Note 90 — THE CALIPH OMAR BIN ABD AL-AZIZ AND THE POETS.[85]

The Saturday Review (Jan. 2, ’86), which has honoured me by the normal reviling in the shape of a critique upon my two first vols., complains of the “Curious word Abhak” as “a perfectly arbitrary and unusual group of Latin letters.” May I ask Aristarchus how he would render “Sal’am,” (vol. ii. 24), which apparently he would confine to “Arabic MSS.” (!). Or would he prefer to A(llah) b(less) h(im) a(nd) k(eep) “W. G. B.” (whom God bless) as proposed by the editor of Ockley? But where would be the poor old “Saturnine” if obliged to do better than the authors it abuses?