The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nights' Entertainments

Mr. Lane's first two visits to Egypt were made when, for the last time, Arab manners and customs as they existed in the age of the Arabian Nights could be studied; and his translation was written very shortly after his second return to England. Though some of the tales may be Indian or Persian in origin, in their present state they exhibit a picture of the manners, modes of thought, and language, of the court and times of the Memlook Sulṭáns of Egypt, which nearly resembled in these points those of the Khaleefehs of Baghdád, or the great Arab Empire. De Sacy and Von Hammer, the two celebrated orientalists who differed widely in opinion as to the origin of the book, agreed that the tales in which the Khaleefeh Hároon Er-Rasheed is introduced (the best, with few exceptions, in the collection) are Egyptian in character. But since the "Modern Egyptians" were described by Mr. Lane, all things in the East have changed, and every day witnesses the decay of some old custom, to be followed by a bastard European imitation. During Mohammad 'Alee's rule, all traces of the state and circumstance of the Memlook court gradually passed away. European dress has displaced oriental costume, cloth of gold, and dresses of honour; European architecture elbows the quaint beauty of the old Arab capital; and the cavalcade of fifty horsemen around a grandee is succeeded by an English carriage that profanes the quiet streets of the city, and frightens away both 'Efreets and their memory. Mr. Lane saw the last of Cairo in its integrity; and he has not overstated his qualifications, as author of the "Modern Egyptians," for the task of translating the Arabian Nights.