It will thus be seen that in the Assemblies the highest literary forms of the language are united. Abû Zayd’s harangues and sermons are those of the pagan orator or the Moslem preacher; Ḥârith’s descriptions are in the rhetorical style which the most accomplished writers imitated from them; the diversified poetry of the Arabs, from the simple rejez to the most ornate diction of the ḳaṣîdeh, is represented in Abû Zayd’s verses, and we have a compendium of all that had established itself in popular favour during many centuries. European readers will perhaps wonder that the author, who was master of such resources, should have restricted himself to two or three characters, and to such a monotony of adventure. He has evidently fancy and originality: how is it then that, having advanced so far to the dramatic form, he should not have been led to improve on his type, to place Abû Zayd in more varied circumstances, and surround him with more interesting people? We have all through the same adventurer, making gain by tricks which resemble each other; we have always the circle of dilettanti, or the Kadi generous, or foolish, or stingy, as the case may be. Yet the author, whatever may be his apprehensions of other demerits, never excuses himself for his repetitions. One explanation of this is that the adventure is always treated as subordinate to the poetical or rhetorical dis­play, that the audience did not care how Abû Zayd was brought on the stage so long as he discoursed with sentiment and wit. But it must also be observed that this uniformity of type is one of the characteristics of Arabic literature. The East has never been studious of novelty, and if a thing was good, an audience would not weary of it any more than of the striped mantle, or the turban which had been worn from time immemorial. We modern followers of fashion, who cannot read the same authors, follow the same amusements, or wear the same shaped clothes two years together, have an impatience of monotony unknown even to our own European race in former ages. The comedy of the ancients had but a limited range of character and incident. The two old men, and the “cultus adulter, stultus vir, callida nupta” were reproduced in a manner which in modern times would weary the most indulgent audience. The popular Italian comedy with its harlequin and scaramouch carried sameness to the extreme. The people in its unsophisti­cated state loves to recur to familiar types, as a child will sooner hear Jack the Giant Killer, or Tom Thumb, for the tenth time than be told a new story. This clinging to established forms is especially remarkable among the people of the Semitic race. Successive generations of writers are content to produce variations upon a single theme. To fear the reproach of imitation never enters the mind of those to whom the prevalent usage has al­most the sanctity of a law. They follow the manner, and even repeat the phrases of compositions conse­crated by antiquity, or popular esteem; for their country­men, far from desiring originality of style, would pro­bably resent it. So we find some of the later Hebrew Psalms to be almost a repetition of those of an earlier age, and as if pieced together from their fragments. The diction of prophecy is fixed by Joel, or by some pre­decessor whose compositions have not reached us, and through five centuries the strain of promise and maledic­tion never varies. The spirit, the style, the images, the rhetoric, are everywhere identical. We can see that each prophet is inspired, not only by his own fervent genius, but by the utterances of those who have gone before, and that he adopts instinctively and, it may be, unconsciously, the traditional sacred language of his order. We have even direct imitations of particular passages, as, for in­stance, the prophecy against Moab at Jeremiah xlviii., which is plainly taken from Isaiah xv. and xvi.; also the curse of Jeremiah on his birth at xx. 14, which is identi­cal with the opening verses of the third chapter of Job.

In Arabic literature the same character is manifest. The poet never hesitates to fashion his composition after a prevailing type, and to repeat this continually without any striving for originality. To mould his production on any other than the traditional form would be to expose himself to the charge of bad taste, and what was worse, of want of learning. The ḳaṣîdeh, the finished poem of the Arabs, was subjected to arbitrary laws, which, though perfectly needless, were observed by numberless writers as if sacred and inviolable. The first ḳaṣîdeh is attributed to Mohalhil Ibn Rabî‘ah, who composed it on his brother Kolayb Wâ’il, one of the most celebrated persons of antiquity; but the poet who impressed on the ḳaṣîdeh the type which it retained for ages was the celebrated Imr al Ḳays, the son of Mohal-hil’s sister Fâṭimeh. The judgment of Mohammed and ‘Omar upon this prince of Arab bards has been already mentioned. The Khalif ‘Ali, a man of taste and cul­ture, was also full of admiration for the great poet of the Ignorance. These three founders of Islam only followed the opinion of the most illustrious people of their age, and transmitted it to posterity. Imr al Ḳays had introduced, or first made popular, a certain opening of the ḳaṣîdeh, which consisted of an address of the poet to two friends, who were supposed to have halted with him at a spot where at some past time the tribe of the poet’s mistress had dwelt. The poet points out the traces of the encampment, the ashes of the extinguished fires, the deserted pen of the camels, entertains them with the story of his loves, and then passes, by an abrupt transi­tion, to the proper subject of his poem. This capricious overture caught the fancy of contemporary poets, and to introduce a subject by the two boon companions, the mistress, and the deserted encampment, became a favourite device. Each of the seven Mo‘allaḳât opens in this manner, and what was originally only the caprice of a single poet became an almost inviolable law. Even Ḥârith, son of Ḥillizeh, who was a hundred years old when he improvised his Mo‘allaḳah before ‘Amr ibn Hind, and so leprous that he stood behind a veil till the king, delighted with his poetry, bade him come forth and sit by his side, laments his separation from an imaginary beauty. Succeeding poets followed the same fashion. Whatever the occasion of the ḳaṣîdeh, the writer intrc-duced his mistress, praising her beauty, and lamenting her absence, before he turned to his subject, which was generally the eulogy of some great man. Mutenebbi’s mistress figures in some of his poems, but he is said to have been the first to have discontinued this nasîb, or mention of the beloved one, and to have begun with the eulogy of the patron. Such a poem was, however, not judged to be complete according to poetical laws, and was described by the words and , as if docked or truncated. It is needless to dwell upon the general uniformity of the Arab ḳaṣîdehs in other respects. The poet praises himself, his race, his camel, his horse, his martial exploits, his sword and spear, and, in later times, the prince whose favour he desires to win. For cen­turies every composition of this class was constructed on the same type, and limited to the same narrow range of ideas. The poet’s merits were judged by the skill with which he reproduced and varied the thoughts of antiquity. We need not wonder, then, that Ḥarîri neglected to change the character of the Assemblies as received by him from Hamadâni. Not only did the traditional im­proviser and râwi suffice for his contemporaries, but even succeeding imitators have never thought it necessary to add to the persons of the drama. The Assemblies of Naṣîf al Yazaji, composed within the last few years, are as rigidly simple in their structure as the productions of eight hundred years ago.*