AS SECRETARY OR AMANUENSIS.
A GENTLEMAN who is fully conversant with the French, German, and Italian Languages is desirous of obtaining some PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT. He can give satisfactory references as to Competency and Respectability of Family and Connexions.
Address. F. G. H., care of MR. NEWMAN, Publisher, 9. Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate Street.
LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1854.
Notes.
ARABIAN TALES AND THEIR SOURCES.
The Arabians have been the immediate instruments in transmitting to us those Oriental tales, of which the conception is so brilliant, and the character so rich and varied, and which, after having been the delight of our childhood, never lose entirely the spell of their enchantment over our maturer age. But while many of these tales are doubtless of Arabian origin, it is not to be supposed that all are equally so. If we may believe the French translator of the Thousand and One Tales, that publication does not include the thirty-sixth part of the great Arabian collection, which is not confined to books, but has been the traditional inheritance of a numerous class, who, like the minstrels of the West, gained their livelihood by reciting, what would interest the feelings of their hearers. This class of Eastern story-tellers was common throughout the whole extent of Mahomedan dominion in Turkey, Persia, and even to the extremity of India.