1 The few anecdotes that Lady Burton does give are taken from the books of Alfred B. Richards and others.
2 Lady Burton to Mrs. E. J. Burton, 23rd March 1891. See Chapter xxxix.
3 A three days’ visit to Brighton, where I was the guest of Mrs. E. J. Burton, is one of the pleasantest of my recollections.
4 Mrs. Van Zeller had, in the first instance, been written to, in my behalf, by Mrs. E. J. Burton.
5 It is important to mention this because a few months ago a report went the round of the newspapers to the effect that the tomb was in ruins.
6 See Chapter xvii.
7 It is as if someone were to write “Allah is my shepherd, I shall not want,” &c., &c.,—here and there altering a word— and call it a new translation of the Bible.
8 See almost any ‘Cyclopaedia. Of the hundreds of person with whom I discussed the subject, one, and only one, guessed how matters actually stood—Mr. Watts-Dunton.
9 Between Payne and Burton on the one side and the adherents of E. W. Lane on the other.
10 At the very outside, as before stated, only about a quarter of it can by any stretch of the imagination be called his.
11 Burton’s work on this subject will be remembered.
12 31st July 1905.
13 See Chapters xxii. to xxix. and xxxv. He confessed to having inserted in The Arabian Nights a story that had no business there. See Chapter xxix., 136.
14 Thus she calls Burton’s friend Da Cunha, Da Gama, and gives Arbuthnot wrong initials.
15 I mean in a particular respect, and upon this all his friends are agreed. But no man could have had a warmer heart.
16 Particularly pretty is the incident of the families crossing the Alps, when the children get snow instead of sugar.
17 Particularly Unexplored Syria and his books on Midian.
18 It will be noticed, too, that in no case have I mentioned where these books are to be found. In fact, I have taken every conceivable precaution to make this particular information useless except to bona-fide students.
19 I am not referring to “Chaucerisms,” for practically they do not contain any. In some two hundred letters there are three Chaucerian expressions. In these instances I have used asterisks, but, really, the words themselves would scarcely have mattered. There are as plain in the Pilgrim’s Progress.
20 I have often thought that the passage “I often wonder ... given to the world to-day,” contains the whole duty of the conscientious biographer in a nutshell.
21 Of course, after I had assured them that, in my opinion, the portions to be used were entirely free from matter to which exception could be taken.
22 In the spelling of Arabic words I have, as this is a Life of Burton, followed Burton, except, of course, when quoting Payne and others. Burton always writes ‘Abu Nowas,’ Payne ‘Abu Nuwas,’ and so on.
23 Conclusion of The Beharistan.
24 They came from Shap.
25 Thus there was a Bishop Burton of Killala and an Admira Ryder Burton. See Genealogical Tree in the Appendix.
26 Mrs. Burton made a brave attempt in 1875, but could never fill the gap between 1712 and 1750.
27 Now the residence of Mr. Andrew Chatto, the publisher.
28 In 1818 the Inspector writes in the Visitors’ Book: “The Bakers seldom there.” Still, the Bakers gave occasional treats to the children, and Mrs. Baker once made a present of a new frock to each of the girls.
29 Not at Elstree as Sir Richard Burton himself supposed and said, and as all his biographers have reiterated. It is plainly stated in the Elstree register that he was born at Torquay.
30 The clergyman was David Felix.
31 Weare’s grave is unmemorialled, so the spot is known only in so far as the group in the picture indicates it.
32 He died 24th October 1828, aged 41; his wife died 10th September 1848. Both are buried at Elstree church, where there is a tablet to their memory.
33 For a time Antommarchi falsely bore the credit of it.
34 Maria, 18th March 1823; Edward, 31st August 1824.
35 Beneath is an inscription to his widow, Sarah Baker, who died 6th March, 1846, aged 74 years.
36 Her last subscription to the school was in 1825. In 1840 she lived in Cumberland Place, London.
37 The original is now in the possession of Mrs. Agg, of Cheltenham.
38 Wanderings in West Africa, ii. P. 143.
39 Life, i. 29.
40 Goldsmith’s Traveller, lines 73 and 74.
41 Life, i. 32.
42 It seems to have been first issued in 1801. There is a review of it in The Anti-Jacobin for that year.
43 She was thrown from her carriage, 7th August 1877, and died in St. George’s Hospital.
44 Life, by Lady Burton, i. 67.
45 Dr. Greenhill (1814-1894), physician and author of many books.
46 Vikram and the Vampire, Seventh Story, about the pedants who resurrected the tiger.
47 He edited successively The Daily Telegraph and The Morning Advertiser, wrote plays and published several volumes of poetry. He began The Career of R. F. Burton, and got as far as 1876.
