intelligible, while he abridged the long-winded narratives,
curtailed the monotonous reflections, and rejected the endless
repetitions of the Arabian original. The tales, therefore,
though less purely Oriental than in their first concoction, were
eminently better fitted for the European market, and obtained an
unrivalled degree of public favour, which they certainly would
never have gained had not the manners and style been in some
degree familiarized to the feelings and habits of the western
reader.

In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I
trust, devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our
ancient manners in modern language, and so far detailed the
characters and sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader
will not find himself, I should hope, much trammelled by the
repulsive dryness of mere antiquity. In this, I respectfully
contend, I have in no respect exceeded the fair license due to
the author of a fictitious composition. The late ingenious Mr
Strutt, in his romance of Queen-Hoo-Hall,*

* The author had revised this posthumous work of Mr Strutt.
* See General Preface to the present edition, Vol I. p. 65.

acted upon another principle; and in distinguishing between what
was ancient and modern, forgot, as it appears to me, that
extensive neutral ground, the large proportion, that is, of
manners and sentiments which are common to us and to our
ancestors, having been handed down unaltered from them to us, or
which, arising out of the principles of our common nature, must
have existed alike in either state of society. In this manner, a