Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
In the opinions of the Press will be found a selection from half a century of
laudatory notices to which the few curious touching such matters will turn,
while those who misjudged my work are duly acknowledged in this paper. Amongst
friends I would specify without invidious distinction, The Bat (September 29,
'85), who on this occasion and sundry others sturdily defended me, showing
himself a bird of "light and leading." To the St. James's Gazette (September
12, '85), the Whitehall Review (September 17), the Home News (September 18),
and the Nottingham Journal (September 19), I am also indebted for most
appreciative and intelligent notices. My cordial thanks are likewise due to
the Editor and especially to "Our London Correspondent" of the Lincoln Gazette
(October 10 and October 17, '85, not to notice sundry minor articles): the
articles will be reprinted almost entire because they have expressed my
meaning as though it came from my own mouth. I have quoted Mr. J. Addington
Symonds in extenso: if England now possesses a writer who can deliver an
authoritative judgment on literary style it is this littérateur. Of the
journals which profess letters The Academy has ever been my friend and I have
still the honour of corresponding with it: we are called "faddists" probably
from our "fad" of signing our articles and thus enabling the criticised to
criticise the critic.
I now turn to another of my unfriends, amongst whom is and long has been
The "Saturday Review,"
This ancient dodderer, who has seen better days, deigned favour me with six
notices (January 2 and March 27, '86; April 30, June 4, August 14, '87, and
July 21, '88), of which No. i., dealing with my first and second volumes, is
written after the facile American fashion, making the book review itself; that
is, supply to the writer all the knowledge and familiarity with the subject
which he parades before an incurious and easily gullible public. This especial
form of dishonesty has but lately succeeded to and ousted the classical
English critique of Jeffrey, Macaulay, and the late Mr. Abraham Hayward, which
was mostly a handy peg for the contents of the critic's noddle or note book.
The Saturnine article opens characteristically.
Abroad we English have the character of being the most prudish of nations; we
are celebrated as having Bowdlerized for our babes and sucklings even the
immortal William Shakespeare; but we shall infallibly lose this our character
should the Kamashastra Society flourish. Captain Burton has long been known as
a bold explorer; his pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, disguised in the dress
and taking on him the manners and customs of a True Believer, was a marvel of
audacity; but perhaps he may be held now to have surpassed himself, for he has
been bold enough to lay before his countrymen a literal and unexcised
translation of The Arabian Nights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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