degradation, like that of the traders of Scutari, or of barbarous isolation, like that of the mountain tribes of Ghegaria. By her patronage of the educational efforts of Roman missionaries, Austria already enjoys a considerable amount of influence in Upper Albania, and an Austrian occupation would be eagerly welcomed by a considerable section of the people. A similar kind and extent of popularity (though due, perhaps, to less disinterested action), belongs to Greece in the Epirot regions; while the hostile influences are, in each case, such as might be expected to lose their vitality with time, aided by the reconciling pressure of accomplished facts.

ART. III.-1. The Qur'ân, translated by E. H. PALMER (vols. vi. and ix. of the Sacred Books of the East, edited by F. Max Müller). Oxford (Clarendon Press): 1880.

2. El-Kor'ân, or The Korán, translated from the Arabic, the Suras arranged in chronological order, with Notes and Index, by J. M. RODWELL, M.A. 2nd edition. London: 1876. 3. The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the Original Arabic, with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved commentators: to which is prefixed a Preliminary Discourse. By GEORGE SALE, Gent. London: 1734. 4. Selections from the Kur-ân, by EDWARD WILLIAM LANE. New Edition, with an Introduction by STANLEY LANE POOLE. London: 1879.

5. Corani Textus Arabicus, recensuit GUSTAVUS FLuegel. Editio stereotypa tertium emendata. Lipsiæ: 1869.

TH HERE is probably no book that is more talked about and less read than the Koran. As one of the great classics of the world, the Mohammedan Bible commands the same superficial acquaintance as Paradise Lost,' and, like the English epic, is the subject of those commonplaces of conversation which people think are due to standard books which they have not read. There are very few educated persons who have not an opinion about the Koran, but not one of a thousand who cheerfully criticise it has ever given it an hour of ordinary study. It is not unusual to hear the rare beings who have actually read the Koran through take to themselves considerable credit for their perseverance; but the difficulty of the

task hardly justifies this self-gratulation. The whole Koran, estimated by the number of verses, is only two-thirds the length of the New Testament, and, if we omit the numerous stories of the Jewish patriarchs, we have no more to read than the Gospels and Acts together. The Sunday edition of the 'New York Herald' is three times as long. On the score of length there is no excuse for not reading the Koran: it is rather the style and character of the contents that deter ordinary readers. The Koran has suffered, just as the Bible has gained, by an authorised version. Sale's translation has hitherto been practically the sole source of our knowledge, or ignorance, of the Koran in England. It had the advantage of a century of priority over all other English translations, and even when others appeared, it still held its place as the accepted version for general reading. It is not a bad translation, but it is an insufferably dull one. The renderings are, as a rule, fairly accurate; but Sale's want of literary skill, his inability to reproduce in the smallest degree the effect of the Arabic, and his dreary manner of arranging the verses and paragraphswherein the tired eye searches vainly for a pause or restingplace, the well-prized white line which shows that the writer took fresh breath now and then, and gives the reader leave to do likewise make his translation one of the most wearisome of all books, even among those which every gentleman's library 'should possess. It is difficult to read, and impossible to understand, Sale's Koran, if to understand is to grasp the drift and character of a book; and on Sale's well-meaning but prosaic work must be laid much of the responsibility for the prevailing distaste for the Koran. This cause, however, ought not to continue still in effect. There are now versions of the Koran which are not only easy to read, but replete with poetic inspiration. Mr. Rodwell's translation is full of beauty, and ought to be much wider known than it is. In this for the first time the results of German criticism are utilised for the arrangement of the various chapters of the Koran in an approximately chronological order. One of the chief drawbacks to Sale's version is the order of the chapters. Sale retained the arrangement, universal among Mohammedans, which the most superficial student perceives at once to be unscientific and destructive to the proper comprehension of the Sacred Book. The Mohammedan arrangement is regulated by the simple principle of putting the long chapters first, and gradually fining down to the shortest chapters. In other words, the Mohammedan arrangement inverts the true order of the chapters, for the shortest are almost universally the oldest, and the

longest the latest. But as this general rule does not hold good in every instance, chapters of the most diverse dates are placed side by side, to the ruin of all sequence in style or thought. It was this preposterous arrangement that made Carlyle think the Korāna wearisome, confused jumble, crude, 'incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; 'most crude, incondite;-insupportable stupidity, in short!' As soon as the mechanical arrangement is set aside, and a fairly chronological order substituted, the chaotic impression disappears. For ourselves we do not think the Koran at all an incomprehensible jumble, but believe we can trace a clearly. progressive development in thought and language. But we admit that this could not be traced in Sale's version, and at present Mr. Rodwell's alone presents the approximately true order. One might have thought that this decided advance in translation would have made the Koran more generally known, and that readers would have been attracted by the bold imagery and fine bursts of real poetry which Mr. Rodwell's version brings into prominence. Such, however, has not been the case. Another attempt was made, in a different direction, to induce those who had been deterred from the study of Sale's Koran by its length and confusion, to acquire some knowledge of the sacred book in a less troublesome Lane's Selections' were arranged under subjects; all that was objectionable in general reading was excised; and the interminable histories of the Israelite patriarchs were reduced to a connected narrative. Many who had been foiled in their laudable efforts to master Sale were able to learn something of the Koran and its author from these Selections; ' but the loss which is entailed by the neglect of the chronological order is hardly repaired by the convenience in reference and analysis which undoubtedly belongs to the arrangement according to subjects. Lane's Selections' are the best means of learning the drift of the Koran that the general reader possesses: but he cannot gain from them that insight into the development of Mohammed's thought and the growth of Islam which a chronologically arranged book of extracts or typical chapters would have afforded.

manner.

