It Approaches More Nearly Than Any Other Dialect To The Old Written Arabic, And Is Free From Those Affectations And Perversions Of The Original Sense, Which Abound In Other Provinces.

I do not consider the Arabic language as on the decline:

It is true, there are no longer any poets who write like Motanebbi, Abol' Ola, or Ibn el Faredh; and a fine flowing prose the Arabs never possessed. The modern poets content themselves with imitating their ancient masters, humbly borrowing the sublime metaphors and exalted sentiments produced from nobler and freer breasts than those of the olemas of the present day. But even now, the language is deeply studied by all the learned men; it is the only science with which the orthodox Moslim can beguile his leisure hours, after he has explored the labyrinth of the law; and every where in the East it is thought an indispensable requisite of a good education, not only to write the language with purity, but to have read and studied the classic poets, and to know their finest passages by heart. The admiration with which Arabic scholars regard their best writers, is the same as that esteem in which Europeans hold their own classics. The far greater part of the Eastern population, it is true, neither write nor read; but of those who have been instructed in letters, a much larger proportion write elegantly, and are well read in the native authors, than among the same class in Europe.

The Mekkawys study little besides the language and the law.

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