de pareils contes, et qu’ils ont fait l’education du genre humain, on trouve les fables de Pilpay, de Lokman,[FN#239] d’Esope, bien raisonables.  But methinks the sage of Ferney might have said far more.  These fables speak with the large utterance of early man; they have also their own especial beauty—­the charms of well-preserved and time-honoured old age.  There is in their wisdom a perfume of the past, homely and ancient-fashioned like a whiff of pot pourri, wondrous soothing withal to olfactories agitated by the patchoulis and jockey clubs of modern pretenders and petit-maitres, with their grey young heads and pert intelligence, the motto of whose ignorance is “Connu!” Were a dose of its antique, mature experience adhibited to the Western before he visits the East, those few who could digest it might escape the normal lot of being twisted round the fingers of every rogue they meet from Dragoman to Rajah.  And a quotation from them tells at once:  it shows the quoter to be man of education, not a “Jangali,” a sylvan or savage, as the Anglo-Indian official is habitually termed by his more civilised “fellow-subject.”

The main difference between the classical apologue and the fable in The Nights is that while AEsop and Gabrias write laconic tales with a single event and a simple moral, the Arabian fables are often “long-continued novelle involving a variety of events, each characterised by some social or political aspect, forming a narrative highly interesting in itself, often exhibiting the most exquisite moral, and yet preserving, with rare ingenuity, the peculiar characteristics of the actors."[FN#240] And the distinction between the ancient and the mediaeval apologue, including the modern which, since “Reineke Fuchs,” is mainly German, appears equally pronounced.  The latter is humorous enough and rich in the wit which results from superficial incongruity:  but it ignores the deep underlying bond which connects man with beast.  Again, the main secret of its success is the strain of pungent satire, especially in the Renardine Cycle, which the people could apply to all unpopular “lordes and prelates, gostly and worldly.”

Our Recueil contains two distinct sets of apologues. [FN#241] The first (vol. iii.) consists of eleven, alternating with five anecdotes (Nights cxlvi.—­cliii.), following the lengthy and knightly romance of King Omar bin al Nu’man and followed by the melancholy love tale of Ali bin Bakkar.  The second series in vol. ix., consisting of eight fables, not including ten anecdotes (Nights cmi.—­cmxxiv.), is injected into the romance of King Jali’ad and Shimas mentioned by Al-Mas’udi as independent of The Nights.  In both places the Beast-fables are introduced with some art and add variety to the subject-matter, obviating monotony—­ the deadly sin of such works—­and giving repose to the hearer or reader after a climax of excitement such as the murder of the Wazirs.  And even these are not allowed to pall upon the mental palate, being