THE

ARABIAN NIGHTS'

ENTERTAINMENTS:

CONSISTING OF

One Thousand and One Stories.

HALIFAX:
MILNER AND SOWERBY

1859.

$7421900

PREFACE.

It is not necessary to prepossess the reader on the merit und beauty of the Tales contained in the following work. They carry their own recommendation with them, and we need only read them, to agree, that nothing so fine has hitherto appeared in any language.

What can be more ingenious than to form a collection of such a prodigious quantity of stories, whose variety is surprising, and whose connexion is so wonderful, that they seem made only to compose the ample collection from whence they have been taken. The name of the author of so great a work is not known; but probably it is not all by one hand: for how can we suppose that one man alone could possess an imagination fertile enough to invent so many fictions?

If stories of this sort be pleasant and diverting, because of the wonders they usually contain, these have certainly, in this respect, the advantage above all that have yet been published, because they are full of events which surprise and engage our attention, and shew how much the Arabians surpass other nations in compositions of this sort.