changes of person, some of the most “archaic” expressions suggest the hand of the Rawi or professional tale-teller; yet as they are in all the texts they cannot be omitted in a loyal translation.  The following story of The Three Apples perfectly justifies my notes concerning which certain carpers complain.  What Englishman would be jealous enough to kill his cousin-wife because a blackamoor in the streets boasted of her favours?  But after reading what is annotated in vol. i. 6, and purposely placed there to give the key-note of the book, he will understand the reasonable nature of the suspicion; and I may add that the same cause has commended these “skunks of the human race” to debauched women in England.

The next tale, sometimes called “The Two Wazirs,” is notable for its regular and genuine drama-intrigue which, however, appears still more elaborate and perfected in other pieces.  The richness of this Oriental plot-invention contrasts strongly with all European literatures except the Spaniard’s, whose taste for the theatre determined his direction, and the Italian, which in Boccaccio’s day had borrowed freely through Sicily from the East.  And the remarkable deficiency lasted till the romantic movement dawned in France, when Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas showed their marvellous powers of faultless fancy, boundless imagination and scenic luxuriance, “raising French Poetry from the dead and not mortally wounding French prose.’’[FN#283] The Two Wazirs is followed by the gem of the volume, The Adventure of the Hunchback-jester (i. 225), also containing an admirable surprise and a fine development of character, while its “wild but natural simplicity” and its humour are so abounding that it has echoed through the world to the farthest West.  It gave to Addison the Story of Alnaschar[FN#284] and to Europe the term “Barmecide Feast,” from the “Tale of Shacabac” (vol. i. 343).  The adventures of the corpse were known in Europe long before Galland as shown by three fabliaux in Barbazan.  I have noticed that the Barber’s Tale of himself (i. 317) is historical and I may add that it is told in detail by Al-Mas’udi (chapt. cxiv).

Follows the tale of Nur al-Din Ali, and what Galland miscalls “The Fair Persian,” a brightly written historiette with not a few touches of true humour.  Noteworthy are the Slaver’s address (vol. ii. 15), the fine description of the Baghdad garden (vol. ii. 21-24), the drinking-party (vol. ii. 25), the Caliph’s frolic (vol. ii. 31-37) and the happy end of the hero’s misfortunes (vol. ii. 44) Its brightness is tempered by the gloomy tone of the tale which succeeds, and which has variants in the Bagh o Bahar, a Hindustani versionof the Persian “Tale of the Four Darwayshes;” and in the Turkish Kirk Vezir or “Book of the Forty Vezirs.”  Its dismal peripeties are relieved only by the witty indecency of Eunuch Bukhayt and the admirable humour of Eunuch Kafur, whose “half lie” is known throughout the East.  Here also the lover’s agonies are piled upon him for the purpose of unpiling at last:  the Oriental tale-teller knows by experience that, as a rule, doleful endings “don’t pay.”