It generally consists of five lines all rhyming except the penultimate.The metre is a species of the Basit which，however；admits of considerable poetical license；this being according to Lane the usual'Weight，'
The scheme is distinctly anapaestic and Mr.Lyall （Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry） compares with a cognate metre，the Tawil，certain lines in Abt Vogler，e.g.
'Ye know why the forms are fair，ye hear how the tale is told.'
[136]i.e.repeat the chapter of the Koran termed The Opening，and beginning with these words，'Have we _disibledevent='blame，''reproach.'
[155]Bresl.Edit.In the Mac.'it returned to the place whence I had brought it'--an inferior reading.
[156]The dreams play an important part in the Romances of Chivalry，e.g.the dream of King Perion in Amadis de Gaul，chapt.ii.（London；Longmans，1803）.
[157]Amongst Moslems bastardy is a sore offence and a love-child is exceedingly rare.The girl is not only carefully guarded but she also guards herself knowing that otherwise she will not find a husband.Hence seduction is all but unknown.The wife is equally well guarded and lacks opportunities hence adultery is found difficult except in books.Of the Ibn （or Walad） Har m （bastard as opposed to the Ibn Hal l） the proverb says，'This child is not thine，so the madder he be the more is thy glee！'Yet strange to say public prostitution has never been wholly abolished in Al-Islam.Al-Mas'ādi tells us that in Arabia were public prostitutes'（Bagh y ），even before the days of the Apostle，who affected certain quarters as in our day the Tartāshah of Alexandria and the Hosh Bardak of Cairo.Here says Herr Carlo Landberg （p.57，Syrian Proverbs）'Elles parlent une langue toute … elle.' So pretentious and dogmatic a writer as the author of Proverbes et Dictons de la Province de Syrie，ought surely to have known that the Hosh Bardak is the head-quarters of the Cairene Gypsies.This author，who seems to write in order to learn，reminds me of an acute Oxonian undergraduate of my day who，when advised to take a'coach，'became a'coach'himself.