"Convinced of the truth of this assertion, I consider myself possessed of the chief qualifications for the proper accomplishment of my present undertaking, from my having lived several years in Cairo, associating almost exclusively with Arabs, speaking their language, conforming to their general habits with the most scrupulous exactitude, and received into their society on terms of perfect equality. Since the downfall of the Arab Empire of Baghdád, Cairo has been the chief of Arabian cities: its Memlook Sulṭáns, introduced into Egypt in their youth, naturally adopted, to a great degree, the manners of its native inhabitants, which the 'Osmánlee Turks in later days have but little altered. Cairo is the city in which Arabian manners now exist in the most refined state; and such I believe to have been the case when the present work was composed." Mr. Lane's first two visits to Egypt were made when, for the last time, Arab manners and customs as they existed in the age of the Arabian Nights could be studied; and his translation was written very shortly after his second return to England. Though some of the tales may be Indian or Persian in origin, in their present state they exhibit a picture of the manners, modes of thought, and language, of the court and times of the Memlook Sulṭáns of Egypt, which nearly resembled in these points those of the Khaleefehs of Baghdád, or the great Arab Empire. De Sacy and Von Hammer, the two celebrated orientalists who differed widely in opinion as to the origin of the book, agreed that the tales in which the Khaleefeh Hároon Er-Rasheed is introduced (the best, with few exceptions, in the collection) are Egyptian in character. But since the "Modern Egyptians" were described by Mr. Lane, all things in the East have changed, and every day witnesses the decay of some old custom, to be followed by a bastard European imitation. During Mohammad 'Alee's rule, all traces of the state and circumstance of the Memlook court gradually passed away. European dress has displaced oriental costume, cloth of gold, and dresses of honour; European architecture elbows the quaint beauty of the old Arab capital; and the cavalcade of fifty horsemen around a grandee is succeeded by an English carriage that profanes the quiet streets of the city, and frightens away both 'Efreets and their memory. Mr. Lane saw the last of Cairo in its integrity; and he has not overstated his qualifications, as author of the "Modern Egyptians," for the task of translating the Arabian Nights. Of the copy from which this translation was made, and the method observed in its execution, I may again quote the preface to the first edition. Mr. Lane says,--