Niebuhr now employed himself in preparing his various works for publication. The “Description of Arabia” was published in 1772, and although it must unquestionably be regarded as one of the most exact and copious works of the kind ever composed on any Asiatic country, it met with but a cold reception from the public. This, however, is not at all surprising. Written in the old style of books of travels, which appear to have aimed at imparting instruction without at all interesting the imagination, it can never be relished by the generality of readers, who at all times, and especially in these latter ages, have required to be cheated into knowledge by the secret but irresistible charms of composition. Niebuhr, unfortunately, possessed in a very limited degree the art of an author. His style has nothing of that life and vivacity which compensates, in many writers, for the want of method. But those who neglect his works on these accounts are to be pitied; for they abound with information, and everywhere exhibit marks of a remarkable power of penetrating into the character and motives of men, and a noble, manly benevolence, which generally inclines to a favourable, but just interpretation. He understood the Arabs better than almost any other traveller, and his opinion of them upon the whole was remarkably favourable. It is to him, therefore, that in an attempt to appreciate the character of this extraordinary people, I would resort, in preference even to Volney, who, whatever might be the perspicuity of his mind, had far fewer data whereon to found his conclusions. In 1773 he married, and his wife bore him two children, a daughter and B. G. Niebuhr, the author of the “Roman History.” Next year the first volume of his “Travels” appeared, and was received by the public no less coldly than the “Description of Arabia;” which was, perhaps, the cause why the second volume was not published until 1778; and why the third, which would have completed his “Travels’” history, was never laid before the world, or even prepared for publication. This is exceedingly to be regretted, as, whatever may be the defects of Niebuhr as an author, which it appeared to be my duty to explain, he was, as an observer, highly distinguished for sagacity; and his account of Asia Minor would have been still valuable, notwithstanding all that has since been written on that country.