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and One Night alleged to have been furnished to the Editor by a learned Arab of Tunis, whom he styles “Herr M. Annaggar” (Quære En Nejjar, the Carpenter), the lacunes found in which were supplemented from various other MS. sources indicated by Silvestre de Sacy and other eminent Orientalists, is edited with a perfection of badness to which only German scholars (at once the best and worst editors in the world) can attain. The original Editor, Dr. Maximilian Habicht, was during the period (1825–1839) of publication of the first eight Volumes, engaged in continual and somewhat acrimonious[1] controversy concerning the details of his editorship with Prof. H. L. Fleischer, who, after his death, undertook the completion of his task and approved himself a worthy successor of his whilom adversary, his laches and shortcomings in the matter of revision and collation of the text being at least equal in extent and gravity to those of his predecessor, whilst he omitted the one valuable feature of the latter’s work, namely, the glossary of Arabic
- ↑ After the manner of Orientalists, a far more irritable folk than any poets.
