The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 16, Sir Richard Francis Burton [novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

of his beautiful romance, “Thalaba the Destroyer,” now in Lethe from the “History of Maughraby.” Mr. A.

G. Ellis considers these tales as good as the old “Arabian Nights,” and my friend Mr. W. F. Kirby (Appendix to The Nights, vol. x. p. 418), quite agrees with him that Chavis and Cazotte’s Continuation is well worthy of republication in its entirety. It remained for the Edinburgh Review, in one of those ignorant and scurrilous articles with which it periodically outrages truth and good taste (No. 535, July, 1886), to state, “Cazotte published his Suite des Mille et une Nuits, a barefaced forgery, in 1785.”

A barefaced forgery! when the original of twenty eight tales out of thirty four are perfectly well known, and when sundry of these appear in MSS. of “The Thousand Nights and a Night.”

 

The following is a list of the Tales (widely differing from those of Chavis and Cazotte) which appeared in the version of Caussin de Perceval.

 

VOLUME VIII.

 

Les | Mille et une Nuits | Contes Arabes, | Traduits en Francais | Par M. Galland, | Membre de l’Acad�mie des Inscriptions et |

Belles-Lettres, Professeur de Langue Arabe | au Coll�ge Royal, |

Continu�s | Par M. Caussin de Perceval, | Professeur de Langue Arabe au Coll�ge Imp�rial. | Tome huiti�me. | � Paris, | chez Le Normant, Imp.-Libraire, | Rue des Pr�tres Saint-Germain-l �Auxerrois. | 1806.

 

1. Nouvelles aventures du calife Haroun Alraschid; ou histoire de la petite fille de Chosro�s Anouschirvan.

Gauttier, Histoire du Khalyfe de Baghdad: vol. vii. II7.) 2. Le Bimaristan, ou histoire du jeune Marchand de Bagdad et de la dame inconnue.

3. Le m�d�cin et le jeune traiteur de Bagdad 4. Histoire du Sage Hicar.

(Gauttier, Histoire du Sage Heycar, vii. 313.) 5. Histoire du roi Azadbakht, ou des dix Visirs.

6. Histoire du marchand devenu malheureux.

7. Histoire du imprudent et de ses deux enfants.

8. Histoire du d’ Abousaber, ou de l’homme patient.

9. Histoire du du prince Behezad.

10. Histoire du roi Dadbin, ou de la vertueuse Aroua.

11. Histoire du Bakhtzeman.

12. Histoire du Khadidan.

13. Histoire du Beherkerd.

14. Histoire du Ilanschah et d’Abouteman.

15. Histoire du Ibrahim et de son fils.

16. Histoire du Sole�man-schah.

17. Histoire du de l’esclave sauve du supplice.

 

VOLUME IX.

 

18. Attaf ou l’homme g�n�reux.

(Gauttier, Histoire de l’habitant de Damas, vii. 234.) 19. Histoire du Prince Habib et de Dorrat Algoase.

20. Histoire du roi Sapor, souverain des �les Bellour; de Camar Alzemann, fille du genie Alatrous, et Dorrat Algoase.

(Gauttier, vii. 64.)

21. Histoire de Naama et de Naam.

22. Histoire du d’Alaeddin.

23. Histoire du d’Abou Mohammed Alkeslan.

24. Histoire du d’Aly Mohammed le joaillier, ou du faux calife.

 

I need hardly offer any observations upon these tales, as they have been discussed in the preceding pages.

