  Hereupon the Arabian author enters on one of his digressions. Fearing, apparently, that the somewhat eccentric views of Mr. Somerset should throw discredit on a part of truth, he calls upon the English people to remember with more gratitude the services of the police; to what unobserved and solitary acts of heroism they are called; against what odds of numbers and of arms, and for how small a reward, either in fame or money: matter, it has appeared to the translators, too serious for this place. In this name the accent falls upon the e; the s is sibilant. The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader. We subjoin a specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as prose or verse: ‘Any writard who writes dynamitard shall find in me a never-resting fightard;’ and he goes on (if we correctly gather his meaning) to object to such elegant and obviously correct spellings as lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple-filchard (clearly justified by the parallel—pilchard) and opera dancard. ‘Dynamitist,’ he adds, ‘I could understand.’ The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch which our translation usually prÆtermits, here registers a somewhat interesting detail. Zero pronounced the word ‘boom;’ and the reader, if but for the nonce, will possibly consent to follow him. |
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