n the eighth and ninth volumes of which, by
the by, he gives a correct version of the tales so fearfully garbled by
Chavis and Cazotte in their so-called translation as well nigh to defy
recognition and to cause Orientalists in general to deny the possibility
of their having been derived from an Oriental source until the discovery
of the actual Arabic originals so barbarously maltreated [8]

This MS. is in the handwriting of of Sebbagh, the well-known Syrian
collaborator of Silvestre de Sacy, and is supposed to have been copied
by him at Paris between the years 1805 and 1810 for some European
Orientalist (probably de Perceval himself) from a Baghdad MS. of the
early part of the 18th century, of which it professes to be an exact
reproduction, as appears from a terminal note, of which the following is
a translation:

"And the finishing of it was in the first tenth (decade) of Jumada the
Latter [in the] year one thousand one hundred and fifteen of the Hegira
(October, 1703) in the handwriting of the neediest of the faithful [9]
unto God [10] the Most High, Ahmed ibn Mohammed et Teradi, in the city
of Baghdad, and he the Shafiy by sect and the Mosuli by birth and the
Baghdadi by sojourn, and indeed he wrote it for himself and set upon it
his seal, and God bless and keep our lord Mohammed and his companions!
Kebikej [11] (ter)."

This MS. contains the three "interpolated" tales aforesaid, i.e.
the Sleeper Awakened (Nights CCCXXXVII-LXXXVI), Zeyn Alasnam (Nights
CCCCXCVII-DXIII) and Aladdin (Nights DXIV-XCI), the last two bearing
traces of a Syrian origin, especially Aladdin, which is written in a
much commoner and looser style than Zeyn Alasnam. The two tales are
evidently the work of different authors, Zeyn Alasnam being incomparably
superior in style and correctness to Aladdin, which is defaced by all
kinds of vulgarisms and solecisms and seems, moreover, to have been less
correctly copied than the other. Nevertheless, the Sebbagh text is in
every respect preferable to that of Shawish (which appears to abound
in faults and errors of every kind, general and particular,) and M.
Zotenberg has, therefore, exercised a wise discretion in selecting the
former for publication.

III.

Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of M. Zorenberg's long and
interesting introduction is a series of extracts from the (as yet
unpublished) MS. Diary regularly kept by Galland, the last four volumes
(170