[212] Ibid., vv. 61. 66. 67.
[213] Ibid., ch. XX. v. 66.
[214] Ibid., ch. X. vv. 99. 100.
[215] See Epilogue.
§ II.—Notice concerning the printed edition, some manuscripts, and the translations of the Dabistan.
It is well known, that the only printed edition of the Dabistán which exists is due to the press of Calcutta. At the end of the work will be found the Epilogue of the editor, Moulavi Nazer Ushruf, a learned Muhammedan gentleman of the district of Juanpur, who was for many years employed in judicial offices in the district of Burdwan, and in the court of Sudder Diwani Adawlet, in Calcutta. These particulars were communicated to me by the favor of the honorable gentleman whose name the said editor mentions in his Epilogue with encomium, the sincerity of which can certainly not be questioned: it was William Butterworth Bayley, at present director and chairman of the Honorable East India Company. It was he, a distinguished Persian scholar, who directed and superintended the edition of the Dabistán. Upon the strength of his authority I am enabled to add, that the printed copy was the result of a careful collation of several manuscript copies of this work. One was obtained from Delhi (as mentioned in the epilogue), and another from Bombay; two or three were in the possession of natives in Calcutta. Although these, as it is more or less the case with all manuscripts, procurable in India, were defective, yet we may believe the assurance given by the editor, that “the doubts and faults have been as much as possible discarded, and the edition carried to a manifest accuracy.” This is confirmed by the fact, that only a few discrepancies from the printed edition were found in two other manuscripts, which were in England at the disposition of the late David Shea for the translation of the first part of the Dabistán. Nor did I find frequent deviations from the printed text in the copy which was transcribed for me in Calcutta from a manuscript, procured from the library of the king of Oude. Mutilated in many places, and imperfect as is this latter, it afforded me nevertheless a few acceptable readings. I was obliged to content myself with the assistance of this only manuscript for the translation, as several circumstances, among which was the lamented death of the earl of Munster, prevented me from obtaining the use of other manuscript copies. All circumtances considered, I do not hesitate to say, that the printed edition of the Dabistán is more correct than any of the manuscript copies which can be found; we have only to regret that its typography, owing to the then imperfect state of the Oriental press in Calcutta, is so irregular, as to be scarce entitled to any preference over the common sort of Persian manuscripts.
The English translation of the Dabistán was begun some time before the year 1835, by David Shea, one of the professors of Oriental languages at Hayleybury. He was in his early years distinguished in the university of Dublin for his classical attainments, and remained devoted to literature in all the various circumstances of his life. It was not for, nor in, India—the great object and school of English students—but in Malta, from peculiar inducement, that, by uncommon application, he acquired the Arabic and Persian languages. After his return to England, having been attached to the Hayleybury college—I should not fail to add to his eulogy by saying, that he had before won the kind interest and recommendation of sir Graves Haughton—and having become a member of the committee of the Oriental Translation Fund, he earned the applause of Orientalists in England, and on the continent of Europe, by his faithful and spirited translation of Mirkhond’s history of the early kings of Persia. Undertaking the translation of the Dabistán, he was undoubtedly preparing to himself a new success, the full realisation of which he was not permitted to enjoy; the last date in his manuscript copy, in which he was wont to mark the progress of his labor, was April 22, 1835. From this day he appears to have withdrawn his hand from the Dabistán, and too soon after—I shall be permitted to use the very words of the author whom he was translating:[216]
“He sought the stores of holy liberty,
A resting place on high, and soar’d from hence