"Have you no laws," said I one day to Aga Meer, "but the Koran, and the traditions upon that volume?" "We have," said he, gravely, "the maxims of Sâdee." Were I to judge from my own observations, I should say, that these stories and maxims, which are known to all, from the king to the peasant, have fully as great an effect, in restraining the arbitrary and unjust exercise of power as the laws of the Prophet. It is through allegories and fables that we receive the earliest accounts we have of all nations, but particularly those of the Eastern hemisphere. We may, in these days in which exactness is so much valued, deplore this medium as liable to mislead; but must recollect, that if we had not their ancient records in this form we should have them in none. One of the wisest men in the West, Francis Bacon, has truly said, "Fiction gives to mankind what history denies, and in some measure satisfies the mind with shadows when it cannot enjoy the substance." Those who rank highest amongst the Eastern nations for genius have employed their talents in works of fiction; and they have added to the moral lessons they desired to convey so much of grace and ornament, that their volumes have found currency in every nation of the world. The great influx of them into Europe may be dated from the crusades; and if that quarter of the globe derived no other benefits from these holy wars, the enthusiastic admirers of such narrations may consider the tales of Boccaccio and similar works as sufficient to compensate all the blood and treasure expended in that memorable contest! England has benefited largely from these tales of the East. Amongst other boons from that land of imagination, we have the groundwork on which Shakspeare has founded his inimitable play of the Merchant of Venice. The story of the Mahomedan and the Jew has been found in several books of Eastern Tales. In one Persian version love is made to mix with avarice in the breast of the Israelite, who had cast the eye of desire upon the wife of the Mahomedan, and expected, when he came to exact his bond, the lady would make any sacrifice to save her husband.