.  He notes that Mr. Dallaway describes the same scene at Constantinople where the Story-teller was used, like the modern “Organs of Government” in newspaper shape, for “reconciling the people to any recent measure of the Sultan and Vizier.”  There are women Rawiyahs for the Harems and some have become famous like the Mother of Hasan al-Basri (Ibn Khall. i, 370).

[FN#302] Hence the Persian proverb, “Baki-e-dastan farda = the rest of the tale to-morrow,” said to askers of silly questions.

[FN#303] The scene is excellently described in, “Morocco:  Its People and Places,” by Edmondo de Amicis (London:  Cassell, 1882), a most refreshing volume after the enforced platitudes and commonplaces of English travellers.

[FN#304] It began, however, in Persia, where the celebrated Darwaysh Mukhlis, Chief Sofi of Isfahan in the xviith century, translated into Persian tales certain Hindu plays of which a MS. entitled Alfaraga Badal-Schidda (Al-faraj ba’d al-shiddah = Joy after annoy) exists in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.  But to give an original air to his work, he entitled it “Hazar o yek Ruz” = Thousand and One Days, and in 1675 he allowed his friend Petis de la Croix, who happened to be at Isfahan, to copy it.  Le Sage (of Gil Blas) is said to have converted many of the tales of Mukhlis into comic operas, which were performed at the Theatre Italien.  I still hope to see The Nights at the Lyceum.

[FN#305] This author, however, when hazarding a change of style which is, I think, regretable, has shown abundant art by filling up the frequent deficiencies of the text after the fashion of Baron McGuckin de Slane in Ibn Khallikan.  As regards the tout ensemble of his work, a noble piece of English, my opinion will ever be that expressed in my Foreword.  A carping critic has remarked that the translator, “as may be seen in every page, is no Arabic scholar.”  If I be a judge, the reverse is the case:  the brilliant and beautiful version thus traduced is almost entirely free from the blemishes and carelessness which disfigure Lane’s, and thus it is far more faithful to the original.  But it is no secret that on the staff of that journal the translator of Villon has sundry enemies, vrais diables enjuppones, who take every opportunity of girding at him because he does not belong to the clique and because he does good work when theirs is mostly sham.  The sole fault I find with Mr. Payne is that his severe grace of style treats an unclassical work as a classic, when the romantic and irregular would have been a more appropriate garb.  But this is a mere matter of private judgment.