48 City of the Saints, P. 513.
49 Short died 31st May 1879, aged 90.
50 In Thomas Morton’s Play Speed the Plough, first acted in 1800.
51 Grocers.
52 Life, i. 81.
53 Or so he said. The President of Trinity writes to me: “He was repaid his caution money in April 1842. The probability is that he was rusticated for a period.” If so, he could have returned to Oxford after the loss of a term or two.
54 He died 17th November 1842, aged 65.
55 Robert Montgomery 1807-1855.
56 “My reading also ran into bad courses—Erpenius, Zadkiel, Falconry, Cornelius Agrippa”—Burton’s Autobiographical Fragment.
57 Sarah Baker (Mrs. Francis Burton), Georgiana Baker (Mrs. Bagshaw).
58 Sind Revisited. Vol. ii. pp. 78-83.
59 5th May 1843. He was first of twelve.
60 “How,” asked Mr. J. F. Collingwood of him many years after, “do you manage to learn a language so rapidly and thoroughly?” To which he replied: “I stew the grammar down to a page which I carry in my pocket. Then when opportunity offers, or is made, I get hold of a native—preferably an old woman, and get her to talk to me. I follow her speech by ear and eye with the keenest attention, and repeat after her every word as nearly as possible, until I acquire the exact accent of the speaker and the true meaning of the words employed by her. I do not leave her before the lesson is learnt, and so on with others until my own speech is indistinguishable from that of the native.”—Letter from Mr. Collingwood to me, 22nd June 1905.
61 The Tota-kahani is an abridgment of the Tuti-namah (Parrot-book) of Nakhshabi. Portions of the latter were translated into English verse by J. Hoppner, 1805. See also Anti-Jacobin Review for 1805, p. 148.
62 Unpublished letter to Mr. W. F. Kirby, 8th April 1885. See also Lib. Ed. of The Arabian Nights, viii., p. 73, and note to Night V.
63 This book owes whatever charm it possesses chiefly to the apophthegms embedded in it. Thus, “Even the gods cannot resist a thoroughly obstinate man.” “The fortune of a man who sits, sits also.” “Reticence is but a habit. Practise if for a year, and you will find it harder to betray than to conceal your thoughts.”
64 Now it is a town of 80,000 inhabitants.
65 Sind Revisited, i. 100.
66 “The first City of Hind.” See Arabian Nights, where it is called Al Mansurah, “Tale of Salim.” Burton’s A. N., Sup. i., 341. Lib Ed. ix., 230.
67 Mirza=Master. Burton met Ali Akhbar again in 1876. See chapter xviii., 84.
68 Yoga. One of the six systems of Brahmanical philosophy, the essence of which is meditation. Its devotees believe that by certain ascetic practices they can acquire command over elementary matter. The Yogi go about India as fortune-tellers.
69 Burton used to say that this vice is prevalent in a zone extending from the South of Spain through Persia to China and then opening out like a trumpet and embracing all aboriginal America. Within this zone he declared it to be endemic, outside it sporadic.
70 Burton’s Arabian Nights, Terminal Essay, vol. x. pp. 205, 206, and The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, by W. H. Wilkins, ii., 730.
71 Married in 1845.
72 She died 6th March 1846, aged 74.
73 He died 5th October 1858. See Sind Revisited, ii. 261.
74 Camoens, born at Lisbon in 1524, reached Goa in 1553. In 1556 he was banished to Macao, where he commenced The Lusiads. He returned to Goa in 1558, was imprisoned there, and returned to Portugal in 1569. The Lusiads appeared in 1572. He died in poverty in 1580, aged 56.
75 The Arabian Nights.
76 Who was broken on the wheel by Lord Byron for dressing Camoens in “a suit of lace.” See English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
