The bow, however, he drew with a certain aim. This, as well as the other accomplishments mentioned before, was a constituent part of an eastern education; thus in the story of the sisters who envied their sister: "When the princes were learning to mount the managed horse and to ride, the princess could not permit them to have that advantage over her, but went through all their exercises with them, learning to ride the great horse, dart the javelin, and bend the bow." Arab. Nights, vol. iv. p. 276.

The two brothers had mutually engaged their children to each other. Contracts of this nature were frequent amongst the Arabians; another instance occurs in the story of Noureddin Ali and Benreddin Hassan.

Nouronihar loved her cousin even more than her eyes. This mode of expression not only occurs in the sacred writers, but also in the Greek and Roman; thus, Moschus:

Τον μεν εγω τιεσκον ίσον φαέεσσιν εμοισιν

and Catullus:

Quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.

The same long, languishing looks. So Ariosto:

Negri occhi,

Pietosi a riguardare, a mover parchi.

The lines which follow, from Shakespeare and Spenser, may serve as a comment upon the brief but beautiful description of our author.

*

Her eyes, sweet smiling in delight,

Moystened their fierie beames, with which she thrild

Fraile hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light,

Which sparkling on the silent waves does seeme more bright.

Faerie Queen.*

Spenser seems to have copied this simile from Tasso:

Qual raggio in onda, le scintilla un riso

Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo.

P. 67. With all the bashfulness of a fawn. The fawn, as better known, is here substituted for the gazelle of the Arabians, an animal uncommonly beautiful and shy.

Take refuge in the arms of Nouronihar. Ample scope is here left to the imagination of the reader, and Tasso will assist him to fill up the picture.

Sovra lui pende: ed ei nel grembo molle
posa il capo, e'l volto al volto attolle.

Le

Shadukiam and Ambreabad.

La Gerus. xvi. 18.

These were two cities of the

peries in the imaginary region of Ginnistan; the former signifies pleasure and desire, the latter the city of Ambergris. See Richardson's Dissertat. p. 169.

Young girls drawing cool water from the streams below. The office of fetching water in the East belongs to women, and particularly to "young women that are single." The cool of the evening was the season to procure a supply for the morrow; this custom is of great antiquity; an instance of it occurs in the writings of Moses, and in Homer not unfrequently. Shaw's Travels, p. 241; Chardin's MS. (cited by Harmer) Gen. xxiv. 15-45; Odyss. xx. 154, x. 105, vii. 20.

P. 69. A spoon of Cocknos. The cocknos is a bird whose beak is much esteemed for its beautiful polish, and sometimes used as a spoon; thus in the History of Atalmulck and Zelica Begum, it was employed for a similar purpose: "Zelica having called for refreshment, six old slaves instantly brought in and distributed Mahramas; and then served about in a great basin of martabam a salad made of herbs of various kinds, citron juice, and the pith of cucumbers; they served it first to the princess in a cocknos' beak; she took a beak of the salad, eat it, and gave another to the next slave that sat by her on her right hand, which slave did as her mistress had done'

دو

P. 71. Goules. Goul or ghul, in Arabic signifies any terrifying object which deprives people of the use of their senses; hence it became the appellative of that species of monster which was supposed to haunt forests, cemeteries, and other lonely places, and believed not only to tear in pieces the living,

but to dig up and devour the dead. Richardson's Dissert. pp. 174-274. That kind of insanity called by the Arabians kutrub (a word signifying not only a wolf, but likewise a male goul), which incites such as are afflicted with it to roam howling amidst those melancholy haunts, may cast some light on the nature of the possession recorded by St. Mark, chap. v. 1, &c.

P. 72. Feathers of the heron, sparkling with carbuncles. Panaches of this kind are amongst the attributes of eastern royalty. Tales of Inatulla, vol. ii. p. 205.

Whose eyes pervade the inmost soul of a female. The original in this instance, as in the others already noticed, is more analogous to the French than the English idiom: dont l'oeil pénétre jusqu'à la moelle des jeunes filles.

The carbuncle of Giamschid. This mighty potentate was the fourth sovereign of the dynasty of the Pischadians, and brother or nephew to Tahamurath; his proper name was Giam or Gem, and Schid, which in the language of the ancient Persians denominated the sun, an addition ascribed by some to the majesty of his person, and by others to the splendour of his actions. One of the most magnificent monuments of his reign was the city of Istakhar, of which Tahamurath had laid the foundations. This city, at present called Gihil-, or Tchil-minar, from the forty columns reared in it by Homai, or (according to our author and others* Soliman Ben Daoud, was known to the Greeks by the name of Persepolis; and there is still extant in the east a tradition that when Alexander burnt the edifices of the Persian kings, seven stupendous structures of Giamschid were consumed with his palace. This prince, after having subjected to his empire seven vast provinces of Upper Asia, and enjoyed in peace a long reign (which some authors have protracted to seven hundred years), became intoxicated with his greatness, and, foolishly fancying it would have no end, arrogated to himself divine honours; but the Almighty raised up, even in his own house, a terrible instrument to abase his pride,

