New-York tribune., 1882-12-31
THE NEW WEsT-EAsTERN DIvAY.

PEARLS OF THE FAITH; or, SLAMS ROSARY.
Bclag TIE nmety-mne beautiful names & OF Ailan l
various Oren al sources la- naa, by an Iuatn nus,
"The Light of ASIA etc. PIP. 3lV Boston; Roberts
Brothers. 1888.
Nh Edwin Arnold enjoys what for an English
poet Is the doubtful distinction Of being read in
America and not in England, and of being read for
what is IN 10 sense his own intellectual property
The reputation which he made ly his Light Of
Asia" could only have been made in a country and
a period hike thls-a country wherein curiosity Is
easily stimulated and easily sat SIZED, and period
wherein ethical speculation drifting hIJher and
thther If the readers of poetry in America had
been as well informed in regard to Buddhism as
readers OF the corresponding class in England
The Light of ASIA would not have attracted 50
much att ntion anon them. Its poetic claims are
not mauyno Of high order; for like much that Mr..
Arnold has written verse, II Is Gusive, sloycnIY
and often inhamouous in veIsicauon. Its most
positive merit, perhaps, Is sense of The pictm-
esquc. Ii has also another merit which a greater
poet than Mr. Arnold might not have been able to
impart to it, the merit of perfect sympathy. He
handles Huddha as Waltons angler handled his
wonn--as if he loved him-and It is in Buddha
alone that we are interested in his beauty and
purity his sweetness and light, his seltabneaaton
his divine devotion to humanity. Ii Ar. Arnold had
a ID
utauon which was thrust upon MIN by
''The Light OF Asia and not have tempted the pa
tiencc o. bis readers and critics with these "Pearls
of the Faith. ." which are but sorry pendant to it,
To be sure they finish the Oriental lrlogy. which
he l,roiectcd when he wrote the Indian Song OF
songs" but in finishing it tnev finish him also.
They do this, partly because the interest which
they possess is ol the slightest, and partly because
Il. y suggest comparisons which they cannot SuS-
tain The task which Nh Arnold set himsci. here
was to enumerate and Illustrate with verse the
"ninety-uIne beautiful names Of Alah,' which are
represented to dcyout Mu,lms by three chapcts,
each Of thiIy-tUrce beads, the whole forming q
rosary of pearls of the faith. lie und rtakcs, IN
other words to write uincty-nine poems, from the
point Of view of an Indian Mohammedm, though
why an Indian rather a Persian or an Arabian Mo-
hammedau we have to conjecture. There were wo
ways, and only two ways. by which TINS feat could
be accomplished one was by drawing literally
from Oriental legends traditions, and records, the
other was by rcstatmg in verse whatever j. most
characteristic Of the faith aud philosophy Of Islam.
Mr. Arnold has attempted bOlh ana has failed In
BOTH though more signally in the last than in the
first. The ethc portion Of his volume forces tho
scholar to compare il with the ethlc portions of
Goethe's West-East Divan' and with Euckert's
Wisdom of the Brahmins," and the comparison is
a cruel one for II there Is anything III the lalth OF
Islam which he IS by nature untitled to under
stand il IS its morals The burdens of life and death,
and tue judgment, which rested so heavily on the
soul Of the Arabic Prophet and lightly on the
minds of his melOdOus followers. Hafz, and Saadi,
and Jami. and Omar Khayyam, are 10 him as If
they had never existed, aud did not exist to-day 10
every poet worthy Of the ZANE. He does not per-
ceIye them in the letter OF his text still less does
he perceive them IN its spirit. lie cannot think
down to the Central Thought. and if he could he
could never think It up and out into poetry. The
indeiuable something winch dl1ereLtlates the
Oriental from tue Occidental mind the quality
which we detect, the aroma which We
breathe, in EmersOns Saadi," always
escapes Mr.. AnolPs comprehension. What he
misunderstands least is the earthly side of Eastern
Lterature-the traditions, and legends, and apo
loeues with which, with body, the spirit OF ITS
III, stcIsm has clothed itself That this Literature
is very rich III these, and that many Of these are
very beautiful. is known to every reader OF any