Horne Tooke was always making a butt of Mr. Godwin; who, nevertheless, had that in him which Tooke could never have understood. I saw a good deal of Tooke at one time: he left upon me the impression of his being a keen, iron man.
May 9. 1830.
PERSIAN AND ARABIC POETRY.—MILESIAN TALES.
I must acknowledge I never could see much merit in the Persian poetry, which I have read in translation. There is not a ray of imagination in it, and but a glimmering of fancy. It is, in fact, so far as I know, deficient in truth. Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must be good sense, at all events; just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house, at least. The Arabian Nights' Tales are a different thing —they are delightful, but I cannot help surmising that there is a good deal of Greek fancy in them. No doubt we have had a great loss in the Milesian Tales.[1] The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and most antique cast.
Think of the sublimity, I should rather say the profundity, of that passage in Ezekiel, [2]"Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest." I know nothing like it.
[Footnote 1: The Milesiacs were so called, because written or composed by Aristides of Miletus, and also because the scene of all or most of them was placed in that rich and luxurious city. Harpocration cites the sixth book of this collection. Nothing, I believe, is now known of the age or history of this Aristides, except what may be inferred from the fact that Lucius Cornelius Sisenna translated the tales into Latin, as we learn from Ovid:—
Junxit Aristides Milesia crimina secum—
and afterwards,
Vertit Aristidem Sisenna, nec obfuit illi
Historiae turpes inseruisse jocos:—
Fasti, ii. 412-445.