version, which is itself an abridgment from the original, and turns a most valuable ethnographical work into a mere collection of fairy tales.  Moreover, these English translations abound in Gallicisms, and their style offers but a painful contrast to the French of the seventeenth century.  Some years since a Mr. Torrens undertook a complete translation from the original, but his work did not go beyond a single volume, or fifty tales out of the 1,001.  Then came Mr. Lane in 1839, whose success was but moderate In his three large and (in the 1839 edition) beautifully illustrated volumes, he has given not more than half the tales.  He used the Cairo Arabic edition, which is itself an abridgment, and took all kinds of liberties with the text, translating verse into prose, and excising everything that was not ‘strictly proper.’

“Lastly, there is Mr. John Payne’s excellent translation, which has occupied him during seven years and is just brought to a conclusion.  Mr. Payne bound himself to print not more than 500 copies, and his nine volumes, not published but printed, nominally for the Villon Society, are unprocurable except at a price which to the general public is prohibitive.

“Captain Burton began his work on this extraordinary monument of Oriental literature in 1852, at Aden, with some help from his friend Dr. Steinhaeuser, of the Bombay Army.  He has gone on with it as opportunity offered, and as other literary and official labours and his many journeys in savage lands permitted.  The text and the subject offer many difficulties, and it is to these difficulties that he has devoted especial attention.  His object is to reproduce the book in a form as entirely Arabian as possible, preserving the strict division of the nights, and keeping (a more questionable matter) to the long unbroken sentences in which the composer indulged, imitating also the rhythmic prose which is a characteristic of the Arabic.  The effect in English remains to be seen, but of the value of Captain Burton’s method as an experiment in literature there can be no doubt, or of its great interest to everybody who cares for Oriental habits of thought and language.  He will not shirk any of the passages which do not suit the taste of the day, but these, Captain Burton thinks, will not commonly be found more objectionable than some which are in Shakespeare and in Shakespeare’s contemporaries.  At the same time it will be understood that the book is intended for men only and for the study;—­not for women or children, nor for the drawing-room table or dentist’s waiting-room.  It will be printed by subscription and not published.