# Oriental Scenes, Dramatic Sketches and Tales

ORIENTAL SCENES,
DRAMATIC SKETCHES AND TALES,
WITH
Other Poems.
By EMMA ROBERTS
AUTHOR OF MEMOIRS OF THE RIVAL HOUSES OF YORK
AND LANCASTER—CONRAD, A TRAGEDY—THE
KINSMEN OF NAPLES, A TRAGEDY, &c. &c. &c.
CALCUTTA:
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY P. S. D'ROSARIO, AMHURST STREET
PUBLISHED BY NORMAN GRANT, CALCUTTA DEPOSITORY.
1830.
TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
LADY WILLIAM BENTINCK.
Madam,
With very sincere gratitude I avail myself of the permission so kindly granted to inscribe the accompanying volume of Poems to your name. It is, I believe, the first production of the kind, emanating from a female pen, which has issued from the Calcutta Press. May I venture to hail its appearance under your patronage, as an auspicious omen of the advancement of literature in the East? Recommended by the sanction of a Lady eminently distinguished for the accomplishments and virtues which add lustre to noble birth, it will, I hope, stimulate my country women in India to cultivate those intellectual pursuits which have ​raised so many female writers to eminence at home: and should the perusal of "The Oriental Sketches" incite more gifted pens to the illustration of the scenery of this sunny land, I shall feel highly gratified in having pointed out a mine of rich materials to their notice. I am most happy in the opportunity afforded me to offer a tribute of gratitude, however faint, to a country wherein I have found so kind a welcome; and I entertain a pleasing hope that the volume which your Ladyship has honoured by an approval, will be acceptable to all who possess congenial minds.
I have the honour to remain,
Your Ladyship's,
Most obedient Servant,
EMMA ROBERTS.
Agra, April 20th, 1830. ​
ADVERTISEMENT.
In giving this little volume to the public, the author has a very pleasing task to fulfil in the assurance of the vivid sense she entertains of the honour conferred upon her by the patronage which has ushered her poems into the world, in a manner at once so brilliant and so flattering. For the support which she has met with in the Upper Provinces (which have added upwards of three hundred names to the accompanying list of subscribers) she feels most deeply indebted; the success is unparallelled in the annals of Oriental Literature, and demands her warmest thanks.
The author feels very proud of the welcome which her book has received in a land where she expected to find strangers, but where she has met with so many persons of taste and talent by whom the former productions of her ​pen were not unknown nor unprized; and most gladly avails herself of so suitable an occasion for the expression of her gratitude to all those friends whose warm and zealous support has ensured the success of her present work.
There is however one person to whom more particular acknowledgments are due, and she with great pleasure mentions her obligations to Mr. H. L. V. Derozio, to whose invaluable assistance she is indebted for the superintendance of her volume through the Press;—a task which the distance of her residence from Calcutta precluded her from performing, and which none save a poet could have executed so ably. The author must ever deem herself fortunate in procuring for so important an undertaking the aid of a gentleman whose well-earned reputation confers honour upon the pages which have experienced his guarding care from those typographical errors which they could not otherwise have escaped.
CONTENTS.
ORIENTAL SCENES.
Pages
DRAMATIC SKETCHES AND TALES.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.