 

By an error of the late M. Reinaud (for which see p. 39 His toire d’ ‘Al� al-Din by M. H. Zotenberg, Paris, Imprimerie Na tionale, MDCCCLXXXVIII.) the MS. Suppl�ment Arabe, No. I7I6, in the writing of Dom Chavis has been confounded with No. 1723, which is not written by the Syrian priest but which contains the originals of the Cazotte Continuation as noted by M. C. de Perceval (Les Mille et une Nuits, etc., vol. viii. Pr�f. p. I7, et seqq.) It is labelled Histoires tir�es la plupart des Mille et une Nuits |

Suppl�ment Arabe | Volume de 742 pages. The thick quarto measures centim�tres 20 � long by I6 wide; the binding is apparently Italian and the paper is European, but the filegrane or water-mark, which is of three varieties, a coronet, a lozenge-shaped bunch of circles and a nondescript, may be Venetian or French. It contains 765 pages, paginated after European fashion, but the last eleven leaves are left blank reducing the number written to 742; and the terminal note, containing the date, is on the last leaf. Each page numbers IS lines and each leaf has its catchword (mot de rappel). It is not ordered by “karr�s” or quires; but is written upon 48 sets of 4 double leaves. The text is in a fair Syrian hand, but not so flowing as that of No. 1716, by Sh�w�sh himself, which the well-known Arabist, Baron de Slane, described as Bonne �criture orientale de la fin du XVIII Si�cle. The colophon conceals or omits the name of the scribe, but records the dates of incept K�n�n IId. (the Syrian winter month January) A.D. 1772; and of conclusion Nays�n (April) of the same year. It has head-lines disposed recto and verve, e.g., Hayk�r ––––––— Al-Hak�m, and parentheses in the text after European fashion with an imperfect list at the beginning. A complete index is furnished at the end. The following are the order and pagination of the fourteen stories:—

 

1. The King of Persia and his Ten Wazirs … …pp. 1 to 62

2. Say of the Sage Hayk�r… … … … … …140

3. History of King Sab�r and the Three Wise Men… … .183

4. The Daughter of Kisr� the King (Al Bunduk�ni) … …217

5. The Caliph and the Three Kalandars… … … …266

6. Juln�r the Sea born … … … … … … .396

7. The Duenna, the Linguist-dame and the King’s Son… . .476

8. The Tale of the Warlock and the young Cook of Baghdad . .505

9. The Man in the B�m�r�stan or Madhouse … … … .538

10. The Tale of Att�f the Syrian… … … … …588

11. The History of Sultan Hab�b and Durrat al-Ghaww�s … .628

12. The Caliph and the Fisherman… … … … …686

13. The Cock and the Fox… … … … … … .718

14. The Fowl-let and the Fowler … … . 725 to 739 (finis) Upon these tales I would be permitted to offer a few observetions. No. i. begins with a Christian formula:—“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost”

(R�hu’l-Kudus); and it is not translated, because it is a mere replica of the Ten Wazirs (Suppl. vol. i. 55-151). The second, containing “The Sage Hayk�r,” which is famous in folk-lore throughout the East, begins with the orthodox Moslem “Bismillah,”

etc. “King Sapor” is prefaced by a Christian form which to the Trinitarian formula adds, “Allah being One”; this, again, is not translated, because it repeats the “Ebony Horse” (vol. v. 1). No iv., which opens with the Bismillah, is found in the Sabb�gh MS.

of The Nights (see Suppl. vol. iii.) as the Histoire de Haroun al-Raschid et de la descendante de Chosro�s. Albondoqani (Nights lxx.-lxxvii.). No. v., which also has the Moslem invocation, is followed by the “Caliph and the Three Kalandars,” where, after the fashion of this our MS., the episodes (vol. i., 104-130) are taken bodily from “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”

(i. 82), and are converted into a separate History. No. vi. has no title to be translated, being a replica of the long sea-tale in vol. vii., 264. Nos. vii., viii., ix., x. and xi. lack initiatory invocation betraying Christian or Moslem provenance.

No. viii. is the History of S� Mustaf� and of Shaykh Shah�b al-D�n in the Turkish Tales: it also occurs in the Sabb�gh MS.

(Nights ccclxxxvi.-cdviii.). The B�m�rist�n (No. ix.), alias Ali Chalabi (Halechalb�), has already appeared in my Suppl. vol. iv.

