The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 1 | Page 6

to a mere fairy book, a nice
present for little boys.
After nearly a century had elapsed, Dr. Jonathan Scott (LL.D.
H.E.I.C.'s S., Persian Secretary to the G. G. Bengal; Oriental Professor,
etc., etc.), printed his "Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from
the Arabic and Persian," (Cadell and Davies, London, A.D. 1800); and
followed in 1811 with an edition of "The Arabian Nights'
Entertainments" from the MS. of Edward Wortley Montague (in 6 vols.,
small 8vo, London: Longmans, etc.). This work he (and he only)
describes as "Carefully revised and occasionally corrected from the
Arabic." The reading public did not wholly reject it, sundry texts were
founded upon the Scott version and it has been imperfectly reprinted (4
vole., 8vo, Nimmo and Bain, London, 1883). But most men, little
recking what a small portion of the original they were reading, satisfied
themselves with the Anglo French epitome and metaphrase. At length
in 1838, Mr. Henry Torrens, B.A., Irishman, lawyer ("of the Inner
Temple") and Bengal Civilian, took a step in the right direction; and
began to translate, "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night,"
(1 vol., 8vo, Calcutta: W. Thacker and Co.) from the Arabic of the
Ægyptian (!) MS. edited by Mr. (afterwards Sir)William H.
Macnaghten. The attempt, or rather the intention, was highly creditable;
the copy was carefully moulded upon the model and offered the best
example of the verbatim et literatim style. But the plucky author knew
little of Arabic, and least of what is most wanted, the dialect of Egypt
and Syria. His prose is so conscientious as to offer up spirit at the
shrine of letter; and his verse, always whimsical, has at times a manner
of Hibernian whoop which is comical when it should be pathetic.
Lastly he printed only one volume of a series which completed would
have contained nine or ten.

That amiable and devoted Arabist, the late Edward William Lane does
not score a success in his "New Translation of the Tales of a Thousand
and One Nights" (London: Charles Knight and Co., MDCCCXXXIX.)
of which there have been four English editions, besides American, two
edited by E. S. Poole. He chose the abbreviating Bulak Edition; and, of
its two hundred tales, he has omitted about half and by far the more
characteristic half: the 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 terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign
word, so happily and so picturesquely that all future translators must
perforce use the same expression under pain of falling far short. But the

learned and versatile author bound himself to issue only five hundred
copies, and "not to reproduce the work in its complete and uncastrated
form." Consequently his excellent version is caviaire to the
general--practically unprocurable.
And here I hasten to confess that ample use has been made of the three
versions above noted, the whole being blended by a callida junctura
into a homogeneous mass. But in the presence of so many predecessors
a writer is bound to show some raison d'etre for making a fresh attempt
and this