, the empire of the sword.
Soldiers are seldom introduced; the splendours of the just Caliph's reign
are dwelt upon with fond remembrance; the style is that of a mercantile
people, while riches and artificial luxuries are only rivalled by the
marvellous gifts of the genii and fairies. This brilliant mythology, the
offspring of the Arabian imagination, together with the other
characteristics of the Arabian tales, has had an extensive influence on our
own literature. Many of these tales had found their way into our poetry
long before the translation of the _Arabian Nights_; and are met with in
the old _Fabliaux_, and in Boccacio, Ariosto, and Chaucer. But while these
tales are Arabian in their structure, the materials have been derived, not
only from India, Persia, and China, but also from ancient Egypt, and the
classical literature of Greece.

I shall content myself at present with adducing one example of such
probable derivation from the source last mentioned. The stories to be
compared are too long for quotation, which, as they are well known, will
not be necessary. I shall therefore merely give, in parallel columns, the
numerous points of resemblance, or coincidence, between the two. The
Arabian tale is that of "Ali Baba and the Forty Robbers;" the corresponding
story will be found in Herodotus, b. II. c. cxxi.; it is that of
Rhampsinitus and the robbery of his royal treasury:

THE EGYPTIAN TALE.

1. The king constructs a stone edifice for the security of his vast
riches.

2. In the wall of this treasury is a stone so artfully disposed that a
single person can move it, so as to enter and retreat without leaving
any trace of his having done so.

3. Two brothers become acquainted with the secret opening into the
treasury, and enter it for the purpose of enriching themselves.

4. One of the brothers becomes rich by abstracting large sums of money
from the royal treasury.

5. The other brother is caught in the snare which the king had laid
within the treasury, for the detection and apprehension of the
intruders.

6. At his own request the brother thus caught is beheaded by the other
to avoid recognition, and to secure the escape of one. The dead body is
hung from the wall of the treasury, for the purpose of discovering his
accomplice.

7. The surviving brother, at his mother's earnest request, carries off
the dead body, and brings it ho