Notes.

ARABIAN TALES AND THEIR SOURCES.

The Arabians have been the immediate instruments in transmitting to us those Oriental tales, of which the conception is so brilliant, and the character so rich and varied, and which, after having been the delight of our childhood, never lose entirely the spell of their enchantment over our maturer age. But while many of these tales are doubtless of Arabian origin, it is not to be supposed that all are equally so. If we may believe the French translator of the Thousand and One Tales, that publication does not include the thirty-sixth part of the great Arabian collection, which is not confined to books, but has been the traditional inheritance of a numerous class, who, like the minstrels of the West, gained their livelihood by reciting, what would interest the feelings of their hearers. This class of Eastern story-tellers was common throughout the whole extent of Mahomedan dominion in Turkey, Persia, and even to the extremity of India.

The sudden rise of the Saracen empire, and its rapid transition from barbarism to refinement, and from the deepest ignorance to the most extensive cultivation of literature and science, is an extraordinary phenomenon in the history of mankind. A century scarcely elapsed from the age of Amrou, the general of Caliph Omar, who is said to have burned the great Alexandrian library, to the period when the family of the Abbasides, who mounted the throne of the Caliphs A.D. 750, introduced a passionate love of art, science, and even poetry. The celebrated Haroun Al Raschid never took a journey without at least a hundred men of science in his train. But the most munificent patron of Arabic literature was Al Mamoun, the seventh Caliph of the race of the Abbasides, and son of Haroun Al Raschid. Having succeeded to the throne A.D. 813, he rendered Bagdad the centre of literature: collecting from the subject provinces of Syria, Armenia, and Egypt the most important books which could be discovered, as the most precious tribute that could be rendered, and causing them to be translated into Arabic for general use. When Al Mamoun dictated the terms of peace to Michael, the Greek emperor, the tribute which he demanded from him was a collection of Greek authors.

The Arabian tales had their birth after this period; and when the Arabians had yielded to the Tartars, Turks, and Persians, the empire of the sword. Soldiers are seldom introduced; the splendours of the just Caliph's reign are dwelt upon with fond remembrance; the style is that of a mercantile people, while riches and artificial luxuries are only rivalled by the marvellous gifts of the genii and fairies. This brilliant mythology, the offspring of the Arabian imagination, together with the other characteristics of the Arabian tales, has had an extensive influence on our own literature. Many of these tales had found their way into our poetry long before the translation of the Arabian Nights; and are met with in the old Fabliaux, and in Boccacio, Ariosto, and Chaucer. But while these tales are Arabian in their structure, the materials have been derived, not only from India, Persia, and China, but also from ancient Egypt, and the classical literature of Greece.

I shall content myself at present with adducing one example of such probable derivation from the source last mentioned. The stories to be compared are too long for quotation, which, as they are well known, will not be necessary. I shall therefore merely give, in parallel columns, the numerous points of resemblance, or coincidence, between the two. The Arabian tale is that of "Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers;" the corresponding story will be found in Herodotus, b. II. c. cxxi.; it is that of Rhampsinitus and the robbery of his royal treasury:

The Egyptian Tale. The Arabian Tale.

1. The king constructs a stone edifice for the security of his vast riches. 1. In a rock so steep and craggy that none can scale it, a cave has been hewn out, in which the robbers deposit their prodigious wealth.

2. In the wall of this treasury is a stone so artfully disposed that a single person can move it, so as to enter and retreat without leaving any trace of his having done so. 2. In this rock is a door which opens into the cave, by means of two magical words, "Open Sesame;" and closes again in like manner by pronouncing the words "Shut Sesame."

3. Two brothers become acquainted with the secret opening into the treasury, and enter it for the purpose of enriching themselves. 3. Two brothers become acquainted with the door of the cave, and the means of opening and shutting it; and they enter it for the purpose of enriching themselves.

4. One of the brothers becomes rich by abstracting large sums of money from the royal treasury. 4. Ali Baba, one of the two brothers, becomes rich by carrying off a great quantity of gold coin from the robbers' cave.

5. The other brother is caught in the snare which the king had laid within the treasury, for the detection and apprehension of the intruders. 5. Cassim, the other brother, is caught as in a snare, by forgetting, when in the cave, the magical words by which alone an exit could be obtained.

6. At his own request the brother thus caught is beheaded by the other to avoid recognition, and to secure the escape of one. The dead body is hung from the wall of the treasury, for the purpose of discovering his accomplice. 6. Cassim, in his attempt to escape, is killed by the robbers, and his dead body is quartered, and hung up within the door of the cave, to deter any who might be his accomplices.

