I felt encouraged by the friendly reception of my Book of to reproduce them as a companion volume and as a farther contribution to the study of popular fictions. It may be considered by some readers that my notes are too copious. I know that foot-notes have been likened to runaway knocks, calling one downstairs for nothing; but as the book is not specially designed for Eastern scholars (who indeed require none of the information that I could furnish), I was desirous that nothing likely to be obscure to the ordinary reader should pass without explanation and illustration; and since these foot notes have considerably swelled the bulk of the book and I shall certainly not profit by them, I trust they will not prove altogether useless or super?uous. The abstract of the romance of Hatim Taifiwhich was an afterthought — and the other matter in the Appendix will be, I venture to think, interesting to readers of all ranks and ages. It only remains to express my thanks, in the first place, to the learned Orientalist Mr. Edward Rehatsek, of Bombay, for kindly permitting me to reprint his translations from the Persian, with which I have taken a few liberties, but had he revised them himself, I feel sure he would have made very similar alterations I much regret that want of space prevented me from reproducing more of the shorter stories. In the next place, I (and the reader also, if I am not mistaken)