77 Begun at Goa 1847, resumed at Fernando Po 1860-64, continued in Brazil and at Trieste. Finished at Cairo 1880.
78 Napier was again in India in 1849. In 1851 he returned to England, where he died 29th August 1853, aged 71.
79 Life of Sir Charles Napier, by Sir W. Napier.
80 The Beharistan, 1st Garden.
81 She married Col. T. Pryce Harrison. Her daughter is Mrs. Agg, of Cheltenham.
82 She died 10th September 1848, and is buried at Elstree.
83 Elisa married Colonel T. E. H. Pryce.
84 That is from Italy, where his parents were living.
85 Sir Henry Stisted, who in 1845 married Burton’s sister.
86 India, some 70 miles from Goa.
87 His brother.
88 The Ceylonese Rebellion of 1848.
89 See Chapter iii., 11.
90 See Arabian Nights, Terminal Essay D, and The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol. ii., p. 730.
91 His Grandmother Baker had died in 1846.
92 The Pains of Sleep.
93 Byron: Childe Harold, iv. 56.
94 Ariosto’s Orlando was published in 1516; The Lusiads appeared in 1572.
95 Temple Bar, vol. xcii., p. 335.
96 As did that of the beauty in The Baital-Pachisi—Vikram and the Vampire. Meml. Ed., p. 228.
97 Tale of Abu-el-Husn and his slave girl, Tawaddud.—The Arabian Nights.
98 Life, i., 167.
99 She became Mrs. Segrave.
100 See Burton’s Stone Talk, 1865. Probably not “Louise” at all, the name being used to suit the rhyme.
101 Mrs. Burton was always very severe on her own sex.
102 See Stone Talk.
103 See Chapter x.
104 The original, which belonged to Miss Stisted, is now in the possession of Mr. Mostyn Pryce, of Gunley Hall.
105 Of course, since Arbuthnot’s time scores of men have taken the burden on their shoulders, and translations of the Maha-Bharata, the Ramayana, and the works of Kalidasa, Hafiz, Sadi, and Jami, are now in the hands of everybody.
106 Preface to Persian Portraits.
107 Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, Memorial Ed., vol. i., p. 16.
108 Burton dedicated to Mr. John Larking the 7th volume of The Arabian Nights.
109 Haji Wali in 1877 accompanied Burton to Midian. He died 3rd August 1883, aged 84. See Chapter xx.
110 He died at Cairo, 15th October 1817.
111 That is, in the direction of Mecca.
112 Pilgrimage, Memorial Ed., i., 116.
113 See Preface to The Kasidah, Edition published in 1894.
114 Pilgrimage, Memorial Ed., i., 165.
115 A chieftain celebrated for his generosity. There are several stories about him in The Arabian Nights.
116 An incrementative of Fatimah.
117 Burton says of the Arabs, “Above all their qualities, personal conceit is remarkable; they show it in their strut, in their looks, and almost in every word. ‘I am such a one, the son of such a one,’ is a common expletive, especially in times of danger; and this spirit is not wholly to be condemned, as it certainly acts as an incentive to gallant actions.”—Pilgrimage, ii, 21., Memorial Ed.
118 Pilgrimage to Meccah, Memorial Ed., i., 193.
119 A creation of the poet Al-Asma’i. He is mentioned in The Arabian Nights.
120 How this tradition arose nobody seems to know. There are several theories.
121 It is decorated to resemble a garden. There are many references to it in the Arabian Nights. Thus the tale of Otbah and Rayya (Lib. Ed., v., 289) begins “One night as I sat in the garden between the tomb and the pulpit.”
122 Pilgrimage to Meccah (Mem. Ed., i., 418).
123 Mohammed’s son-in-law.
124 Mohammed’s wet nurse.
125 Son of Mohammed and the Coptic girl Mariyah, sent to Mohammed as a present by Jarih, the Governor of Alexandria.
126 Khadijah, the first wife, lies at Mecca.
127 Known to us chiefly through Dr. Carlyle’s poor translation. See Pilgrimage, ii., 147.
128 Here am I.
129 Readers of The Arabian Nights will remember the incident in the Story of the Sweep and the Noble Lady. “A man laid hold of the covering of the Kaaba, and cried out from the bottom of his heart, saying, I beseech thee, O Allah, etc.”
130 See Genesis xxi., 15.
131 The stone upon which Abraham stood when he built the Kaaba. Formerly it adjoined the Kaaba. It is often alluded to in The Arabian Nights. The young man in The Mock Caliph says, “This is the Place and thou art Ibrahim.”
132 See also The Arabian Nights, The Loves of Al-Hayfa and Yusuf, Burton’s A.N. (Supplemental), vol. v.; Lib. Ed., vol. xi., p. 289.
133 Burton’s A.N., v., 294; Lib. Ed., iv., 242.
134 See Chapter ix.
135 Sporting Truth.
136 The reader may believe as much of this story as he likes.
137 The man was said to have been killed in cold blood simply to silence a wagging tongue.
138 See Shakespeare’s King John, act i., scene i.
139 Burton’s translation of the Lusiads, vol. ii., p. 425.
140 Although Burton began El Islam about 1853, he worked at it years after. Portions of it certainly remind one of Renan’s Life of Jesus, which appeared in 1863.
141 To some of the beauties of The Arabian Nights we shall draw attention in Chapter 27.
142 Of course both Payne and Burton subsequently translated the whole.
143 First Footsteps in East Africa. (The Harar Book.) Memorial Ed., p. 26.
144 Esther, vi., 1.
145 Boulac is the port of Cairo. See Chapter xi..
146 Zeyn al Asnam, Codadad, Aladdin, Baba Abdalla, Sidi Nouman, Cogia Hassan Alhabbal, Ali-Baba, Ali Cogia, Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri-Banou, The two Sisters who were jealous of their Cadette.