7. The surviving brother, at his mother's earnest request, carries off the dead body, and brings it home on the back of one of his asses. 7. Ali Baba, at the instance of Cassim's widow, carries off his remains from the cave, and brings them home on the back of one of his asses.

8. The king, unable to ascertain how his treasury had been entered, is enraged at the removal of the body, and alarmed at finding that some one who possesses the secret still survives. 8. The robbers, unable to guess how their cave had been entered, are alarmed at the removal of Cassim's remains, which proves to them that some one who possesses the secret still survives.

9. The king has recourse to stratagem, for the purpose of detecting the depredator, but without success. 9. The robbers have recourse to stratagem, for the purpose of discovering the depredator, but without success.

10. The surviving brother baffles the king's first attempt to detect him, by means of some asses, which, in the character of a wine-seller, he had loaded with wine-flasks, making the king's guards drunk, and leaving them all fast asleep. 10. Ali Baba, assisted by his female slave, baffles the robber captain's first attempt upon him, by means of some oil in a jar, his men being concealed in the other jars, with which the captain, in the character of an oil-merchant, had loaded some asses: thus the latter, who thought his men asleep, finds them all dead.

11. In the darkness of the night, the surviving brother tells the king's daughter, whom her father had employed to detect him, the story of his exploits in baffling the guards and carrying off the body of his brother. 11. In the dusk of the evening, Baba Mustapha relates to the two robbers in succession, who had been employed to detect Ali Baba, the story of his having sewed a dead body together; and, blindfold, himself conducts each of them to Ali Baba's door.

12. The king's daughter attempts to seize the brother, but he baffles her, by leaving in her hand a dead arm instead of his own. 12. The two robbers successively mark the house of Ali Baba with chalk; but his female slave baffles them by putting a similar mark on the other houses, in consequence of which they are put to death instead of her master.

13. The king, who admires the audacity and ingenuity of the surviving brother, offers him, by proclamation, pardon and reward; and, on his coming forward, gives him his daughter in marriage. 13. Ali Baba, saved from the robber captain's designs by the course and ingenuity of Morgiana, his female slave, gives her freedom, and marries her to his son.

Here, then, are above a dozen striking coincidences in this one example; and they are given with but slight dislocation or transposition. Other examples might be adduced, but I must reserve them for another communication.

J. W. Thomas.

Dewsbury.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

Meeting occasionally, in reading new French works and journals, with sentiments and criticisms by eminent living writers on the characteristic peculiarities of some of the most distinguished French authors of the age of Louis XIV. and subsequently, perhaps you will allow me to send you, from time to time, "notes" or extracts from the criticisms alluded to, in case you should be of opinion that they may be agreeable to some of your readers, who may not be aware of the healthier and more Christian tone that now pervades one, at least, of the most influential organs of public opinion in France. Let us begin with La Rochefoucauld, as recently reviewed in the Journal des Débats.

J. Macray.

Oxford.

"La Rochefoucauld.

"Pourquoi La Rochefoucauld m'inspire-t-il une répugnance invincible? Pourquoi cette souffrance en le lisant? Ah! le voici, je crois. La morale de La Rochefoucauld c'est la morale Chrétienne, moins, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, le Christianisme lui-même; c'est tout ce qui peut humilier et abattre le cœur dans la sévère doctrine de l'Evangile, moins ce qui le relève; c'est toutes les illusions détruites sans les espérances qui remplacent les illusions. En un mot, dans le Christianisme La Rochefoucauld n'a pris que le dogme de la chute; il a laissé le dogme de la rédemption. En faisant briller un côté du flambeau, celui qui désenchante l'homme de lui-même, il éclipse l'autre, celui qui montre à l'homme dans le ciel sa force, son appui, et l'espoir d'une régénération. La Rochefoucauld ne croit pas plus à la sainteté qu'à la sagesse, pas plus à Dieu qu'à l'homme. Le pénitent n'est pas moins vain à ses yeux que le philosophe. Partout l'orgueil, partout le moi, sous la haire du Trappiste, comme sous le manteau du cynique.

"La Rochefoucauld n'est Chrétien que pour poursuivre notre pauvre cœur jusque dans ses derniers retranchemens; il n'est Chrétien que pour verser son poison sur nos joies et sur nos rêves les plus chers.... Que reste-t-il donc à l'homme? Pour les âmes fortes, il ne reste rien qu'un froid et intrépide mépris de toutes choses, un sec et stoïque contentement à envisager le néant absolu; pour les autres, le désespoir ou les jouissances brutales du plaisir comme dernière fin de la vie!

