should be forwarded but on one condition, namely, that the reviewer would not dwell too lovingly and longingly upon the “archaics,” which had so excited the Tartuffean temperament of the chaste Pall Mall Gazette.  Mr. Henry Reeves replied (surlily) that he was not in the habit of dictating to his staff and I rejoined by refusing to grant his request.  So he waited until five, that is one half of my volumes had been distributed to subscribers, and revenged himself by placing them for review in the hands of the “Lane-Poole” clique which, as the sequel proved could be noisy and combative as setting hens disturbed when their nest-egg was threatened by an intruding hand.

For the clique had appropriated all right and claim to a monopoly of The Arabian Nights Entertainments which they held in hand as a rotten borough.  The “Uncle and Master,” Mr. Edward William Lane, eponymous hero of the house, had retranslated certain choice specimens of the Recueil and the “nephews of their uncle” resolved to make a private gold-mine thereof.  The book came out in monthly parts at half-a-crown (1839-41) and when offered for sale in 3 vols. royal 8 vo, the edition of 5,000 hung fire at first until the high price (3 pounds 3s.) was reduced to 27 shillings for the trade.  The sale then went off briskly and amply repaid the author and the publishers—­Charles Knight and Co.  And although here and there some “old Tory” grumbled that new-fangled words (as Wezeer, Kadee and Jinnee) had taken the places of his childhood’s pets, the Vizier, the Cadi, and the Genie, none complained of the workmanship for the all-sufficient reason that naught better was then known or could be wanted.  Its succes de salon was greatly indebted to the “many hundred engravings on wood, from original designs by William Harvey”, with a host of quaint and curious Arabesques, Cufic inscriptions, vignettes, head pieces and culs- de-lampes.  These, with the exception of sundry minor accessories, [FN#447] were excellent and showed for the first time the realistic East and not the absurdities drawn from the depths of artistical ignorance and self-consciousness—­those of Smirke, Deveria, Chasselot and Co., not to speak of the horrors of the De Sacy edition, whose plates have apparently been used by Prof.  Weil and by the Italian versions.  And so the three bulky and handsome volumes found a ready way into many a drawing room during the Forties, when the public was uncritical enough to hail the appearance of these scattered chapters and to hold that at last they had the real thing, pure and unadulterated.  No less than three reprints of the “Standard Edition,” 1859 (the last being in ’83), succeeded one another and the issue was finally stopped, not by the author’s death (aetat 75; London, August 10, 1876:  net.  Hereford, September 17, 1801), nor by the plates, which are now the property of Messieurs Chatto and Windus, becoming too worn for use, but simply by deficient demand.  And the clique, represented by the late