147 Edward William Lane (1801-1876). He is also remembered on account of his Arabic Lexicon. Five volumes appeared in 1863-74, the remainder by his grand-nephew Stanley Lane-Poole, in 1876-1890.
148 Every student, however, must be grateful to Lane for his voluminous and valuable notes.
149 Lady Burton states incorrectly that the compact was made in the “winter of 1852,” but Burton was then in Europe.
150 My authorities are Mr. John Payne, Mr. Watts-Dunton and Burton’s letters. See Chapter 22, 104, and Chapter 23, 107.
151 It was prophesied that at the end of time the Moslem priesthood would be terribly corrupt.
152 Later he was thoroughly convinced of the soundness of this theory. See Chapters xxii. to xxx.
153 In the Koran.
154 Burton’s A.N., ii. 323; Lib. Ed., ii., p. 215.
155 When the aloe sprouts the spirits of the deceased are supposed to be admitted to the gardens of Wak (Paradise). Arabian Nights, Lib. Ed., i. 127.
156 To face it out.
157 First Footsteps in East Africa, i., 196.
158 First Footsteps in East Africa, ii., 31.
159 The legend of Moga is similar to that of Birnam Wood’s March, used by Shakespeare in Macbeth.
160 The story of these adventures is recorded in First Footsteps in East Africa, dedicated to Lumsden, who, in its pages, is often apostrophised as “My dear L.”
161 Afterwards Lord Strangford. The correspondence on this subject was lent me by Mr. Mostyn Pryce, who received it from Miss Stisted.
162 The Traveller.
163 Burton’s Camoens, ii., 445.
164 The marriage did not take place till 22nd January 1861. See Chapter x.
165 This is now in the public library at Camberwell.
166 In England men are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities. Pilgrimage to Meccah, ii., 86.
167 Unpublished letter to Miss Stisted, 23rd May 1896.
168 We have given the stanza in the form Burton first wrote it—beginning each line with a capital. The appearance of Mombasa seems to have been really imposing in the time of Camoens. Its glory has long since departed.
169 These little bags were found in his pocket after his death. See Chapter xxxviii.
170 This story nowhere appears in Burton’s books. I had it from Mr. W. F. Kirby, to whom Burton told it.
171 The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1860.
172 Subsequently altered to “This gloomy night, these grisly waves, etc.” The stanza is really borrowed from Hafiz. See Payne’s Hafiz, vol. i., p.2.
“Dark the night and fears possess us, Of the waves and whirlpools
wild:
Of our case what know the lightly Laden on the shores that
dwell?”
173 The ruler, like the country, is called Kazembe.
174 Dr. Lacerda died at Lunda 18th October 1798. Burton’s translation, The Lands of the Cazembe, etc., appeared in 1873.
175 The Beharistan. 1st Garden.
176 J. A. Grant, born 1827, died 10th February, 1892.
177 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, i., 149.
178 He is, of course, simply endorsing the statement of Hippocrates: De Genitura: “Women, if married, are more healthy, if not, less so.”
179 The anecdotes in this chapter were told me by one of Burton’s friends. They are not in his books.
180 This letter was given by Mrs. FitzGerald (Lady Burton’s sister) to Mr. Foskett of Camberwell. It is now in the library there, and I have to thank the library committee for the use of it.
181 Life, i., 345.
182 1861.
183 Vambery’s work, The Story of my Struggles, appeared in October 1904.
184 The first edition appeared in 1859. Burton’s works contain scores of allusions to it. To the Gold Coast, ii., 164. Arabian Nights (many places), etc., etc.
185 Life of Lord Houghton, ii., 300.
186 Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary from 1859-1865.
187 Wanderings in West Africa, 2 vols., 1863.
188 The genuine black, not the mulatto, as he is careful to point out. Elsewhere he says the negro is always eight years old— his mind never develops. Mission to Gelele, i, 216.
189 Wanderings in West Africa, vol. ii., p. 283.
190 See Mission to Gelele, ii., 126.
191 Although the anecdote appears in his Abeokuta it seems to belong to this visit.
192 Mrs. Maclean, “L.E.L.,” went out with her husband, who was Governor of Cape Coast Castle. She was found poisoned 15th October 1838, two days after her arrival. Her last letters are given in The Gentleman’s Magazine, February 1839.
193 See Chapter xxii.
194 Lander died at Fernando Po, 16th February 1834.
195 For notes on Fernando Po see Laird and Oldfield’s Narrative of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa, etc. (1837), Winwood Reade’s Savage Africa, and Rev. Henry Roe’s West African Scenes (1874).
196 Told me by the Rev. Henry Roe.
197 Life, and various other works.
198 See Abeokuta and the Cameroons, 2 vols., 1863.
199 Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, 2 vols., 1876.
