Mr. Richardson, at the end of his Arabic Grammar, has given, what he calls a literal translation of part of one of these tales; any person, therefore, who is curious to see how far M. Galland has deviated from the original, may compare the two. The translation itself is too long for insertion. He takes the story of Alnaschar, the Barber’s fifth brother; “in which,” he says, “the folly of aerial castle-building is displayed in an agreeable vein of humour. I shall endeavour to make the version as literal as possible, which the reader may compare with the Arabian Nights, where he will find a greater deviation from the original, than even a free translation seemed to require.” Mr. Richardson does not, I believe, give the whole of the tale, even from the manuscript he made use of; and the other slight circumstances, in which M. Galland differs from him, may probably have arisen from their making use of different manuscripts. In the second volume of M. Galland’s work, he says, in a note, that the hundred-and-first, and hundred-and-second nights (according to his division of it,) are, in the original, employed in a description of the seven different dresses worn by the daughter of Schemseddin Mohammed (See Vol. 1. page 328, and note 13, of this translation); and interspersed with poetry in praise of the bride, which however beautiful it might be in Arabic, would not, he says, be worth translating into French: and that he has therefore omitted these two nights. How tiresome the description of these dresses might be I know not; nor how little suited these particular verses were to the ear of a Frenchman; but if they be at all similar to those beautiful specimens with which Professor Carlyle has gratified our English ear, we certainly have, in this instance, to regret M. Galland’s omission. And, in proof of this, I shall insert a few stanzas from the Arabic poetry; particularly as some of them relate to, or are the production of, persons mentioned in this work; as, for instance, the caliph Haroun Alraschid, his grand vizier Giafar, the poet Isaac, &c. In the history of Noureddin and the Beautiful Persian, Volume III. p. 53. Haroun Alraschid exclaims, “On my life, I have never heard so good a voice, nor a better player on the lute; Isaac, whom I believed to be the best in the world, is much inferior to her.” The person, here mentioned, is Isaac Almousely, whom the Orientals esteem as the best musician that was ever known. He was a Persian by birth, but resided entirely, in the early part of his life, at Mousel, (Moussoul.) Mahadi, the father of Haroun Alraschid, having one day, by accident, heard him sing one of his own compositions, accompanied by his lute, was so delighted with his performance, that he carried him to Bagdad, and made him his principal musician; in which situation he continued during the reign of several caliphs.