The imitations of Ḥarîri have been numerous. Syl­vestre de Sacy gives, in his edition, a Hebrew version of the third Assembly by the Rabbin Jehuda, son of Al Khâriji, and mentions in his Introduction that Jehuda also wrote an independent work in the same style. It is curious to see the sober majesty of the Hebrew tongue condescend to such an imitation, and to observe that the Bible takes the place of the Koran in the allusions with which the piece abounds. De Sacy also mentions an imitation in Arabic, composed by Abû ‘ṭ Ṭâhir ibn Moḥammed ibn Yûsuf of Cordova. The writer produced fifty Assemblies to correspond with his model, and in the title to the work lays stress upon the pains they cost him (Chrest: Arabe iii. 180). An imitation was also produced in Syriac towards the close of the thirteenth century. The limpid, richly vowelled, and graceful Arabic must, however, have been indifferently repre­sented in the clumsy and rugged dialect of the north.

Yet the influence of Ḥarîri is not to be measured merely by the number of professed imitations that have been produced. His style has more or less modified the style of all the more ambitious writing that has appeared in the Arabic language since his time. In the Timur of Ibn ‘Arabshah, who wrote in the first half of the fifteenth century, we find the influence of Ḥarîri as strong as it had been in his own age, and among his own people. Nor does it even now show any sign of extinction. Every man in the East who seeks the reputation of a scholar and a gentleman endeavours to understand the Assemblies. Among the few works of merit which men of Arab tongue have produced in recent times are the Assemblies of Naṣîf al Yazaji of Beyrout, which are here and there cited in my notes. This book is a perfect imitation of Ḥarîri, whose diction and manner are repro­duced with surprising skill. Naṣîf certainly has little of the poetical power of his great original, but in curious learning he almost equals him. As, perhaps, the chief living representative of the ancient culture this author deserves our notice. He is a native of the Lebanon, has never quitted his own country, knows no language but his own, and is said to contemn European knowledge as worthless. Though a Christian he has devoted his life to a profound study of the language, history, literature, and grammar of the Arabs. Many years ago he pub­lished a letter to De Sacy on some minute faults which he discovered in that learned orientalist’s Commentary on Ḥarîri. He is the author of a treatise on grammar on the model of the Alfîyeh of Ibn Mâlik. It consists of more than a thousand verses of rejez muzdawij, in which the whole system of the Arab grammarians is condensed with wonderful ability, and it is accompanied by a commentary written by himself. No more complete exposition of the subject has ever been brought into a volume of the same size. The labours of his prede­cessors during many centuries have given the author the means of producing a treatise at once comprehensive and minute, and for the advanced student who has mastered the commentary of Ibn ‘Aḳîl on Ibn Mâlik, there is, I think, no work that might be more profitably taken in hand than the grammar of Naṣîf al Yazaji.* Another work of this author is a concise treatise on rhetoric, on the system of the Talkhîs al Miftâḥ of Jelâl ad dîn Moḥammed, as commented by Sa‘d at Taftâzâni. The work of Naṣîf seems to be in a great measure an abstract of the Mukhtaṣar, or shorter commentary of the last named author, which has been printed at Calcutta, and it carries concision to such a point as to be almost un­intelligible without the help of some more detailed and explanatory treatise. But as a manual to aid the memory, it is, no doubt, excellent. The most important work of Naṣîf, is, however, undoubtedly the volume of Assemblies. The hero is called Maymûn ibn Khizâm and the râwi is Sohayl ibn ‘Abbâd; the work itself bears the title Mejma‘ al Baḥrayn, the confluence of the two seas, an allusion to an obscure passage at Koran xviii. 59, which it is useless to discuss here. The Assemblies of Naṣîf are even more full of proverbs and traditionary sayings than those of Ḥarîri, which they have been written to supplement. The author, living entirely in the past, has brought to­gether an immense number of phrases illustrative of Arabic life and language, both before and after Islam. But the original feature in his compositions is the intro­duction of Arab art and science, and the treatment of every subject with a direct scholastic purpose. It need hardly be said that the author never profanes his text by admitting a Frankish idea, or accepts any scientific principle that is not recommended by the orthodox tradi­tion of centuries. Thus in the fourth Assembly we have a medical question concerning the proportion of the four , or humours of man, and are told that in properly constituted bodies the phlegm is a sixth of the blood, the yellow gall a sixth of the phlegm, and the black gall three-fourths of the yellow. The sixth Assembly is full of curious information concerning the special names of banquets according to their occasion, as a birth, a circum­cision, a wedding: the fires that were traditional among the pagan Arabs, as the fire by which they conjured rain, the fire by which they swore confederacy, the fire which they lighted when one hated by them departed as an en­chantment against his return. It must be remembered that these compositions are intended to be read with a master, or to be copiously commented, so that every line may be made the subject of a lecture on antiquities. The traditional names for the hours of the day and night, for the winds, the epithets applied to horses, according to their order in a race, are collected in pithy verses intended to be committed to memory. The eleventh contains an exposition of the Arabic prosody, the twenty-eighth treats of astronomy. In the fifteenth is a copy of verses in which no letter is pointed, and then one in which every letter is pointed, also verses in which the alternate letters, or the alternate words, have points. The twentieth has verses which are the same whether read forward or backward, and others which when read one way are laudatory, but, when read the other way, are satirical. In short, all Ḥarîri’s artifices are imitated, and even surpassed, by his laborious imitator. The Assemblies of Naṣîf should not be neglected by the Arabic student, for they are full of instruction; all that they require is a fuller commentary to explain their ambiguities and their references to obscure traditions. This could best be supplied by the author himself. My best thanks are due to Professor Ameuney, of King’s College, London, for calling my attention to the works of this remarkable contemporary scholar, as well as for many other inesti­mable services.

From the time of Schultens, versions of parts of Ḥarîri’s work have been made into Latin or modern European tongues with more or less success. Schultens translated six Assemblies; De Sacy in his Chrestomathie has given two with his usual accuracy. Other partial attempts have been made by different scholars, but the renderings are said to be extremely defective. A Latin version of the greater part of the work was published by C. R. S. Peiper, in 1832, but the translator was either not fully com­petent for his task, or else did not take the pains to obtain and study the best edition of the original, for his book abounds with errors. It is, moreover, written in the worst style of professorial Latin, and conveys in its form and spirit no idea of the original. A more worthy rendering is that of Mr. Preston, Lord Almoner’s Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, who has published an English version of twenty of the Assemblies. Mr. Preston’s trans­lation is throughout accurate and scholarly, and its only fault is excessive amplification, in which the rhythm and diction of Ḥarîri are almost dissipated. The book which is now offered to the public is, I believe, the first attempt at a complete translation of Ḥarîri’s work with such annotations as shall both instruct the general reader and aid the student to acquire a knowledge of the original. How far the object has been achieved, it is for others than myself to deter­mine.