| | | Little did we imagine that a work of genius was announced | under the incomprehensible title which has, for many weeks | past, met our eye among the advertisements of new books. | The Shaving of Shagpat! what could it mean?

| “An Arabian Entertainment!”

what might that be? It is | very seldom that an announcement which piques curiosity is | followed by a work which satisfies the curiosity; but in the | Shaving of Shagpat a quaint title ushers in an | original and charming book, the work of a poet and of a story | teller worthy to rank with the rare storytellers of the East, | who have produced, in the Arabian Nights, the | Iliad of romance. | The Shaving of Shagpat is an imitation of the | Oriental stories; not by any means a servile imitation, but the | sort of imitation which naturally springs fom kindred power. It | is more Eastern than Goethe’s West-ostliche Divan, | less directly imitative than Ruckert’s Oriental poems. | Mr. Meredith has thoroughly caught the spirit of Arabian | romance, and pleasantly tinges his style with the colour and | imagery of Arabian eloquence. But, although his inventions | are as oriental as “Sinbad” or “Ali-Baba,” he assures us in | the Preface that they are inventions of his own, and not | derived from Eastern sources. It needs such an assertion to | convince the reader that he is not listening to the veritable | fictions of the East. Both the humour and the poetry seem to | issue from the same abundant and delightful source that | gave us the Arabian Nights; and to produce such | a work, which shall not be a rifaccimento, but which shall | read like an original, requires very peculiar powers in the | writer. Nothing would be easier than to write a tale of | enchantment after the Arabian model; but only to rare minds | is it given to write a tale which shall increase the treasures of | fiction, while strictly adhering to the old forms. | The Shaving of Shagpat is a collection of stories, | connected together by the tale which gives its title to the | book. Shibli Bagarag, the Persian Barber, has had great | things predicted of him by the readers of planets. These | predictions unsettle him, and send him wandering in quest of | greatness. He is to become Master of the Event, and to live | in the memories of men. That Event is nothing less than the | shaving of Shagpat, the clothier who gives his name to the | city of Shagpat, and who, arrogant in hairiness, is much | revered by men. To have a clothier, be he never so hairy, | will not seem a difficult task, nor the event a great Event. But, | O rash reader! the task is more perilous than it seems to | thee ~~ the Event more portentous. Hair has become sacred | in the cities of Shagpat and Oolb: and barbers an | abomination. Thwacks, not sequins, await Figaro. Poor | Shiblic Bagarag, in the innocence and pride of his art, offers | to shave the King, and his reward is fifty thwacks; and | Nevertheless, thwacked and reviled though he be, | Shibli Bagarag loses not heart. His mind is fixed on | becoming Master of the Event. Shave the hairy Shagpat he | will; and shave him he does. But how he does it, | by what magic, through what perilous enterprizes, baffling | malignant genii with potent spells, how nearly losing the | prize just as it is within his grasp, and how by timely and | recovering himself ~~ these, and all the marvellous stories | which he hears the whole ~~ must be sought in the volume | itself. We will not blunt the edge of curiosity by even hinting | what we know. If any reader, from the age of ten to the age | of eighty, resists the fascination of the stories, it is a proof | that he has no imagination. | Although written in prose, liberally sprinkled with verses, | after the Eastern manner, the work is a poem throughout. In | very page we are aware of the poet. Not that he gives us | that detestable hybrid called

“poetical prose,”

with | its dissonances of fragmentary metre, and its fine writing | which noodles call

“beautiful language.”

The prose | is prose ~~ not broken-up verse; the language is simple, | picturesque, pregnant ~~ not ornate inanities addressed to | the ear. A random specimen or two will show what we mean: | ~~ | | Again: ~~ | Again: ~~ | These are characteristic specimens ~~ not the best that | could have been quoted, but the fairest representatives of | the whole. The imagery is brief ~~ generally conveyed in half | a sentence ~~ as where the shell closes on the lovers, | or where the astonishment of the Vizier is expressed | thus, and the sun is said . | The style, although Oriental in its figurativeness, is European | in its concision; we miss the luxuriant redundancy of Oriental | expression, and are grateful for its absence. In revising the | work for another edition, Mr. Meredith will do well to look with | a little more severity on certain expressions, and get rid of | such verbs as “to verse,” “to lute,” and “to bosom,” which are | not English, and are not needed. While suggesting | alterations, we would further suggest another trifle, which is | that he substitute lion for panther in the | passage where Ruark falls upon his foes and smites them to | the earth. Any Arab would tell Mr. Meredith that the panther, | terrible as it is in force and ferocity when in a death-struggle, | is as timorous as a cat, and never attacks men except in | self-defence. To compare the onslaught of a warrior to that | of a panther springing on a troop of men, is therefore a false | image. | These are very small faults, yet they are all we have espied | in a book the charm of which has surpassed that of any | Eastern work we ever read since the Arabian tales; and | George Meredith, hitherto known to us as a writer of graceful, | but not very remarkable verse, now becomes the name of a | man of genius ~~ of one who can create.