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paragraph by paragraph, rather than to spoil what was already well done, by affecting to make it my own.

To him I owe whatsoever is quoted from the Persian authors. How often have I endeavoured to perfect myself in that easy and delicate language; but my malignant and envious stars have still combined to frustrate my attempts. However, they shall sooner alter their own courses than extinguish my resolution of quenching that thirst, which the little taste I have had of it, hath so hotly excited.

I am as yet ignorant of Turkish; which I should not be so much concerned at, were it not for five volumes in that language in our public library, which I behold with delight and concern at the same time: with delight, because they are ours, and so not to be despaired of: with concern, because I do not myself understand them. They are a translation of the great Tabari, who is the Livy of the Arabians; the very father of their history. As far as I could find by inquiry his original work is given over for lost in Arabia. I formerly inquired of my predecessor, Dr. Luke, concerning him, who told me he had never met with him in the east, and that he believed there was no hope of finding an Arabic copy of his book: Monsieur D'Herbelot says the same. And there is this good reason for it, that this being the standard of their history, and upon that account translated from the very first out of Arabic into Turkish, the value of the Arabic copy must of necessity have fallen more and more in all those territories where Turkish is better understood than Arabic; for it would not be worth the bookseller's while to be at the charge of transcribing it. However that we might not imagine it lost because of its extreme scarcity, I luckily found a piece of it in folio amongst archbishop Laud's manuscripts (it is unfortunately imperfect), accurately written and with all the points, and no doubt for the use of some great person. Without the assistance of which copy I must oftentimes have been left in the dark.

Had I not been destitute of similar aids; had I not been forced to snatch everything that I have, as it were out of the fire; our history of the Saracens should have been ushered into the world after a different manner. Now, gentlemen, though critics and readers, I hold you in very particular respect, yet pardon me if I choose rather to point out my own deficiencies than leave them for you to find out; for I fear lest, notwithstanding your candour, a fault should be ascribed to my laziness or negligence that ought more justly to be attributed to the influence of inexorable necessity. Wherefore, in the first place, I will confess that could I have been master of my own time and circumstances, I would never have published anything of this kind, till I had perfectly finished the first part of it according to the natural division which the circumstances of the Saracen empire suggested to the Arabian historians. This era would have extended, from Mohammed's birth to the ruin of the house of Ommiyah by that of Abbas, which was effected in that part of the year of the Hejirah one hundred and thirty two, which answers to part of the year of our Lord seven hundred and fifty. And this period would consequently have included several other conquests, besides that of Spain.

But these were things rather to be desired than hoped for; and if I had waited till I could have made all this preparation, I should never have published any of it as long as I lived. The ancients oftentimes thought a

life well spent in polishing one single book; and they certainly were very much in the right of it, if (as most certainly they did) they intended to perpetuate their memories to posterity, and eke out perishing mortality with an access of glory. We moderns on the contrary can no sooner propose anything though it requires never so much care and application, but we are daily importuned to know when it is to come out. This however is our comfort, that the ancients are in their graves, and though we can, when we find leisure, read their books, they shall never arise from the dead to read ours. But that we may not affectedly attribute to the ancients all excellence exclusively, we must observe that modern taste is not always so corrupt. Monsieur Petit de la Croix, (that famous oriental interpreter to the late Louis XIV. of France,) when commanded by the great Colbert to write the life of Jenkizchan, did not think, as his son acknowledges in the preface, ten years too much time to employ upon it; though he neither wanted books, leisure, abilities, nor encouragement. It is not the mere following those authors who have made their business to write the lives of such or such princes that is sufficient; but it is also necessary to gather up the scattered remains that occur in other historians; to consult the commentators upon the Koran; to consult the scholiasts of their poets; also their medals, inscriptions, and lexicographers. The historian must also trace the originals of customs, surnames, tribes, and the like; and in a word, must dispose all the materials with such judgment that every part may fall naturally into its proper place, and add a lustre to the whole.

But my unhappy condition hath always been such as was far from admitting of such an exactness. Fortune seems only to have given me a taste of it out of spite, on purpose that I might regret the loss of it. Though perhaps I might accuse her wrongfully for befriending me with an excuse for those blemishes that would have admitted of none had I been furnished with all those assistances and advantages, the want of which I now bewail. If that was her meaning, she hath been very tender of my reputation indeed, and resolved that my adversaries should have very little reason to accuse me of the loss of time. The first part of my work cost me two journeys to Oxford, each of them of six weeks only, (inclusive of the delays upon the road, and the difficulty of finding the books without any other guide than the eatalogue, not always infallible.) But my chief business being then with one author, it was so much the easier to make a quick despatch; because it is of no small moment in affairs of this nature to be once well acquainted with the hand of the manuscript, and the style of the author.

But in my second undertaking I found the appearance of things quite different in more respects than one. Either my domestic affairs were grown much worse, or I less able to bear them, or, what is most probable, both were the case. What made me easy as to my journey and charges during my absence, was the liberality of the worshipful Thomas Freke, Esq. of

• Al Wakidi.