35. No. xii., “The Caliph and the Fisherman,” makes Harun al-Rashid the hero of the tale in “The Fisherman and the Jinni”

(vol. i. 38); it calls the ensorcelled King of the Black Islands Mahm�d, and his witch of a wife Sitt al-Mul�k, and it also introduces into the Court of the Great Caliph Hasan Shum�n and Ahmad al-Danaf, the prominent personages in “The Rogueries of Dal�lah” (vol. vii. 144) and its sister tale (vii. 172). The two last Histories, which are ingenious enough, also lack initial formul�.

 

Dr. Russell (the historian of Aleppo) brought back with him a miscellaneous collection comprising—

 

Al-Bundukani, or the Robber Caliph;

The Power of Destiny (Attaf the Syrian);

Ali Chelebi, or the Bimaristan;

King Sankharib and the Sage Haykar;

Bohetzad (Az�dbakht) and the Ten Wazirs; and, lastly, Habib, or the Arabian Knight.

 

The Encyclopedia Britannica (ixth edit. of MDCCCLXXVI.), which omits the name of Professor Galland, one of the marking Orientalists in his own day, has not ignored Jacques Cazotte, remarkable for chequered life and noble death. Born in 1720, at Dijon, where his father was Chancellor for the Province of Burgundy, he studied with the Jesuits at home; and, having passed through the finishing process in Paris, he was introduced to public life by the Administration de la Marine. He showed early taste for poetry as well as prose, and composed songs, tales, and an opera—“The Thousand and One Fopperies.” His physique is described as a tall figure, with regular features, expressive blue eyes, and fine hair, which he wore long. At twenty seven he became a commissary in the office and was presently sent as Comptroller to the Windward Islands, including the French Colony Martinique, which then as now was famous for successful woman-kind. At these head-quarters he became intimate with P�re Lavalette, Superior of the S. J. Mission, and he passed some years of a pleasant and not unintellectual career. Returning to Paris on leave of absence he fell in with a country-woman and an old family friend, Madame La Poissonnier, who had been appointed head nurse to the Duke of Burgundy; and, as the child in her charge required lulling to sleep, Cazotte composed the favourite romances (ballads), Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes, and Commere II faut chauffer le lit. These scherzi, however, brought him more note than profit, and soon afterwards he returned to Martinique.

 

During his second term of service Cazotte wrote his heroic comic-poem, the Roman d’Olivier, in twelve cantos, afterwards printed in Paris (2 vols. 8vo, 1765); and it was held a novel and singular composition. When the English first attacked (in 1759) Saint Pierre of Martinique, afterwards captured by Rodney in 1762, the sprightly litt�rateur showed abundant courage and conduct, but over-exertion injured his health, and he was again driven from his post by sickness. He learned, on landing in France, that his brother, whilome Vicar-General to M. de Choiseul, Bishop of Ch�lons-sur-Marne, had died and left him a fair estate, Pierry, near Epernay; he therefore resigned his appointment and retired with the title “Commissary General to the Marine.” But presently he lost 50,000 �cus—the whole fruit of his economies—by the speculations of P�re Lavalette, to whose hands he had entrusted his estates, negroes, and effects at Martinique. These had been sold and the cheques had been forwarded to the owner: the S. J., however, refused to honour them. Hence the scandal of a law-suit in which Cazotte showed much delicacy and regard for the feelings of his former tutors.

 

Meanwhile Cazotte had married Elizabeth Roignon, daughter to the Chief Justice of Martinique; he returned to the Parisian world with some �clat and he became an universal favourite on account of his happy wit and humour, his bonhomie, his perfect frankness, and his hearty amiability. The vogue of “Olivier” induced him to follow it up with Le Diable Amoureux, a continuation or rather parody of Voltaire’s Guerre civile de Gen�ve: this work was so skilfully carried out that it completely deceived the world; and it was followed by sundry minor pieces which were greedily read.

Unlike the esprits forts of his age, he became after a gay youthtide an ardent Christian; he made the Gospel his rule of life; and he sturdily defended his religious opinions; he had also the moral courage to enter the lists with M. de Voltaire, then the idol-in-chief of the classes and the masses.

 

In later life Cazotte met Dom Chavis, who was translating into a curious jargon (Arabo-Franco-Italian) certain