IN the second Number of Major OUSELEY’S Oriental Collections, page 195, are the following Query and Reply. “Are the Tales of INATULLA, said to be translated by Colonel Dow, genuine, or not? They certainly are. The original work is called the BAHAR-DA­NUSH, or SPRING OF KNOWLEDGE. Colonel Dow has not translated above one third part of it. The avidity with which the English translation and French re-translation have been bought up, might encourage some ingenious orientalist to give the remainder of these tales an European dress.”

The above remark encouraged me to attempt the version of the remainder of a work, part of which is said to have been so favourably received.

Curiosity, however, having led me to compare Dow’s performance with the Persic, I found it so widely distant from it, even to the inser­tion of whole tales not in the original, that I conceived a new translation of the entire work might not be unacceptable. Six of the stories only have been omitted, for reasons which will be seen in an appendix to the last volume.

I trust the following version will be found as literal as our language would allow. For its style I hope it may be allowed to observe in excuse, that it is scarcely possible to give in English the involved and lengthened periods (sometimes filling nearly a page) of the Persian, without some degree of harshness; nor is it easy to avoid tautology in pre­serving the synonymies and com­pound epithets so abundant in eastern description. That redun­dance of expression which we justly avoid as a blemish, is by oriental writers introduced as a beauty, not only into their figu­rative compositions, but even his­tories and works of a graver sort. From the latter, of which the facts only are required, this super­fluous ornament may allowedly be rejected by a compiler; but in translating the effusions of oriental fancy, the imagery must be strictly preserved, or we should lose that originalness which we wish to obtain—Whether worth having, is another question.

It is possible some of the tales may be thought rather too free; but they could not be omitted with­out injuring the connection of the work. They shew, however, (for they are certainly just pictures of eastern manners) the cruel tyranny of the haram, and shameful ignorance in which women are kept in Asia, to be destructive to purity of mind and conduct, and prove the superiority which liberty, education, and well merited confidence give to the fair sex of this happy island and other unrevolutionized parts of Europe.

I hope the notes will be found useful in explaining many passages; but it is impossible to convey, so clearly as could be wished, to the comprehension of strangers to Asiatic scenery, those figurative allusions, which to feel the just force of, we should see the objects on which their propriety depends. Of the impartiality of my remarks on Dow’s wide departure from the original, and the adherence of this translation, the orientalist may, if thought worth while, form a judgment, by con­sulting the Persian of EINAIUT OOLLAH in the British Museum.

Since these volumes were printed off, in consequence of a short specimen published with the Per­sian text, and the translation of a tale from an Arabic Manuscript of the One Thousand and One Nights, given also with the text, in Major OUSELEY’S Oriental Collections, the following observa­tion has appeared in the British Critic.

“We are happy to see any new publication announced from the able pen of so excellent a Persian scholar as the author of the History of Dek­kan; but we sincerely wish he had chosen a subject more worthy of his talents than the TALES OF INATULLA, and the ARABIAN NIGHTS. He will pardon us for hinting, on how much nobler a task he would be engaged, in obliging the world with a new correct version of FERISHTA’S large History; or the Commentaries of BABER, writ­ten by that Sultan himself. With respect to the specimen here exhibited, it does him the highest credit for the accuracy and elegance of the version; but these only make us the more regret the misapplication of his powers.”

By the favourable opinion expressed in the above remark, of my attempts as a Persian scholar, I cannot but feel highly gratified; and it would afford me real satis­faction to redeem the misapplication of talent the candid Reviewer regrets, by making the translations he recommends, had I not experienced that oriental history meets not in this country a sale any way ade­quate to the labour and expense of publication. FERISHTA’S History of Dekkan, though, gratifyingly to my wishes, approved of by the public judges of literature, has not, I fear, reimbursed the worthy book­seller who purchased from me five hundred copies. That I was not a loser by hazarding the printing at my own expense, was owing to the liberality of the Honourable Company, in purchasing forty copies, and indulging me with the freight of a number subscribed for in Bengal; also some disposed of to friends in England. Mr. STOCK­DALE, however, was made acquainted with this private sale before he bought the copyright, and what remained of the impression.

With respect to FERISHTA’S larger work, recommended by the learned Reviewer, the substance of it, since the subjugation of Hindoo­stan by the Patans and Moguls, is already before the public in the two volumes of Colonel Dow, and, tho’ far from a literal translation, they detail the facts of the original with sufficient exactness. As to the other parts of FERISHTA, namely the Histories of each Province of Hin­doostan, from the earliest Mahum­medan conquests, to their gradual reduction by the Patan Emperors and those of the House of TIMUR, the principal events are so interwoven with the occurrences related in the reigns of the two latter Dynasties, by Dow, that a version of them would afford, I fear, but little new information or amusement to the reader; consequently hardly reward the labour of translation and expense of printing.

The Commentaries of BABER I had once an intention of translat­ing; but, on perusal, laid it aside, as I found them by no means so interesting as I expected. Details of numerous battles, in which the harsh names of Tartarian chiefs occupy much of every page, would, I thought, rather disgust than amuse; and of such the volume is principally composed. The grand events of his reign have already been given by Dow from FERISHTA. Sultan BABER, it is true, notices some objects of natural history and art in the journal of his conquest of Hindoostan; but they have been much better described by European travellers at the close of the last and beginning of this century. He wrote too in Turkish, and the two copies of the Persian translation which I have seen, were so full of errata, as in very many parts to be unintelligible. One of them belonged to Professor WHITE, the other to myself. In the original, Sultan BABER may possibly appear to more advantage as a writer.

In apology for misapplying what skill I may possess as an orientalist in the translation of Persian and Arabic Tales, I must after all confess, that I am constrained to look for some addition to income from my studies. History was my favourite one: but my bookseller and reading friends tell me, that Tales will suit them better than the operations of an AKBER, a JEHAUNGEER, a SHAW JEHAUN, or an AURUNGZEBE. I hope they will not be mistaken. Of the princes of the House of TIMUR, there are indeed valuable histories on the shelves of our libraries both public and private. Of AKBER, in three folio volumes, by the celebrated ABOU FUZZUL; of SHAW JEHAUN, in the same number. The latter work is in particular well worth tran­slating, as it details not only the actions of the emperor, but much curious matter relative to the ancient history of all the Provinces, with ample accounts of the produc­tions both of nature and art. Such a labour, however, as a version of this work must necessarily prove, requires an encouragement which no bookseller can hazard giving to the translator, though with the sure hope of its becoming gradually a library book, a flattering term to the future fame of the author, yet terribly oppressive to his present situation. In short, until the Hon. India Company, or the Universities, shall extend their patronage of east­ern literature to at least the gra­tuitous printing of its translation, we must not be surprized at Persian and Arabian Tales from Orientalists, who in general can­not afford to wait for the slow return of a library book.

What has been done for Mr. MAURICE, who has concentrated in his publications much that is serviceable to religion from oriental studies? What has been done for Major OUSELEY, who, to a per­fect acquaintance with classical literature, unites a knowledge of Hebrew, Syriac, Turkish, Arabic and Persian, which, properly encouraged, would make his Oriental Collections a fund of elegant and useful information?—NOTHING!