200 “Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold.” Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, 67.
201 Incorporated subsequently with a Quarterly Journal, The Anthropological Review.
202 See Chapter xxix., 140.
203 Foreword to The Arabian Nights, vol. 1. The Arabian Nights, of course, was made to answer the purpose of this organ.
204 See Wanderings in West Africa, vol. 2, p. 91. footnote.
205 Burton.
206 Afa is the messenger of fetishes and of deceased friends. Thus by the Afa diviner people communicate with the dead.
207 This was Dr. Lancaster’s computation.
208 Communicated to me by Mr. W. H. George, son of Staff-Commander C. George, Royal Navy.
209 Rev. Edward Burton, Burton’s grandfather, was Rector of Tuam. Bishop Burton, of Killala, was the Rev. Edward Burton’s brother.
210 The copy is in the Public Library, High Street, Kensington, where most of Burton’s books are preserved.
211 Spanish for “little one.”
212 The Lusiads, 2 vols., 1878. Says Aubertin, “In this city (Sao Paulo) and in the same room in which I began to read The Lusiads in 1860, the last stanza of the last canto was finished on the night of 24th February 1877.”
213 Burton dedicated the 1st vol. of his Arabian Nights to Steinhauser.
214 Dom Pedro, deposed 15th November 1889.
215 This anecdote differs considerably from Mrs. Burton’s version, Life, i., 438. I give it, however, as told by Burton to his friends.
216 Lusiads, canto 6, stanza 95. Burton subsequently altered and spoilt it. The stanza as given will be found on the opening page of the Brazil book.
217 He describes his experiences in his work The Battlefields of Paraguay.
218 Unpublished. Told me by Mrs. E. J. Burton. Manning was made a cardinal in 1875.
219 Mr. John Payne, however, proves to us that the old Rashi’d, though a lover of the arts, was also a sensual and bloodthirsty tyrant. See Terminal Essay to his Arabian Nights, vol. ix.
220 She thus signed herself after her very last marriage.
221 Mrs. Burton’s words.
222 Life i., p. 486.
223 Arabian Nights. Lib. Ed, i., 215.
224 Burton generally writes Bedawi and Bedawin. Bedawin (Bedouin) is the plural form of Bedawi. Pilgrimage to Meccah, vol. ii., p. 80.
225 1870. Three months after Mrs. Burton’s arrival.
226 It contained, among other treasures, a Greek manuscript of the Bible with the Epistle of Barnabas and a portion of the Shepherd of Hermas.
227 1 Kings, xix., 15; 2 Kings, viii., 15.
228 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 386.
229 11th July 1870.
230 E. H. Palmer (1840-1882). In 1871 he was appointed Lord Almoner’s Professor of Arabic at Cambridge. He was murdered at Wady Sudr, 11th August 1882. See Chapter xxiii.
231 Renan. See, too, Paradise Lost, Bk. 1. Isaiah (xvii., 10) alludes to the portable “Adonis Gardens” which the women used to carry to the bier of the god.
232 The Hamath of Scripture. 2. Sam., viii., 9; Amos, vi., 2.
233 See illustrations in Unexplored Syria, by Burton and Drake.
234 The Land of Midian Revisited, ii., 73.
235 Life of Edward H. Palmer, p. 109.
236 Chica is the feminine of Chico (Spanish).
237 Mrs. Burton’s expression.
238 District east of the Sea of Galilee.
239 Job, chapter xxx. “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision ... who cut up mallows by the bushes and juniper roots for their meat.”
240 Greek Geographer. 250 B.C.
241 Burton’s words.
242 Published in 1898.
243 Life, i., 572.
244 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 504.
245 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 505.
246 Temple Bar, vol. xcii., p. 339.
247 Near St. Helens, Lancs.
248 Life of Sir Richard Burton, by Lady Burton, i., 591.
249 2nd November 1871.
250 The fountain was sculptured by Miss Hosmer.
251 27th February 1871. Celebration of the Prince of Wales’s recovery from a six weeks’ attack of typhoid fever.
252 Her husband’s case.
253 Of course, this was an unnecessary question, for there was no mistaking the great scar on Burton’s cheek; and Burton’s name was a household word.
254 February 1854. Sir Roger had sailed from Valparaiso to Rio Janeiro. He left Rio in the “Bella,” which was lost at sea.
255 Undated.
256 Knowsley is close to Garswood, Lord Gerard’s seat.
257 Letter, 4th January 1872.
258 Garswood, Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.
259 Unpublished letter.
260 The True Life, p. 336.
261 It had just been vacated by the death of Charles Lever, the novelist. Lever had been Consul at Trieste from 1867 to 1872. He died at Trieste, 1st June 1872.