"Et voilà ce que je déteste dans La Rochefoucauld! Cet idéal dont j'ai soif, il le détruit partout. Ce bien, ce beau, dont les faibles images me ravissent encore sous la forme imparfaite de nos vertus, de notre science, de notre sagesse humaine, il le réduit à un sec intérêt."—S. De Sacy, Journal des Débats, Janv. 28.

SHROPSHIRE BALLAD.

Your correspondent B. H. C. (Vol. viii., p. 614.) gives, from recollection, a Northamptonshire version of the old "Ballad of Sir Hugh of Lincoln." It reminded me of a similar, though somewhat varied, version which I took down, more than forty years ago, from the lips of a nurse-maid in Shropshire. It may interest the author of The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, to know that it was recited in the place of his birth. Its resemblance to the ballad in Percy's Reliques was my inducement to commit it to paper:

S. P. Q.

"OF THE BENEFIT OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST," BY AONIO PALEARIO.

The total, or almost total, disappearance of books at one time largely circulated, is a curious fact in the history of literature. One cause of it may be found in the efforts made by the Church of Rome to suppress those works which were supposed to contain unsound doctrine.

"Heretical books," says Mr. T. B. Macaulay, "were sought out and destroyed with unsparing rigour. Works which were once in every house, were so effectually suppressed, that no copy of them is now to be found in the most extensive libraries. One book in particular, entitled Of the Benefit of the Death of Christ, had this fate. It was written in Tuscan, was many times reprinted, and was eagerly read in every part of Italy. But the inquisitors detected in it the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. They proscribed it; and it is now as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy."

This book was published without a name. But the author was Aonio Paleario. It was translated into various languages, as French, Spanish, English, and possibly others; and within six years after its first appearance, 40,000 copies are said to have been circulated.

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to meet with a copy of the English version, which was made from the French, not from the original. This copy was printed in 1638, and was, according to the title-page, the fourth (English) edition. From it I edited the work, prefixing a short notice of the author, and verifying the references to the Fathers. It was subsequently retranslated into Italian, and has, I am informed, been much read in Italy. Some time after this publication, I became aware of the existence of a copy (in private hands) of the apparently first English edition, bearing the date of 1573. This I was allowed to inspect: and I hope hereafter to put forth another edition, in which the text of this copy will be followed, and two or three inaccuracies which had crept into the former impression will be corrected.

I was, however, ignorant that a single copy of the original Italian existed; and all inquiry for it seemed to be vain. But one was near at hand, preserved with diligent care among the literary treasures of St. John's College, Cambridge, by the authorities there, who were well aware of its rarity and value. By their obliging permission, I was a few days ago permitted to examine it.

It is a small square 16mo., bound, in beautiful condition, measuring about 4¼ inches by 3, and containing seventy-two pages. The following is the title-page:

"Trattato vtilissimo del beneficio di Giesv Christo crocifisso, verso i Christiani. Venetiis, Apud Bernardinum de Bindonis. Anno Do. M.D.XXXXIII."

From the date, it seems to be the first edition.

There is an address

"Alli Lettori Christiani.

"Essendoci venuta alle mani un' opera delle piu pie e dotte, che a nostri tempi si siano fatte, il titolo della quale e, Del beneficio di Giesu Christo crocifisso verso i Christiani: ci e paruto a consolatione e utilita vostra darla ī istampa, e senza il nome dello scrittore, accioche piu la cosa vi muova, che l' autorita dell' autore."

This most curious volume has been for upwards of a century in the library of St. John's College, as the following printed notice, pasted within the cover, will show:

"In grati animi testificationem, ob plurima Humanitatis officia, a Collegio Divi Joannis Evangelistæ apud Cantabrigienses multifariam collata, librum hunc inter alios lectissimos eidem collegio legavit Illustrissimus Vir, Dominicus Antonius Ferrari, J. U. D. Neapolitanus, 1744.

But this is not all. The College is happy enough to possess a copy of the rare French translation of the same book. This is somewhat larger in size than the original Italian, and consists of sixty-four leaves. It contains, as will be seen by the title-page, some additional matter:

"Dv benefice de Iesvs Christ crvcifie, envers les Chrestiens. Traduict de vulgaire Italien, en langage Françoys. Plus, Vne Traduction de la huytiesme Homelie de sainct Iean Chrysostome, De la femme Cananée: mise de Latin en Françoys. Venez a moy vous tous qui trauaillez et estes chargez, et ie vous soulageray, 1552."

There is an address by the French translator: "Le traducteur a tous les Chrestiens qui sont dessoubz le ciel, Salut;" and at the end of the volume is a "Traduction du Psalme xxxiv." The French version is said to have been first published in 1545. This therefore is not, it would seem, the earliest edition.

This volume also, it may be added, was given to the College by Ferrari.

J. Ayre.

Hampstead.