THE PREFACE. T HE reader will probably expect, that, before I present him with the following miscellany, I fhould give fome account of the pieces contained in it; and should prove the authenticity of those Eaftern originals, from which I profess to have translated them: indeed, fo many productions,invented in France,have been offered to the publick as genuine tranflations from the languages of Afia, that I should have wifhed, for my own fake,to clear my publication from the slightest fufpicion of impofture: but there is a circumstance peculiarly hard in the present cafe; namely, that, were I to produce the originals themselves, it would be impoffible to perfuade fome men, that even they 1 were not forged for the purpose, like the pretended language of Formofa. I fhall, however, attempt in this short preface to fatisfy the reader's expectations. The first poem in the collection, called Solima, is not a regular tranflation from the Arabick language; but all the figures, fentiments, and defcriptions in it, were really taken from the poets of Arabia: for when I was reading fome of their verses on benevolence and hospitality, which they justly confider as their most amiable virtues, I selected those paffages, which feemed most likely to run into our measure, and connected them in fuch a manner as to form one continued piece, which I suppose to be written in praise of an Arabian princess, who had built a caravansera with pleasant gardens, for the refreshment of travellers and pilgrims; an act of munificence not uncommon in Afia. I shall trouble the reader with only one of the original passages, from which he may form a tolerable judgment of the rest: Kad alama e'ddbaifo wa'l mojteduno Idha aghbara ofkon wababbat shemalan, Leman Leman yatarica, waconto' themalan, Waconto dagiyyi” lleili fihi helalan. that is; * the stranger and the pilgrim well know, when the sky is dark, and the north-wind rages, when the mothers leave their fucking infants, when no moisture can be feen in the clouds, that thou art bountiful to them as the fpring, that thou art their chief Jupport, that thou art a fun to them by day, and a moon in the cloudy night. The hint of the next poem, or The Palace of Fortune, was taken from an Indian tale, tranflated a few years ago from the Perfian by a very ingenious gentleman in the fervice of the India-company; but I have added several defcriptions, and episodes, from other Eastern writers, have given a different moral to the whole piece, and have made some other alterations in it, which may be seen by any one, who will take the pains to compare it with the ftory of Rofbana, in the fecond volume of the tales of Inatulla. I have taken a still greater liberty with the moral allegory, which, in imitation of the Perfian poet Nezami, I have entitled The Seven Fountains ; See this paffage verfified, Solima, line 71. etc. 2 2 the the general subject of it was borrowed from a story in a collection of tales by Ebn Arabfhah, a native of Damafcus, who flourished in the fifteenth century, and wrote feveral other works in a very polished style, the most celebrated of which is An history of the life of Tamerlane*: but I have ingrafted, upon the principal allegory, an episode from the Arabian tales of A thousand and one nights, a copy of which work in Arabick was procured for me by a learned friend at Aleppo. The fong, which follows, was first printed at the end of a Perfian grammar; but, for the fatisfaction of those who may have any doubt of its being genuine, it feemed proper to fet down the original of it in Roman characters at the bottom of the page. The ode of Petrarch was added, that the reader might compare the manner of the Afiatick poets with that of the Italians, many of whom have written in the true fpirit of the Eafterns: *The Hiftory of Tamerlane was published by the excellent Golius, in the year 1636; and the book of fables, called in Arabick Facahato'lkholafa, or, The Delight of the Caliphs, is among Pocock's manufcripts at Oxford, No. 334. See the ftory of Prince Agib, or the third Calander in the Arabian tales, Night 57. etc. fome fome of the Perfian fongs have a ftriking refemblance to the fonnets of Petrarch; and even the form of thofe little amatory poems was, I believe, brought into Europe by the Arabians: one would almost imagine the following lines to be tranflated from the Perfian, Aura, che quelle chiome bionde e crefpe E poi 'l raccogli, e'n bei nodi l'increfpe. fince there is scarce a page in the works of Hafez and Fami, in which the fame image, of the breeze playing with the treffes of a beautiful girl, is not agreeably and variously expreffed. The elegy on the death of Laura was inferted with the fame view, of forming a comparison between the Oriental and the Italian poetry: the description of the fountain of Valchiufa, or Vallis Claufa, which was close to Petrarch's house, was added to the elegy in the year 1769, and was compofed on the very fpot, which I could not forbear vifiting, when I paffed by Avignon. The |