surveyed by British eyes, and described by recent travellers.
Had I, therefore, attempted the difficult task of substituting
manners of my own invention, instead of the genuine costume of
the East, almost every traveller I met who had extended his route
beyond what was anciently called "The Grand Tour," had acquired a
right, by ocular inspection, to chastise me for my presumption.
Every member of the Travellers' Club who could pretend to have
thrown his shoe over Edom was, by having done so, constituted my
lawful critic and corrector. It occurred, therefore, that where
the author of Anastasius, as well as he of Hadji Baba, had
described the manners and vices of the Eastern nations, not only
with fidelity, but with the humour of Le Sage and the ludicrous
power of Fielding himself, one who was a perfect stranger to the
subject must necessarily produce an unfavourable contrast. The
Poet Laureate also, in the charming tale of "Thalaba," had shown
how extensive might be the researches of a person of acquirements
and talent, by dint of investigation alone, into the ancient
doctrines, history, and manners of the Eastern countries, in
which we are probably to look for the cradle of mankind; Moore,
in his "Lalla Rookh," had successfully trod the same path; in
which, too, Byron, joining ocular experience to extensive
reading, had written some of his most attractive poems. In a
word, the Eastern themes had been already so successfully handled
by those who were acknowledged to be masters of their craft, that
I was diffident of making the attempt.

These were powerful objections; nor did they lose force when they
became the subject of anxious reflection, although they did not
finally prevail. The arguments on the other side were, that
though I had no hope of rivalling the contemporaries whom I have