"Ingenuous confession! fruits of a life devoted, in its struggles, to important literature! and we murmur when genius is irritable, and erudition is morose !"-D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors.

Hannington, Wilts; to whom the world is indebted for whatsoever is performed at present in this second work; I mean with regard to the expenses which kindness however would not have answered the end he designed, if I had not been indulged with all possible conveniences of study, first by the favour of my much honoured friend, the incomparable Dr. Halley, who, with the consent of his learned colleague Dr. Keil, allowed me the keys of the Savilian study. In the next place I have to express my thanks to the reverend and learned Dr. Hudson, principal librarian of the Bodleian; who according to his wonted humanity permitted me to take out of the library whatsoever books were for my purpose; otherwise, though I had five months' time, much could not have been done, considering the variety and difficulty of the manuscripts. Besides all which I was forced to take the advantage of the slumbers of my cares, that never slept when I was awake; and if they did not incessantly interrupt my studies, were sure to succeed them with no less constancy than night doth the day." Though it would be the height of ingratitude in me not to acknowledge that they were daily alleviated by the favours and courtesies which I received from persons of the greatest dignity and merit in that noble university; too numerous to be all here inserted, and all too worthy (should I mention any one of them) to be omitted.

Some such apology as this will always be necessary for him that undertakes a work of this nature upon his own bottom, without proper encouragement. If any one should pertly ask me, why then do you trouble the world with things that you are not able to bring to perfection? let them take this answer of one of our famous Arabian authors; + what cannot totally be known, ought not to be totally neglected; for the knowledge of a part is better than the ignorance of the whole.

"This is the cry of agony. He who reads this without sympathy, ought to reject these volumes (Calamities of Authors) as the idlest he ever read; ard honour me with his contempt."-D'Israeli.

Abulfeda, Præf, ad Geograph.

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THE Arabians, who are also by the Greek, and in imitation of them, by Latin writers, called Saracens, are divided by their historians into three classes: 1. The primitive Arabians, who inhabited Arabia immediately after the flood: of whom nothing now remains but the names of their tribes, as Adites, Thamudites, &c. and some traditional stories of their punishment for not hearkening to the prophets sent to reclaim them; which stories, however fabulous, have not only served to furnish the Arabian poets with subjects and allusions, but are mentioned in a serious manner by Mohammed,* in the Koran, in order to deter his followers from disbelieving his mission and rejecting his doctrine. 2. The second class are the pure Arabians, descended from Kaktan or Joktan the son of Heber, spoken of Gen. x. 25. The Arab historians make Joktan the father of two sons, not mentioned in the Bible, or mentioned under different names: one of them, called Yáarab, they say was the father of the Arabs who

Ockley writes Mahomet, but as the name is pronounced in Arabic, Muhammed, or Mohammed, and the latter is the orthography most generally adopted, it has been followed here. The name is derived from the past participle of the verb hamad, signifying "praised," or "most glorious."

+ Koran signifies a book, Al is the Arabic article the; the word Alco ran was formerly adopted in almost all the European languages; but as Sale, Gibbon, and most of our modern authors write Koran, it is preferred here.

inhabited Yeman, or Arabia Felix; and the other son Jorham settled in the province of Hejaz; hither they tell us Abraham, upon Sarah's complaint, carried Ishmael, who married Ra'ala the daughter of the twelfth king of the Jorhamites: by whom he had twelve sons. From these, and their posterity intermarrying with the pure Arabians, sprang the Most-Arabi or mixt Arabians, called Ishmaelites and Hagarens. This does not agree with Scripture, which tells us, that the mother of Ishmael took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, Gen. xxi. 21. But here I would have it once for all observed, that we shall often find the Arab writers give different accounts of persons and things from what we meet with in sacred history. They had no ancient writings, their memorials of ancient times were handed down to them by tradition; they are besides much given to fable; no wonder then that they deviate so from the truth. Thus they tell the most absurd stories of Adam and Eve: they mention Noah's flood, but instead of eight, as the Scripture informs us, pretend eighty persons were saved in the ark they will have it that it was not Isaac but Ishmael whom Abraham was about to offer, &c. In general, though Mohammed professed great regard for the Old and New Testaments, he miserably corrupted the histories of both by fables; some borrowed out of the Jewish Talmud, others from spurious authors, and some probably forged in his own brain, or that of his assistants.

The Arabs are now, as they were in ancient times, of two sorts. Some inhabit towns, maintaining themselves by their flocks, agriculture, the fruit of their palm-trees, by trade or merchandise; others live in tents, removing from place to place, as they find grass and water for their cattle, feeding chiefly upon the milk and flesh of camels, a diet which is said by an Arabian physician to dispose them to fierceness and cruelty. The latter class, though strictly just among themsclves, often commit robberies upon merchants and travellers; and excuse themselves by alleging the hard usage of their progenitor Ishmael, and think they have a right to indemnify themselves, not only upon the posterity of Isaac, but also upon every body else who falls in their way. The Arabs were, before the time of Mohammed, divided into several

Pocock. Specim. Arab. Histor. p. 55.

+ Idem, p. 88.

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