Excerpt from Oriental Tales: Translated Into English Verse It will readily be supposed that my acquaintance with the tales and apologues of France and Italy is not very extensive; I cannot however refrain from observing, that my surprise has been more than once excited, during the perusal of the few which have fallen under my hand, at the little claim they have to originality. In useful inventions Europe must nu doubtedly take the lead, but in the pro ductions of fancy Asia has always been pre-eminent. Pilpay, and other Oriental ists, have furnished Boccaccio and his followers with their most amusing fables; and from the tenth to the fourteenth cen tury, the literature (if it may be so called) of the south of Europe was confined to little else but imitating and embellishing them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.