But the memory of the student, culling here and there a blossom of the poetical flora whose odor is most grateful to his special literary sense, can at least present the reader with a bouquet of fancies curious enough to interest if not beautiful enough, perhaps, to charm. If there be any particular subject the poetical treatment of which is the best evidence of the æsthetic sense, it is the beauty of woman,--and we confine our gleanings to this particular domain. From time immemorial, before the coming of Mahomet, the desert Arabs were wont not only to honor poets highly, but to hold periodical assemblies at which poetical contests took place, the contestants being stimulated by the promise of a prize or the signal honor of having their compositions hung up in the precincts of the temples as almost-inspired masterpieces. Six out of the many victors at these ante-islamic poetical exhibitions obtained such fame that their names are still familiar to all the desert-tribes, and their poems have been preserved for us almost unchanged,--marvelous specimens of simple, beautiful, but savage genius. Naturally the field of the desert-poet had but little variation; his subjects were few and simple--the fine qualities of thoroughbred horses or camels, the triumph of battle, the lament of defeat, the joy of the chase, the beauty of a mistress. This very limitation of subject, together with the monotonous sameness of nomad life in all ages and as far as the sands extend, by increasing the difficulty of the art, renders its charming expression more wonderful to modern minds. To describe the beauty of woman, the modern poet can summon to his aid the whole art of civilization, the varied knowledge of three thousand years, the charm of all things that charm--jewels, music, flowers, birds, ivories of China and the Indies, colors of the Pacific, Greek and Etruscan arts, the melody and passion of a hundred wonderful languages. The Arab, knowing no language but his own, seeing ever about him the yellow waste, above him the unvarying blue,--ignorant of all arts save those of war and the chase,--was able to create masterpieces of language which the most learned men of our own day cannot speak of without admiration,--poems virile, supple, ardent as the desert itself and as sun-colored. Translations of these are now printed in most European languages.