the identity of the
person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a
clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the
middle of the blank sheet the words--

"'-- -- Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de
Thyeste. They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atree.'"

THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE

Truth is stranger than fiction.

OLD SAYING.

HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like
the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe;
and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American--if
we except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of American
Literature";--having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the
first--mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to
discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error
respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter, Scheherazade, as that
fate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and that the denouement there
given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as it goes, is at least to
blame in not having gone very much farther.

For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime, I
shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.

It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not only
puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the prophet, to
espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his dominions, and the
next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.

Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a
religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him
as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted one
afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand vizier, to
whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.

Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either
redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.

Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (which
makes the sacrifice more meritori