262 Near Salisbury.
263 Burton’s A.N. iv. Lib. Ed., iii., 282. Payne’s A.N. iii., 10.
264 Told me by Mr. Henry Richard Tedder, librarian at the Athenaeum from 1874.
265 Burton, who was himself always having disputes with cab-drivers and everybody else, probably sympathised with Mrs. Prodgers’ crusade.
266 Of 2nd November 1891.
267 Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa (2 vols. 1860). Vol. 33 of the Royal Geographical Society, 1860, and The Nile Basin, 1864.
268 A portion was written by Mrs. Burton.
269 These are words used by children. Unexplored Syria, i., 288. Nah really means sweetstuff.
270 Afterwards Major-General. He died in April 1887. See Chapter ix., 38.
271 Mrs. Burton and Khamoor followed on Nov. 18th.
272 Burton’s works contain many citations from Ovid. Thus there are two in Etruscan Bologna, pp. 55 and 69, one being from the Ars Amandi and the other from The Fasti.
273 Stendhal, born 1783. Consul at Trieste and Civita Vecchia from 1830 to 1839. Died in Paris, 23rd March 1842. Burton refers to him in a footnote to his Terminal Essay in the Nights on “Al Islam.”
274 These are all preserved now at the Central Library, Camberwell.
275 Now in the possession of Mrs. St. George Burton.
276 In later times Dr. Baker never saw more than three tables.
277 Mrs. Burton, was, of course, no worse than many other society women of her day. Her books bristle with slang.
278 It is now in the possession of Mrs. E. J. Burton, 31, Whilbury Road, Brighton.
279 Later Burton was himself a sad sinner in this respect. His studies made him forget his meals.
280 His usual pronunciation of the word.
281 12th August 1874.
282 Letter to Lord Houghton.
283 Dr. Grenfell Baker, afterwards Burton’s medical attendant.
284 Hell.
285 A.E.I. (Arabia, Egypt, Indian).
286 Burton’s A. N., v., 304. Lib. Ed., vol. 4., p. 251.
287 About driving four horses.
288 I do not know to what this alludes.
289 See Chapter i.
290 Its population is now 80,000.
291 Sind Revisited, i., 82.
292 See Sind Revisited, vol. ii., pp. 109 to 149.
293 Where Napier with 2,800 men defeated 22,000.
294 Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 584.
295 Dr. Da Cunha, who was educated at Panjim, spent several years in England, and qualified at the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. He built up a large practice in Goa.
296 There are many English translations, from Harrington’s, 1607, to Hoole’s, 1783, and Rose’s, 1823. The last is the best.
297 Sir Henry Stisted died of consumption in 1876.
298 Robert Bagshaw, he married Burton’s aunt, Georgiana Baker.
299 His cousin Sarah, who married Col. T. Pryce Harrison. See Chapter iv. and Chapter xix.
300 Burton’s brother.
301 Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 656.
302 Romance of Isabel Lady Burton.
303 Burton’s A.N., Suppl., ii., 61. Lib. Ed. ix., p. 286, note.
304 Thus, Balzac, tried to discover perpetual motion, proposed to grow pineapples which were to yield enormous profits, and to make opium the staple of Corsica, and he studied mathematical calculations in order to break the banks at Baden-Baden.
305 We are telling the tale much as Mrs. Burton told it, but we warn the reader that it was one of Mrs. Burton’s characteristics to be particularly hard on her own sex and also that she was given to embroidering.
306 Preface to Midian Revisited, xxxiv.
307 Ex Ponto III., i., 19.
308 The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) It appeared in 1878.
309 The Land of Midian Revisited, ii., 254.
310 Kindly copied for me by Miss Gordon, his daughter.
311 They left on July 6th (1878) and touched at Venice, Brindisi, Palermo and Gibraltar.
312 November 1876.
313 From the then unpublished Kasidah.
314 The famous Yogis. Their blood is dried up by the scorching sun of India, they pass their time in mediation, prayer and religious abstinence, until their body is wasted, and they fancy themselves favoured with divine revelations.
315 The Spiritualist. 13th December 1878.
316 In short, she had considerable natural gifts, which were never properly cultivated.
317 See Chapter xxxviii.
318 Arabia, Egypt, India.
319 Letter to Miss Stisted.
320 She says, I left my Indian Christmas Book with Mr. Bogue on 7th July 1882, and never saw it after.
321 Burton dedicated to Yacoub Pasha Vol. x. of his Arabian Nights. They had then been friends for 12 years.
322 Inferno, xix.
323 Canto x., stanza 153.
324 Canto x., stanzas 108-118.
325 Between the Indus and the Ganges.
326 A Glance at the Passion Play, 1881.
327 The Passion Play at Ober Ammergau, 1900.
328 A Fireside King, 3 vol., Tinsley 1880. Brit. Mus. 12640 i. 7.
329 See Chapter xx., 96. Maria Stisted died 12th November 1878.
330 See Chapter xli.
331 Only an admirer of Omar Khayyam could have written The Kasidah, observes Mr. Justin McCarthy, junior; but the only Omar Khayyam that Burton knew previous to 1859, was Edward FitzGerald. I am positive that Burton never read Omar Khayyam before 1859, and I doubt whether he ever read the original at all.
