in Persia, discovered a great inclination to see that book for which purpose one Burzuvia, a physician, who had a surprizing talent in learning several languages, particularly the Sanskerrit, was introduced to him as the properest person to be employed to get a copy thereof. He went to India; where, after some years' stay, and great trouble, he procured it. It was translated into the Pehluvi language by him, and Buzrjumehr the vizir. Noishervan ever after, and all his successors the Persian kings, had this book in high esteem, and took the greatest care to keep it secret. At last Abu Jaffer Mansour zu Nikky, who was the second Khaliff of the Abassi reign, by great search, got a copy thereof in the Pehluvi language, and ordered Imum Hossan Abdal Mokaffa, who was the most learned of the age, to translate it into Arabic. This prince ever after made it his guide, and not only in affairs relating to the government, but in private life also *.”

The version of Mokaffa was in the 515th year of the Hegira translated into Persic by Abul Mala Nasser Allah Mustof; this was again polished at the request of the Emir Soheli by Ali ben Hossein

* Vide Preface to The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma, in a Series of connected Fables, translated from the Sanskreet, by Charles Wilkins, 8vo. London, 1787.

Vaez, and further corrected in the year 1002, under the orders of Akbar, the Great Mogul, by the learned Abul Fazl.

That the labours of Simeon Seth, and Piers Alfonse, were greatly instrumental in introducing a knowledge of oriental fable into Europe, and in awakening a taste for the style and wonders of eastern fiction, there can be little doubt. Their tendency also, at the same period, received a most striking impulsion from the commencement of those stupendous expeditions to the Holy-Land termed the Crusades, the first of which occurred in the year 1096, and is memorable for the immense number of persons of each sex, and of all ranks and ages, who encountered with enthusiasm the dangers and difficulties of such a daring attempt.

The result of the first Crusade, in which nearly a million of men in arms had embarked, was the conquest of Jerusalem; but the effect upon the

minds and manners of those who survived the calamities of so distant an enterprise was much more permanent and important. They had beheld in the Greek Empire, and in the cities of Asia, a civilization, a magnificence and splendour to which they had hitherto been totally unaccustomed; and, though rude and barbarous in the extreme, they had felt a wish to emulate the

luxury that they admired, and had in some degree imbibed a taste for the marvellous and interesting fictions, the gorgeous and romantic achievements which were recited or celebrated in the East.

In little more than twenty years after this gigantic invasion of the Holy-Land, a work of great popularity appeared, and which is evidently tinged with oriental fancy and machinery. There is every reason to suppose that the fabulous chronicle, falsely ascribed to Archbishop Turpin, but now known to be the production of a monk a little anterior to the year 1122, was written on purpose to recommend the Crusades, and to keep alive the martial and religious enthusiasm already so successfully generated in the breasts of mankind. For this purpose the author has chosen the expulsion of the Saracens from Spain by Charlemagne; and in his twentieth chapter has artfully invented an episode, in which he sends his hero on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre an incident whose authenticity could not be doubted when vouched for by an archbishop, and which, as an animating example, had a wonderful effect on the credulous and warlike multitude.

A few years subsequent to the legend of the supposed Turpin, and about nine anterior to the second Crusade, GEOFFERY OF MONMOUTH, a Welsh

benedictine monk, translated from the Armoric language into Latin, at the request of Gaulter, archdeacon of Oxford, a History of the Kings of Britain; and as the pseudo Turpin had taken Charlemagne for his hero, the author of this chronicle fixed upon Arthur, Whatever may have been the age of the original, the translation of Geoffery, executed about the year 1138, is filled with imagery and incidents which could only have been derived from a communication with the East. In fact, the interpolations, the additions and forgeries of Geoffery, are in this translation extremely abundant; and he himself confesses that the prophecies of Merlin, and all the letters and speeches, originated in his own imagination. From what quarter he derived his supplemental imagery is evident in the first place from his mention of the Soldans and Arabians, and of the kings of Egypt, Media, Syria, Babylon, and Phrygia, and from the nature of the powers and faculties attributed to the inchanter Merlin, whose skill in magic, medicine, and mechanics, is entirely of an oriental cast. "On the whole," says Warton, after enumerating many of Geoffery's romantic incidents, we may venture to affirm, that this chronicle, supposed to contain the ideas of the Welsh bards, entirely consists of Arabian inventions;" and in a subsequent page

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he remarks," no European history before these (the chronicles of Turpin and Geoffery) has mentioned giants, inchanters, dragons, and the like monstrous and arbitrary fictions. And the reason is obvious: they were written at a time when a new and unnatural mode of thinking took place in Europe, introduced by our communication with the east *."

The most beautiful fictions of Geoffery, and which are perfectly in the style of, and equal to any thing in, Arabian fable, are principally relative to Arthur, and his powerful assistant Merlin. It is remarkable, that these renowned personages are both conveyed away from this world by supernatural means, by the agency of fairies, who bear a striking resemblance to the peries of Persian romance. Arthur, who is represented by Geoffery and the Welsh bards as King of Britain, and the conqueror of Ireland, Gothland, Denmark, Norway, and Gaul, is at length dreadfully wounded, Anno Domini 542, by the treachery of his nephew, Modred, at the battle of Camlan in Cornwall, and is immediately borne away in a barge by an elfin princess, called Morgain, le fay, to the vale of Avalon, or land of Faery; where, cured of his wound, he reigns with

* Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissert, 1.