15

viii PREFACE

the strange descritions of Haleb, Demashk, and
Al Cahira: the titles and offices of the Ottoman
empire are fashioned by the practice of three
hundred years; and we are pleased to blend
the three Chinese monosyllables, Con-fu-tace in
the respectable name of Confucius, or even to
adopt the Portuguese crruption of Mandarin.
But I would vary the use of Zoroafter and Zerdusht,
as I drew my information from Greece or
Persia: since our connection with India, the
genuine Timour is restored to the throne of Tamerlane:
our most correct writers have retrenched
the Al, the superfluous article, from the Koran;
and we excape an ambiguous termination, by
adopting Moslem instead of Musulman, in the
plural number. In these, and in a thousand
examples, the shades of distinction are often
minute; and I can feel, where I cannot explain,
the motices of my choice.

CONTENTS