332 For example:—
“That eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this morn
so dim and sad
and grey;
Strange that life’s Register should write this day a day,
that
day a day.”
Amusingly enough, he himself quotes this as from Hafiz in a letter to Sir Walter Besant. See Literary Remains of Tyrwhitt Drake, p. 16. See also Chapter ix.
333 We use the word by courtesy.
334 See Life, ii., 467, and end of 1st volume of Supplemental Nights. Burton makes no secret of this. There is no suggestion that they are founded upon the original of Omar Khayyam. Indeed, it is probable that Burton had never, before the publication of The Kasidah, even heard of the original, for he imagined like J. A. Symonds and others, that FitzGerald’s version was a fairly literal translation. When, therefore, he speaks of Omar Khayyam he means Edward FitzGerald. I have dealt with this subject exhaustively in my Life of Edward FitzGerald.
335 Couplet 186.
336 Preserved in the Museum at Camberwell. It is inserted in a copy of Camoens.
337 Italy having sided with Prussia in the war of 1866 received as her reward the long coveted territory of Venice.
338 Born 1844. Appointed to the command of an East Coast expedition to relieve Livingstone, 1872. Crossed Africa 1875.
339 “Burton as I knew him,” by V. L. Cameron.
340 Nearly all his friends noticed this feature in his character and have remarked it to me.
341 The number is dated 5th November 1881. Mr. Payne had published specimens of his proposed Translation, anonymously, in the New Quarterly Review for January and April, 1879.
342 This was a mistake. Burton thought he had texts of the whole, but, as we shall presently show, there were several texts which up to this time he had not seen. His attention, as his letters indicate, was first drawn to them by Mr. Payne.
343 In the light of what follows, this remark is amusing.
344 See Chapter xxiii, 107.
345 In the Masque of Shadows.
346 New Poems, p. 19.
347 The Masque of Shadows, p. 59.
348 Published 1878.
349 New Poems, p. 179.
350 Published 1871.
351 Mr. Watts-Dunton, the Earl of Crewe, and Dr. Richard Garnett have also written enthusiastically of Mr. Payne’s poetry.
352 Of “The John Payne Society” (founded in 1905) and its publications particulars can be obtained from The Secretary, Cowper School, Olney. It has no connection with the “Villon Society,” which publishes Mr. Payne’s works.
353 See Chapter xi., 43.
354 Dr. Badger died 19th February, 1888, aged 73.
355 To Payne. 20th August 1883.
356 No doubt the “two or three pages” which he showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton.
357 This is a very important fact. It is almost incredible, and yet it is certainly true.
358 Prospectuses.
359 Its baths were good for gout and rheumatism. Mrs. Burton returned to Trieste on September 11th.
360 This is, of course, a jest. He repeats the jest, with variation, in subsequent letters.
361 The author wishes to say that the names of several persons are hidden by the dashes in these chapters, and he has taken every care to render it impossible for the public to know who in any particular instance is intended.
362 Of course, in his heart, Burton respected Lane as a scholar.
363 Apparently Galland’s.
364 Mr. Payne’s system is fully explained in the Introductory Note to Vol. i. and is consistently followed through the 13 volumes (Arabian Nights, 9 vols.; Tales from the Arabic, 3 vols.; Alaeddin and Zein-ul-Asnam, i vol.).
365 One of the poets of The Arabian Nights.
366 See Chapter iii. 11.
367 He published some of this information in his Terminal Essay.
368 Perhaps we ought again to state most emphatically that Burton’s outlook was strictly that of the student. He was angry because he had, as he believed, certain great truths to tell concerning the geographical limits of certain vices, and an endeavour was being made to prevent him from publishing them.
369 Burton’s A. N. vi., 180; Lib. Ed. v., 91, The Three Wishes, or the Man who longed to see the Night of Power.
370 The Lady and her Five Suitors, Burton’s A. N., vi., 172; Lib. Ed., v., 83; Payne’s A. N., v., 306. Of course Mr. Payne declined to do this.
371 Possibly this was merely pantomime. Besant, in his Life of Palmer, p. 322, assumes that Matr Nassar, or Meter, as he calls him, was a traitor.
372 Cloak.
373 Cursing is with Orientals a powerful weapon of defence. Palmer was driven to it as his last resource. If he could not deter his enemies in this way he could do no more.
