"have a little patience." When Dr. HUNT of Oxford, whom I am bound to name with gratitude and veneration, together with two or three others, attempted at my request to write the fame diftich in Arabian characters, they all wrote it differently, and all, in my present opinion, erroneously. I was then a very young ftudent, and could not easily have procured Ibnu Zaidun's works, which are, no doubt, preferved in the Bodley library, but which have not fince fallen in my way. This admired couplet, therefore, I have never feen in the original characters, and confess myself at a loss to render them with certainty. Both verses are written by D'Herbelot without attention to the grammatical points, that is, in a form which no learned Arab would give them in recitation; but, although the French verfion be palpably erroneous, it is by no means eafy to correct the errour. If álásà or a remedy be the true reading, the negative particle must be abfurd, fince taássainà fignifies we are patient, and not we defpair, but, if áláfay or affliction be the proper word, fome obscurity must arise from the verb, with which it agrees. On the whole I guess, that the distich fhould thus be written:

يكان حِيْنَ تُنَاجِيكُمْ ضَهَايِرنا

يَقْضِي عَلَيْنَا الأَسَيَ لَوْلَا تَأْسِيْنَا

Técádu bhína tunájícum d'emáïrund
Yakdi alaina ’láfay lau là taâfsinà

"When our bofoms impart their fecrets to you, anguish would almost fix our doom, if we were not mutually to confole ourselves." The principal verbs may have a future sense, and the last word may admit of a different interpretation. Dr. HUNT, I remember, had found in GIGGEIUS the word dhemayer, which he conceived to be in the original. After all, the rhyme feems imperfect, and the measure irregular. Now I ask, whether fuch perplexities could have arisen, if D'Herbelot or his Editor had formed a regular fyftem of expreffing Arabick in Roman characters, and had apprized his readers of it in his introductory differtation?

If a further proof be required, that such a system will be useful to the learned and effential to the ftudent, let me remark, that a learner of Perfian, who fhould read in our best histories the life of Sultan AzIM, and wish to write his name in Arabick letters, might express it thirtynine different ways, and be wrong at laft: the word should be written Aázem with three points on the firft confonant.

There are two general modes of exhibiting Afiatick words in our own letters: they are founded on principles nearly oppofite, but each

of them has its advantages, and each has been recommended by respectable authorities. The first profeffes to regard chiefly the pronunciation of the words intended to be expressed; and this method, as far as it can be pursued, is unquestionably useful but new founds are very inadequately prefented to a fenfe not formed to receive them; and the reader must in the end be left to pronounce many letters and fyllables precarioufly; befides, that by this mode of orthography all grammatical analogy is deftroyed, fimple founds are reprefented by double characters, vowels of one denomination ftand for those of another; and poffibly with all our labour we perpetuate a provincial or inelegant pronunciation: all these objections may be made to the ufual way of writing Kummerbund, in which neither the letters nor the true found of them are preserved, while Kemerbend, or Cemerbend, as an ancient Briton would write it, clearly exhibits both the original characters and the Perfian pronunciation of them. To fet this point in a strong light, we need only suppose, that the French had adopted a system of letters wholly different from ours, and of which we had no types in our printing-houses: let us conceive an Englishman acquainted with their language to be pleafed with MALHERBE's wellknown imitation, of Horace, and defirous of

quoting it in fome piece of criticism. He would

La mort a des rigueurs à nulle autre pareilles;

Le pauvre en fa cabane, ou le chaume le couvre,
'Eft fujet à fes loix,

Et la garde, qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre,
N'en défend pas nos rois !'

Would he then exprefs thefe eight verfes, in Roman characters, exactly as the French themfelves in fact exprefs them, or would he decorate his compofition with a paffage more refembling the dialect of favages, than that of a polished nation? His pronunciation, good or bad, would, perhaps, be thus reprefented:

'Law more aw day reegyewrs aw nool otruh parellyuh,
• Onne aw bo law preeay:

'Law crooellyuh kellay fuh boofhuh lays orellyuh,
'Ay-noo layfuh creeay.

Luh povre ong faw cawbawn oo luh chomuh luh coovruh, < Ay foozyet aw fay lwaw,

Ay law gawrduh kee velly ò bawryayruh dyoo Loovrub "Nong dayfong paw no rwaw!'

The second fyftem of Afiatick Orthography consists in scrupulously rendering letter for letter,

without any particular care to preserve the pronunciation; and, as long as this mode proceeds by unvaried rules, it feems clearly entitled to preference.

For the first method of writing Perfian words the warmest advocate, among my acquaintance, was the late Major DAVY, a Member of our Society, and a man of parts, whom the world loft prematurely at a time, when he was meditating a literary retirement, and hoping to pass the remainder of his life in domeftick happiness, and in the cultivation of his very useful talents. He valued himself particularly on his pronunciation of the Perfian language, and on his new way of exhibiting it in our characters, which he inftructed the learned and amiable Editor of his

Inftitutes of Timour at Oxford to retain with minute attention throughout his work. Where he had acquired his refined articulation of the Perfian, I never was informed; but it is evident, that he spells most proper names in a manner, which a native of Perfia, who could read our letters, would be unable to comprehend. For instance that the capital of Azarbaijàn is now called Tabriz, I know from the mouth of a person born in that city, as well as from other Iranians; and that it was fo called fixteen hundred years ago, we all know from the Geography of Ptolemy; yet Major DAVY always wrote it