or other work of like character.




V.



M. Zotenberg has, with great judgment, taken as his standard for
publication the text of Aladdin given by the Sebbagh MS.,
inasmuch as the Shawish MS. (besides being, as appears from the
extracts given. [FN#20] far inferior both in style and general
correctness,) is shown by the editor to be full of modern
European phrases and turns of speech and to present so many
suspicious peculiarities that it would be difficult, having
regard, moreover, to the doubtful character and reputation of the
Syrian monkish adventurer who styled himself Dom Denis Chavis, to
resist the conviction that his MS. was a forgery, i.e.
professedly a copy of a genuine Arabic text, but in reality only
a translation or paraphrase in that language of Galland's
version,--were it not that the Baghdad MS. (dated before the
commencement, in 1704, of Galland's publication and transcribed
by a man--Mikhail Sebbagh--whose reputation, as a collaborator of
Silvestre de Sacy and other distinguished Orientalists, is a
sufficient voucher for the authenticity of the copy in the
Bibliotheque Nationale,) contains a text essentially identical
with that of Shawish. Moreover, it is evident, from a comparison
with Galland's rendering and making allowance for the latter's
system of translation, that the Arabic version of Aladdin given