work was intended for "the drawing room table;" and,
consequently, the workman was compelled to avoid the
"objectionable" and aught "approaching to licentiousness." He
converts the Arabian Nights into the Arabian Chapters,
arbitrarily changing the division and, worse still, he converts
some chapters into notes. He renders poetry by prose and
apologises for not omitting it altogether: he neglects assonance
and he is at once too Oriental and not Oriental enough. He had
small store of Arabic at the time--Lane of the Nights is not Lane
of the Dictionary--and his pages are disfigured by many childish
mistakes. Worst of all, the three handsome volumes are rendered
unreadable as Sale's Koran by their anglicised Latin, their
sesquipedalian un English words, and the stiff and stilted style
of half a century ago when our prose was, perhaps, the worst in
Europe. Their cargo of Moslem learning was most valuable to the
student, but utterly out of place for readers of "The Nights;"
re-published, as these notes have been separately (London,
Chatto, I883), they are an ethnological text book.

Mr. John Payne has printed, for the Villon Society and for
private circulation only, the first and sole complete translation
of the great compendium, "comprising about four times as much
matter as that of Galland, and three times as much as that of any
other translator;" and I cannot but feel proud that he has
honoured me with the dedication of "The Book of The Thousand
Nights and One Night." His version is most readable: his English,
with a sub-flavour of the Mabinogionic archaicism, is admirable;
and his style gives life and light to the nine volumes whose
matter is frequently heavy enough. He succeeds admirably in the
most difficult passages and he often hits upon choice and special