The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-08 00:00:00

the bow of those sweet lire. Still not daring to gaze on
her, the said then, My question is of the Lily, the Lily of
the Sea, and where is it, 0 marvel ?'
" And ho heard a voice answer in the tones of a silver
bell, clear as a wind in strung wires, Where I lie, lies the
Lily, the Lily of the Sea ; I with it, it with me.'
" Said he, 0 breather of music, tell me how I may lay
band on the flower of beauty to bear it forth.'
"And he heard the voice, An eqeal sputa betwixt my
right side and my left, and from the shoulder one span and
half a span downward.
" Still without power to eye her, he measured the space
and the spans, his hand beneath the coverlids of the couch,
and at a soot of the bosom his hand sank in, and he felt s
fluttering thing, fluttering like a frigbted bird in the midst
of the fire. And the voice said, Quick, seize it, and draw
it out, and tie it to my feet by the twines of red silk about
;4. ,

" He seized it -and drew it out, and it was a heart—a
heart of blood—streaming with crimson, palpitating.
Tears flashed on his sight beholding it, and pity took the
seat of fear, and he turned his eyes full on her, (trying,
' 0 sad fair thing ! 0 creature of anguish ! 0 painful
beauty ! Oh, what have I done to thee !'
" But she panted, and gasped short and shorter gasps,
pointing with one finger to her feet. Then he took the
warm, living heart while it yet leapt, and quivered, and
sobbed ; and he held it with a trembling hand, and tied it
by the red twines of silk about it to her feot, staining
th9ir whiteness. When that was done, his whole soul
melted with pity and swelled with sorrow, and ere he could
meet her eyes a swoom overcame him. Surely when the
world dawned to him a third time in these regions the
damsel was no longer there, but in her place the Lily of
Light. He thought, It was a vision, that damsel ! a
terrible one; one to terrify and bewilder ! a bitter sweet-
ness ! Oh, the heart, the heart !' Reflecting on the heart
brought to his lids an overcharging of tears, and he wept
violently awhile."

Sufficient testimony, however, has already, we
may conjecture, been afforded by actual extracts
from these annals of " The Shaving of Shagpat "
to justify whatever panegyrics we have been im-
pelled, by our admiration of the work, to pronounce
upon it as a genuine, though, at the same time, a
perfectly original Arabian Entertainment. Testi-
mony sufficiently ample and conclusive, we trust,
to tempt many of our readers to an examination of
this singular volume for themselves. Through its
perusal they may there learn more succinctly, and
in detail, how it came to pass that Shibli Bagarag,
the barber, became in the end Master of the Event,
thereby rendering his career "an odour in distant
lands, a joy to the historian, the Compiler of the
Events"—being enabled by the aid of Noorna bin
Noork9. and in spite of Goorelka of Oolb—sustained
by the Lily, and strengthened by the hairs of
Garraveen, and armed with the Sword of A.klis—to
accomplish the Shaving of Shagpat, in defiance of
the Genie Karaz and of the secret might of the
Identical. 'Fantastic the book is—and with rea-
son, as becomes an Arabian Entertainment Abet-
ing the style and manner of the Oriental Story-
Tetlers—but besides being thus ingeniously fantas-
tical, it is a production, to our thinking, as we
have already intimated, at once exquisitely hum)-
, roue and splendidly imaginative.