tions, and rejected the endless repetitions of the Arabian
original. The tales, therefore, though less purely Oriental than in
their first concoction, were eminently better fitted for the European
market, and obtained an unrivalled degree of public favour, which they
certainly would never have gained had not the manners and style been
in some degree familiarized to the feelings and habits of the western
reader.

In point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust,
devour this book with avidity, I have so far explained our ancient
manners in modern language, and so far detailed the characters and
sentiments of my persons, that the modern reader will not find himself,
I should hope, much trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere
antiquity. In this, I respectfully contend, I have in no respect
exceeded the fair license due to the author of a fictitious composition.
The late ingenious Mr Strutt, in his romance of Queen-Hoo-Hall, [5]
acted upon another principle; and in distinguishing between what was
ancient and modern, forgot, as it appears to me, that extensive neutral
ground, the large proportion, that is, of manners and sentiments which
are common to us and to our ancestors, having been handed down unaltered
from them to us, or which, arising out of the principles of our common
nature, must have existed alike in either state of society. In this
manner, a man of talent, and of great antiquarian erudition, limited the
popularity of his work, by excluding from it every thing which was not
sufficiently obsolete to be altogether forgotten and unintelligible.

The license which I would here vindicate, is so necessary to the
execution of my plan, that I will crave your patience while I illustrate
my argument a little farther.

He who first opens Chaucer, or any other ancient poet, is so much
struck with the obsolete spelling, multiplied consonants, and antiquated
appearance of the language, that he is apt to lay the work down in
despair, as encrusted too deep with the rust of antiquity, to permit his
judging of its merits or tasting its beauties. But if some intelligent
and accomplished friend points out to him, that the difficulties by
which he is startled are more in appearance than reality, if, by
reading aloud to him, or by reducing the ordinary words to the modern
orthography, he satisfies his proselyte that only about one-tenth part
of the words employed are in fact obsolete, the novice may be easily