* Examen Critique des Anciens Historiens d'Alexandre le Grand, p. 287.

by whom he was easily overcome and driven into exile. The author of Giame al Tavatikh mentions the cup or concave mirror of Giamschid, formed of a gem, and called the cup of the sun; to this vessel the Persian poets often refer, and allegorize it in different ways; they attribute to it the property of exhibiting everything in the compass of nature, and even some things that are preternatural; the gem it consisted of appears to be the carbuncle or oriental ruby, which, from its resemblance to a burning coal and the splendour it was supposed to emit in the dark, was called schebgerag, or the torch of the night; according to Strabo it obtained its high estimation amongst the Persians, who were worshippers of fire, from its igneous qualities, and perhaps those virtues for which it hath been styled "the first of stones." Milton had a learned retrospect to its fabulous powers in describing the Old Serpent:

His head

Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes.

Herbelot, pp. 392, 395, 780, &c.; Brighte on Melancholie, p. 321; Paradise Lost, ix. 499.

The torches were extinguished. From the emblems of royalty in the vision, and the closing declaration of the last voice, it is evident that these torches, λαμπαδας αντι των νυμφικων του Saiμovos à Lavtos, were lighted by the dive, to prognosticate* the destined union, of which the water in the bath was a further omen. Thus Lactantius: "A veteribus institutum est, ut sacramento ignis et aquæ nuptiarum fœdera sanciantur, quod fœtus animantium calore et humore corporentur atque animentur ad vitam. Unde aqua et igne uxorem accipere dicitur." Ovid. Fast. iv. 792; Var. de ling. Lat. iv. 10; Serv. ad Virg. Æn. iv. 167. Of the union here prefigured the sequel will allow to be added:

Non Hymenæus adest illi, non gratia lecto;
Eumenides tenuere faces, de funere raptas:
Eumenides stravere torum.

P. 73. She clapped her hands. This was the ordinary method in the east of calling the attendants in waiting. See Arabian Nights, vol. i. pp. 5, 106, 193, &c.

Whence got you false keys? come, to your chamber! I will shut you up in the double tower. It was the office of Shaban as chief eunuch to keep the key of the ladies' apartment. In the story of Ganem, Haroun al Raschid commands Mesrour, the chief of the eunuchs, "to take the perfidious Fetnah, and shut her up in the dark tower." That tower was within the enclosure of the palace, and commonly served as a prison for the favourites who might chance to disgust the Caliph.

P. 74. Set him upon his shoulders. The same mode of carrying boys is noted by Sandys; and Ludeke has a passage still more to the purpose: "Liberos dominorum suorum grandiusculos ita humeris portant servi, ut illi lacertis suis horum collum, pedibus vero latera amplectantur, sicque illorum facies super horum caput emineat." Expositio Brevis, p. 37.

His cheeks became the colour of the blossom of the pomegranate. The modest blush of an ingenuous youth (which a Grecian lady of admired taste averred to be the finest colour in nature) is denominated by the Arabians from this very flower. Solomon, in his exquisite Idyllium, hath adopted the same comparison, ch. iv. v. 3; &ap mo Thy cheeks are like the opening bloom* of the pomegranate. But a more apposite use of this similitude occurs in an ode by a poet of Damascus :

* Simon interprets by eruptio floris, and Guarini by balaustium; senses, which the following passage from Pliny will support: "Primus pomi hujus partus flore incipientis, Cytinus vocatur Græcis-. In hoc ipso cytino flosculi sunt, antequam scilicet malum ipsum prodeat, erumpentes, quos balaustium vocari diximus." Nat. Hist. lib. xxiii. 59, 60. According to Dioscorides, i. 132, the balaustium was the blossom of the wild, and the citynus of the cultivated pomegranate. Dr. Darell, justly dissatisfied with the versions before him, hath rendered the hemistich thus; thy cheeks are like a piece of pomegranate-and adds: "The cheeks are compared to a piece of this fruit, because the pomegranate when whole is of a dull colour, but when cut up of a lively beautiful vermilion." But if this interpretation and reasoning be allowed, Solomon was less pat at a simile than Sancho; for whether the cheeks of a blooming bride-or the inwards of a man, "just cleft from noddle down to nock"-be more like a split pomegranate? "let the forest judge," Durell's Critical Remarks, p. 293; Don Quixote, tom. iii. p. 282.