THE PREFACE.
xv
ral fine copies at Oxford, would, no doubt, be highly acceptable to the lovers of antiquity, and the admirers of native genius: but when I propose a translation of these Oriental pieces, as a work likely to meet with success, I only mean to invite my readers, who have leisure and industry, to the study of the languages, in which they are written, and am very far from insinuating that I have the remotest design of performing any part of the task myself; for, to say the truth, I should not have differed even the following trifles to see the light, if I were not very desirous of recommending to the learned world a species of literature, which abounds with so many new expressions, new images, and new inventions.
