The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 15 - Unknown

This volume contains the last of my versions from the Wortley Montague Codex, and this is the place to offer a short account of that much bewritten MS.

In the "Annals of the Bodleian Library," etc., by the Reverend William Dunn Macray, M.A. (London, Oxford and Cambridge, 1868: 8vo. p. 206), we find the following official notice:—

"A.D. 1803."

"An Arabic MS. in seven volumes, written in 1764-5, and containing what is rarely met with, a complete collection of the Thousand and one Tales (N.B. an error for "Nights") of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, was bought from Captain Jonathan Scott for £50. Mr. Scott published, in 1811, an edition of the Tales in six volumes (N.B. He reprinted the wretched English version of Prof. Galland's admirable French, and his "revisions" and "occasional corrections" are purely imaginative), in which this MS. is described (N.B. after the mos majorum). He obtained it from Dr. (Joseph) White, the Professor of Hebrew and Arabic at Oxford, who had bought it at the sale of the library of Edward Wortley Montague, by whom it had been brought from the East. (N.B. Dr. White at one time intended to translate it literally, and thereby eclipse the Anglo French version.) It is noticed in Ouseley's Oriental Collections (Cadell and Davies), vol. ii. p. 25."

The Jonathan Scott above alluded to appears under various titles as Mr. Scott, Captain Scott and Doctor Scott. He was an officer in the Bengal Army about the end of the last century, and was made Persian Secretary by "Warren Hastings, Esq.," to whom he dedicated his "Tales, Anecdotes and Letters, translated from the Arabic and Persian" (Cadell and Davies, London, 1800), and he englished the "Bahár-i-Dánish" (A.D. 1799) and "Firishtah's History of the Dakkhan (Deccan) and of the reigns of the later Emperors of Hindostan." He became Dr. Scott because made an LL.D. at Oxford as meet for a "Professor (of Oriental languages) at the Royal Military and East India Colleges"; and finally he settled at Netley, in Shropshire, where he died.

It is not the fault of English Orientalists if the MS. in question is not thoroughly well known to the world of letters. In 1797 Sir Gore Ouseley's "Oriental Collections" (vol. ii. pp. 25-33) describes it, evidently with the aid of Scott, who is the authority for stating that the tales generally appear like pearls strung at random on the same thread; adding, "if they are truly Oriental it is a matter of little importance to us Europeans whether they are strung on this night or that night."[1] This first and somewhat imperfect catalogue of the contents was followed in 1811 by a second, which concludes the six volume edition of "The

ARABIAN NIGHTS
ENTERTAINMENTS,
Carefully revised and occasionally corrected
from the Arabic.
to which is added
A SELECTION OF NEW TALES,
Now first translated
from the Arabic Originals.
also,
AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,
Illustrative of the
RELIGION, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE: MAHOMMEDANS."

The sixth volume, whose second title is "Tales | selected from the Manuscript copy | of the | 1001 Nights | brought to Europe by Edward Wortley Montague, Esq.," ends with a general Appendix, of which ten pages are devoted to a description of the Codex and a Catalogue of its contents. Scott's sixth volume, like the rest of his version, is now becoming rare, and it is regretable that when Messieurs Nimmo and Bain reprinted, in 1882, the bulk of the work (4 vols. 8vo) they stopped short at volume five.

I am not aware that any attempt has been made to trace the history of the Wortley Montague MS.; but its internal evidence supplies a modicum of information.