(Here Habicht’s fragment ends.)
SCOTT’S MSS. AND TRANSLATIONS.
In 1800, Jonathan Scott, LL.D., published a volume of “Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from the Arabic and Persian,” based upon a fragmentary MS., procured by J. Anderson in Bengal, which included the commencement of the work (Nos. 1–3) in 29 Nights; two tales not divided into Nights (Nos. 264 and 135) and No. 21.
Scott’s work includes these two new tales (since republished by Kirby and Clouston), with the addition of various anecdotes, &c. derived from other sources. The “Story of the Labourer and the Chair” has points of resemblance to that of “Malek and the Princess Chirine” (Shirin?) in the Thousand and One Days; and also to that of “Tuhfet El Culoub” (No. 183a) in the Breslau Edition. The additional tales in this MS. and vol. of translations are marked “A” under Scott in our Tables. Scott published the following specimens (text and translation) in Ouseley’s Oriental Collections (1797 and following years) No. 135m (i. pp. 245–257) and Introduction (ii. pp. 160–172; 228–257). The contents are fully given in Ouseley, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
Scott afterwards acquired an approximately complete MS. in 7 vols., written in 1764, which was brought from Turkey by E. Wortley Montague. Scott published a table of contents (Ouseley, ii. pp. 25–34), in which, however, the titles of some few of the shorter tales, which he afterwards translated from it, are omitted, while the titles of others are differently translated. Thus “Greece” of the Table becomes “Yemen” in the translation; and “labourer” becomes “sharper.” As a specimen, he subsequently printed the text and translation of No. 145 (Ouseley, ii. pp. 349–367).
This MS., which differs very much from all others known, is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
In 1811, Scott published an edition of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, in 6 vols., vol. 1 containing a long introduction, and vol. 6, including a series of new tales from the Oxford MS. (There is a small paper edition; and also a large paper edition, the latter with frontispieces). It had originally been Scott’s intention to retranslate the MS.; but he appears to have found it beyond his powers. He therefore contented himself with re-editing Galland, altering little except the spelling of the names, and saying that Galland’s version is in the main so correct that it would be useless repetition to go over the work afresh. Although he says that he found many of the tales both immoral and puerile, he translated most of those near the beginning, and omitted much more (including several harmless and interesting tales, such as No. 152) towards the end of his MS. than near the beginning. The greater part of Scott’s additional tales, published in vol. 6, are included in the composite French and German editions of Gauttier and Habicht; but, except Nos. 208, 209, and 215, republished in my “New Arabian Nights,” they have not been reprinted in England, being omitted in all the many popular versions which are professedly based upon Scott, even in the edition in 4 vols., published in 1882, which reprints Scott’s Preface.
The edition of 1882 was published about the same time as one of the latest re-issues of Lane’s Thousand and One Nights; and the Saturday Review of Nov. 4, 1882 (p. 609) published an article on the Arabian Nights, containing the following amusing passage: “Then Jonathan Scott, LL.D. Oxon, assures the world that he intended to retranslate the tales given by Galland; but he found Galland so adequate on the whole that he gave up the idea, and now reprints Galland, with etchings by M. Lalauze, giving a French view of Arab life. Why Jonathan Scott, LL.D., should have thought to better Galland, while Mr. Lane’s version is in existence, and has just been reprinted, it is impossible to say.”
The most interesting of Scott’s additional tales, with reference to ordinary editions of The Nights, are as follows:—
No. 204b is a variant of No. 37.