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PREFACE.
v

"Review of Modern Times" into an English dress, instead of confining the translation to his native language. Imperfect as this translation was, both as to style and matter, an accident occurred to it, which has deprived the world even of that; for with the exception of a few copies distributed at the time in India, the whole of the edition printed in Calcutta, was lost in the ship in which it was consigned to England.

In the present state of oriental literature in Europe, it would indeed be a reflection on the English nation, to allow this valuable work to be reprinted with the numerous Gallicisms that occur in the former version. The present translator, therefore, who is not altogether unknown to the public in a similar character, has undertaken, at the suggestion of the Oriental Translation Committee, to render the "Siyar-ul-Mutakherin," available to the English reader. To Mr. Graves C. Haughton, who kindly placed at his disposal a valuable copy of this work in the original Persian, and to Colonel Doyle, who sacrificed his copy of the former translation to his use, the translator feels himself highly indebted; and he trusts that this additional effort