BELIEF in the Asiatic origin of many of the Fables and Tales of domestic life which afforded instruction and entertainment to the Middle Ages has for some time prevailed, and of late years the proofs have been multiplied by the industry of Oriental scholars. The evidence adduced has been of the most positive description. It is not built on probabilities, upon general and indefinite analogies, or on partial and accidental resemblances, but upon actual identities. Although modifications have been practised, names altered, scenes changed, circumstances added or omitted, we can still discover the sameness of the fundamental outline; and, amidst all the mystifications of the masquerade, lay our hands, without hesitation, upon the authentic individual.—Dr. H. H. Wilson (1840).