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Finally Professor E. H. Palmer, who has a rare gift of language, and understands the art of reproducing Arabian effects in English words as no other Englishman does, has translated the Koran for Professor Max Müller's series of 'Sacred Books of the East.' Mr. Palmer's version is undoubtedly the best that has yet appeared. His intimate acquaintance with the modes of thought and expression of the

modern Bedouin enables him to give a peculiar life and reality to his translation. His Koran reads like the words of a living Arab-words which we might hear ourselves any day in the desert-not dead utterances of the past. There is a stiffness about the earlier versions which mars their effect. One feels that they are the result of laborious study of a difficult language, which no longer lives in men's lips, but is as dead as the tongue of the Vedas. It is quite different with Mr. Palmer's work. He knows the people to whom the Koran was spoken, for the modern Arab is little changed from his forefather of Mohammed's day. He knows the language of the Koran as a medium of common everyday intercourse, for an Arab now will speak in moments of excitement and enthusiasm the same burning words that came red-hot from Mohammed's lips. Mr. Palmer has realised the fact that, though all language changes-and Arabic has undergone many corrup tions since the first promulgation of Islam-the continuity is not broken, and the Arabic of the Koran still exists in all its essential characteristics in the present day. It is this which gives his translation a freshness and buoyancy which we may seek in vain elsewhere. For the first time we feel that the words we read in the Koran came straight from a man's heart, and begin to understand the power of Mohammed's influence, and the fascination of his eloquence. It is no longer a standard classic that we study, but a living revelation that we hear.

But Mr. Palmer's principle of translating the Koran as if it were the speech of a modern Bedawy has its drawbacks. Although it has always been held up as the model of Arabic style, the Koran contains many expressions which it is difficult to regard as anything else than vulgarisms. Mohammed, as an unlettered man, naturally addressed his countrymen in their common everyday speech, and it is not surprising to find a certain proportion of what is called 'slang' in his language. Mr. Palmer's mistake is not in admitting this, but in trying to reproduce it. The impression produced upon an audience in Mekka by certain vulgar expressions which were in everyday use is quite different from that produced upon the educated readers for whom Mr. Palmer's translation is intended by corresponding vulgarisms in English. To us the occurrence of such phrases as Mr. Palmer intentionally introduces has something of the effect that the insertion of a music-hall melody in a symphony of Beethoven's would produce. To the original audience the slang' expressions were part of their own speech and excited no remark. We, however, do not use

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slang' expressions, and when we meet with them in books, especially sacred books, they jar upon our literary sense. Mr. Palmer attempts the task-an impossible one we admit-of producing the same impression upon English readers as was produced upon the original audience by Mohammed's own rhetoric; and he fails in the attempt because he forgets that the audiences are wholly dissimilar, and that what would strike a rude Arab in a given manner would have a totally different effect upon a cultivated reader. Mr. Palmer's theory would only apply if the readers of his translation were entirely of the lowest classes; as they are obviously almost wholly restricted to the educated classes, the theory breaks down and offers an impediment, instead of an aid, to the due appreciation of the Koran. It would be easy to select instances of what we refer to from almost every page of this translation, but the very frequency of the fault renders examples unnecessary. Every reader of Mr. Palmer's Koran will find his attention perpetually distracted from the meaning by the peculiarity of the language; and in such passages as we shall quote examples of this defect will inevitably appear.

Another characteristic of the new translation which interferes at once with its clearness and literary excellence is its excessive literalness. Mr. Palmer is continually striving after two ideals; one is to render every word by the primary meaning of the root, and the other is to retain the order of the Arabic sentence in the English version. The first aim is against the genius of the Arabic language. No tongue possesses greater flexibility of signification than the Arabic, and it is astonishing what diversity of meaning is expressed by a single root and its derivations. By endeavouring to reduce all these meanings to the primary signification of the root, Mr. Palmer sometimes loses the actual sense of a passage, and commonly renders a perfectly lucid expression incomprehensible to any but a philologist. In its least serious aspect, this practice destroys any grace of style and diminishes the pleasure of the reader. The other attempt, to retain the order of the original Arabic, is even less justifiable. We believe a clergyman is at present engaged in translating the New Testament word for word from the Greek in the order of the original. Such a work might serve the purpose of a dull candidate for a pass examination, in which the Greek Testament was expected to be construed; but it would hardly merit the name of a translation. Mr. Browning has tried the same fatal experiment on the Agamemnon' of Eschylus. Anyone can see the absurdity of the principle when applied to Greek, but in Arabic it

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