your Majesty,” said he, “if you ask my opinion, it is
        this:  Here is an aged man, and honourable from his
        years, family, and position; moreover, he served in the
        king your father’s court, and nursed you as a boy.  It
        were well, considering all these matters, to pay him
        respect, and render his old age comfortable.”  Again the
        vazir uttered the word “Origin.”  The king now demanded
        what he meant by it.  “Simply this, your Majesty,”
        responded the vazir:  “You have here the sons of
        shoemakers, butchers, executioners, and so forth, and
        each has expressed himself according to his father’s
        trade.  There is but one noble-born among them, and he
        has made himself conspicuous by speaking according to
        the manner of his race.”  The king was ashamed, and
        released the vazir.—­A parallel to this is found in the
        Turkish Qirq Vezir Tarikhi, or History of the Forty
        Vezirs (Lady’s 4th Story):  according to Mr. Gibb’s
        translation, “All things return to their origin.”

I am strongly of opinion that the foregoing story is of Buddhistic extraction; but however this may be, it is not a bad specimen of Eastern humour, nor is the following, which the eloquent bird tells the lady another night: 

Of the Man whose Mare was kicked by a Merchant’s Horse.

A merchant had a vicious horse that kicked a mare, which he had warned the owner not to tie near his animal.  The man carried the merchant before the kazi, and stated his complaint.  The kazi inquired of the merchant what he had to say in his own defence; but he pretended to be dumb, answering not a word to the judge’s interrogatives.  Upon this the kazi remarked to the plaintiff that since the merchant was dumb he could not be to blame for the accident.  “How do you know he is dumb?” said the owner of the mare.  “At the time I wished to fasten my mare near his horse he said, ‘Don’t!’ yet now he feigns himself dumb.”  The kazi observed that if he was duly warned against the accident he had himself to blame, and so dismissed the case.

II

THE EMPEROR’S DREAM—­THE GOLDEN APPARITION—­THE FOUR TREASURE-SEEKERS.

We are not without instances in European popular fictions of two young persons dreaming of each other and falling in love, although they had never met or known of each other’s existence.  A notable example is the story of the Two Dreams in the famous History of the Seven Wise Masters.  Incidents of this kind are very common in Oriental stories:  the romance of Kamarupa (of Indian origin, but now chiefly known through the Persian version) is based upon a dream which the hero has of a certain beautiful princess, with whom he falls in love, and he sets forth with his companions to find her, should it be