have discovered a certain degree of scepticism with respect to the value of Oriental literature. My scepticism is founded on the amazing disproportion between whatever has been fairly submitted to our inspection, and the vauntings of some Orientalists respecting the merit of these things, and still more of those which yet remain as sealed books to Occidentalists. In no instance has there been any reasonable proportion between the promise and the performance. But notwithstanding the condemnation passed on the specimens which have hitherto appeared, many Orientalists refuse to lower their tone; but continue, like the Cumean Sybil, to set the same price upon the volumes that have not been produced that they did upon the whole original number. Sir William Jones was an amiable man, an accomplished Scholar, and a friend to the best interests of mankind; but the strain of panegyric in which he generally indulges when passing judgment on Eastern writers, is not to be paralleled for its extravagance and unmeritedness by any thing extant in criticism. On this subject his memorable character of Ibn Khalikan, an Arabian biographer, ought to be held decisive. Here it is. "Porrò scriptoris EBN-I-KHALICAN opus historicum non magis verborum elegantiá et ubertate commendatur, quam illustriorum poetarum versibus, quibus conspergitur. Ac nescio 1 ran hic omnibus vitarum scriptoribus sit antepo-nendus. Est certe copiosior NEPOTE, elegantior - PLUTARCHO, LAERTIO jucundior, et dignus est profectò liber, qui in omnes Europe linguas conversus prodeat." Now what is the biography of Ibn Khalikan? In the space of 1266 Pages it contains 826 lives, together with a conspersion of verses from the works of the most eminent poets. What room is there, therefore, for copiousness? And "as to jucundity, elegance, and such other pleasing epithets ascribed to it by Sir William, "I fear," says Captain Lockett, "we must at"tribute them rather to the partiality than can"dour of the learned Orientalist." "The life "of an Arabian worthy indeed, is frequently "dispatched in a line, and is seldom more enter"taining or instructive than a hic jacet, or a "village epitaph. His name, his years,' with a (May God be satisfied with him,) ora holy text from the Qooran, supply "the place "of fame and elegy," and constitute "the brief memorials of a literary career."* “ ružeeullaho anho. But the Arabians, we are told, put forth all their strength in metaphysical studies, especially in grammar and rhetoric. Dr. Lumsden does not hesitate to give them a decided superiority over Western writers, ancient and modern, in these * See THE MI,UT AMIL, &c. a work on Arabic Syntax, P. 46; and preface, P. XVIII. b sciences. And even Captain Lockett says: "in "the minute cultivation of many sciences, parti"cularly grammar and rhetoric, it may be doubt ed whether they have been surpassed by the "learned of any other nation." Lieutenant Francis Irvine goes as far as Dr. Lumsden. In a letter to me, he says: “The Orientals cultivate "the abstract sciences, and are far our superiors "in metaphysics, logic, grammar, and rhetoric in ❝ certain of its branches." Now, until the Orientalists shall give us "the ocular proof" upon this subject by enriching Europe with some of these surpassing works; I shall abide by what Captain Lockett says of their achievements in their favourite departments of grammar and rhetoric. He says* that the Mi,ut Amil is almost entirely free "from those little verbal quibbles and philologi"cal fopperies, which tend more or less to dis grace every work on Arabic grammar." He speaks of "the great Arabian desert of metaphy sical refinement, where subtilties "Swarm populous, un-numbered as the sand, their superlunar speculations;" and "the "whole host of fallacies and fictions, with which they perplex and embarrass the most simple subjects of literature." He says: "Through "this commentary" (of Moolla Jamee on a gram Preface to the Mi,ut Amil. matical treatise termed the Kafeea,) "this Xaqua y of Syntax, or some other of equally 'crude "consistence,' every student is obliged to 'swim, ́or sink, or wade, or creep, or fly,' who would ་་ aspire to any thing like literary distinction. "Moolla Jamee is indeed the Priscian of the East, "and his comment is considered the very ne plus "ultrà of grammatical knowledge. Not to have "read it argues absolute ignorance; read it, and you are dubbed at once a Moolla, and a man of learning such is the wonder-working efficacy "of Arabic grammar. It supercedes in a great "degree the knowledge of every other art, and every other science, being in fact, if we may "credit some of the learned Arabian doctors, the ". very essence of all the arts and sciences." Its would be singular if much real profundity, and perspicacity, and invention, should co-exist with 80,much strenuous idleness, and elaborate foolery. It would require the purest metal to redeem so many worthless incrustations: but when we have extracted the little lump from its heap of scoria, we find that the Arabians were indebted for it all to the Greeks!* This mighty Leviathan "sailing "with supreme dominion" among the inferior inhabitants of the Eastern ocean, is still but as Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry. Enfield's Hist. of Philosophy. Gibbon, Vol. X. P. 11. creature. "His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his "blubber, the very spiracles through which he "spouts a torrent of brime against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray, every thing "of him and about him is from" the Greeks. Is it for him to question the superiority of Western genius? Is it for the little Trivium of the Schoolmen to magnify itself against the splendour of European light, and the majesty of European' science? " The extremely artificial structure of the Arabic language; the precise etymology which runs through it, and ties together its numerous families' of words; and the almost total absence of adjec-* tives; add less (if they add any thing) to its potential perspicuity, than they detract from its energy, elasticity, grace, and freedom. The want of adjec tives is supplied by the use of substantives, which are designated by Dr. Lumsden, as a distinct species of attributives, under the name of epithets. The effect of this peculiarity in the Arabic and' cognate languages, is thus illustrated by Dr. Lumsden. Fool is an epithet, applicable to men and women: foolish is an adjective, applicable to men, women, and things. The relation signified by the epithet is always one, viz. the existence of a quality in the ebject to which it is applied; as of folly in a man. Other relations may be denoted by the adjective; as the indication of folly in the |