I must acknowledge I never could see much merit in the Persian poetry,
which I have read in translation. There is not a ray of imagination in it,
and but a glimmering of fancy. It is, in fact, so far as I know, deficient
in truth. Poetry is certainly something more than good sense, but it must
be good sense, at all events; just as a palace is more than a house, but
it must be a house, at least. The Arabian Nights' Tales are a different
thing --they are delightful, but I cannot help surmising that there is a
good deal of Greek fancy in them. No doubt we have had a great loss in the
Milesian Tales.[1] The book of Job is pure Arab poetry of the highest and
most antique cast.
Think of the sublimity, I should rather say the profundity, of that
passage in Ezekiel, [2]"Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest." I know nothing like it.
[Footnote 1:
The Milesiacs were so called, because written or composed by Aristides of
Miletus, and also because the scene of all or most of them was placed in
that rich and luxurious city. Harpocration cites the sixth book of this
collection. Nothing, I believe, is now known of the age or history of this
Aristides, except what may be inferred from the fact that Lucius Cornelius
Sisenna translated the tales into Latin, as we learn from Ovid:--