It was among the designs of Ḥarîri to exhibit in their right form, or signification, a number of these words about which there was, or had been, doubt. With this view he introduces them into verses in such places that the metre determines their structure, or the rhyme their orthography. Where two similar forms may both be correctly used, he contrives to bring them together, and to make it evident from the sense that they have the same meaning. Where two words are derivatives from the same root, but differ in form, or where they are identical in orthography, but are derived from different roots, or where they have the same letters, but a different vowelling, the juxtaposition serves also to awaken the reader to a nice discrimination between them. It must not, however, be supposed from this that Ḥarîri’s intention was strictly to write a philo­logical treatise. That is a notion which has prevailed among some crities, who would make the Assemblies merely an ingenious and pedantic puzzle, but no real Arabic scholar will hold such an opinion. The As­semblies were written, primarily, to amuse and entertain, and they were listened to with pleasure by numbers who cared nothing for their hidden learning. But the author, having been accustomed to philological discussions all his life, and having audiences equally zealous, was led na­turally and almost unconsciously to insinuate into his work the subtleties which were uppermost in his mind.

In the same way the use of rare expressions, which forms one of the chief difficulties of the work, may be conceived to be more spontaneous than it at first sight appears. The doubtful words and phrases of the early time, and particularly those derived from the Koran, had been often the subjects of debate for generations, and the author might well be tempted to rouse the attention of his audience by throwing among them one of these apples of discord. In a translation the learned vocabulary of Ḥarîri is lost, and yet it will be perceived that his com­positions do not lack vigour or pathos. May we not then acquit him of having merely digested an antiquarian glossary into a dramatic form.

The Assemblies, indeed, are far from restricted to antique words and phrases; on the contrary, they are in some respects extremely unclassical, inasmuch as the author delights to introduce the provincial expressions, and to refer to the manners of Irak. There is a singular mixture of old and new in the work; strange and obsolete words, rough with gutturals, such as are met with in the proverbs of Maydâni, or in the earliest poets, stand side by side with others that have been borrowed from the Persians and the Greeks. There is more of this foreign element than the purist quite approves. Words of exotic origin are indeed to be found even in the Koran, as ; but strict Moslems have made excuses for them, even to the point of denying their foreign extraction, and of asserting that they are common to Arabic and to other languages. Their dictum was plausible, since undoubt­edly they could show that those words and many others had existed in Arabic speech before the advent of Islam; nor can it fairly be denied that terms which were in use among the Arabic-speaking Jews, such as , might be fairly taken to be Arabic. But Ḥarîri’s employment of non-Arabic words is capricious and sometimes excessive: they are introduced unne­cessarily, as if his purpose were to give liveliness to his composition, and to suit himself to a popular whim. The Andalusian Sherîshi is obliged to confess his ig­norance of some of them, and as we are told that even in the author’s own time and city he was accused of incorrect expression, we may assume that some of the learned in Irak objected to his too liberal vocabulary.

The use of rare phrases, the origin and meaning of which were doubtful, is of constant occurrence in this work. The explanation of these, according to the best lights I have been able to obtain, makes up a large part of the notes which are appended to this translation. Some of them are interpreted by the author himself, in short commentaries which he has added to some of the Assemblies, others are left unnoticed; but Ḥarîri lectured on them to his sons and pupils, and his judg­ments are recorded by the commentators. An immense number of sayings, proverbs, and idiomatic phrases were current, all supposed to have originated with the eloquent Arabs of the desert, and consecrated in the eyes of the scholars of the time. Some of these had become the trivial expressions of the vulgar, and it is difficult for Englishment to understand the literary taste which attached such importance to them. It is as if in this country the most intellectual and learned men of the day devoted themselves to elucidating such phrases as “he cut his stick,” “he kicked the bucket,” “he hopped the twig,” “mind your P’s and Q’s,” “we were all at sixes and sevens,” “no mistake;” and as if the most gifted author of the time were to produce a composition containing all these expressions, and append an inter­pretation to the effect that “he cut his stick” was a phrase derived from the backwoods, and signified to depart, since a man in the forest when about to go on a journey cut a stick from a tree to aid him in walking; that to “kick the bucket” and “hop the twig” were seamen’s phrases, signifying to commit suicide by hang­ing, or by jumping from the yard arm; that “mind your P’s and Q’s” was originally a theatrical phrase, “mind your cues,” the addition of “P’s” being an unintelligent corruption; that “no mistake” had its origin in the answer of the Duke of Wellington to Mr. Huskisson: “There is no mistake, there can be no mistake;” and that as for the phrase “sixes and sevens,” God alone knew what it meant. This is scarcely an exaggeration of the purport of much of the Assemblies, with the difference that the phrases which Ḥarîri embodies in his writings were supposed to be idioms of a classic tongue, and to have first passed from the lips of a heroic race. The favour with which such compositions were received, bears witness to the zeal and almost Massoretic diligence with which the educated class studied the records of their language and history.