374 Burton’s Report and Besant’s Life of Palmer, p. 328.
375 See Chapter vi., 22.
376 Palmer translated only a few songs in Hafiz. Two will be found in that well-known Bibelot, Persian Love Songs.
377 There were two editions of Mr. Payne’s Villon. Burton is referring to the first.
378 Augmentative of palazzo, a gentleman’s house.
379 We have altered this anecdote a little so as to prevent the possibility of the blanks being filled up.
380 That which is knowable.
381 Let it be remembered that the edition was (to quote the title-page) printed by private subscription and for private circulation only and was limited to 500 copies at a high price. Consequently the work was never in the hands of the general public.
382 This was a favourite saying of Burton’s. We shall run against it elsewhere. See Chapter xxxiv., 159. Curiously enough, there is a similar remark in Mr. Payne’s Study of Rabelais written eighteen years previous, and still unpublished.
383 Practically there was only the wearisome, garbled, incomplete and incorrect translation by Dr. Weil.
384 The Love of Jubayr and the Lady Budur, Burton’s A. N. iv., 234; Lib. Ed., iii., 350; Payne’s A. N., iv., 82.
385 Three vols., 1884.
386 The public were to some extent justified in their attitude. They feared that these books would find their way into the hands of others than bona fide students. Their fears, however, had no foundation. In all the libraries visited by me extreme care was taken that none but the genuine student should see these books; and, of course, they are not purchasable anywhere except at prices which none but a student, obliged to have them, would dream of giving.
387 He married in 1879, Ellinor, widow of James Alexander Guthrie, Esp., of Craigie, Forfarshire, and daughter of Admiral Sir James Stirling.
388 Early Ideas by an Aryan, 1881. Alluded to by Burton in A. N., Lib. Ed., ix., 209, note.
389 Persian Portraits, 1887. “My friend Arbuthnot’s pleasant booklet, Persian Portraits,” A. N. Lib. Ed. x., 190.
390 Arabic Authors, 1890.
391 In Kalidasa’s Megha Duta he is referred to as riding on a peacock.
392 Sir William Jones. The Gopia correspond with the Roman Muses.
393 The reader will recall Mr. Andrew Lang’s witty remark in the preface to his edition of the Arabian Nights.
394 Kalyana Mull.
395 The hand of Burton betrays itself every here and there. Thus in Part 3 of the former we are referred to his Vikram and the Vampire for a note respecting the Gandharva-vivaha form of marriage. See Memorial Edition, p. 21.
396 This goddess is adored as the patroness of the fine arts. See “A Hymn to Sereswaty,” Poetical Works of Sir William Jones, Vol. ii., p. 123; also The Hindoo Pantheon, by Major Moor (Edward FitzGerald’s friend).
397 “Pleasant as nail wounds”—The Megha Duta, by Kalidasa.
398 A girl married in her infancy.
399 The Hindu women were in the habit, when their husbands were away, of braiding their hair into a single lock, called Veni, which was not to be unloosed until their return. There is a pretty reference to this custom in Kalidasa’s Megha Duta.
400 Guy de Maupasant, by Leo Tolstoy.
401 The Kama Sutra.
402 Richard Monckton Milnes, born 1809, created a peer 1863, died 1885. His life by T. Wemyss Reid appeared in 1891.
403 Burton possessed copies of this work in Sanskrit, Mar’athi Guzrati, and Hindustani. He describes the last as “an unpaged 8vo. of 66 pages, including eight pages of most grotesque illustrations.” Burton’s A. N., x., 202; Lib. Ed., viii., 183.
404 Kullianmull.
405 Memorial Edition, p. 96.
406 The book has several times been reprinted. All copies, however, I believe, bear the date 1886. Some bear the imprint “Cosmopoli 1886.”
407 See Chapter xxxii. It may be remembered also that Burton as good as denied that he translated The Priapeia.
408 A portion of Miss Costello’s rendering is given in the lovely little volume “Persian Love Songs,” one of the Bibelots issued by Gay and Bird.
409 Byron calls Sadi the Persian Catullus, Hafiz the Persian Anacreon, Ferdousi the Persian Homer.
410 Eastwick, p. 13.
411 Tales from the Arabic.
412 That is in following the Arabic jingles. Payne’s translation is in reality as true to the text as Burton’s.
413 By W. A. Clouston, 8vo., Glasgow, 1884. Only 300 copies printed.
414 Mr. Payne understood Turkish.
415 Copies now fetch from £30 to £40 each. The American reprint, of which we are told 1,000 copies were issued a few years ago, sells for about £20.
416 He had intended to write two more volumes dealing with the later history of the weapon.
417 It is dedicated to Burton.
418 For outline of Mr. Kirby’s career, see Appendix.
419 Burton read German, but would never speak it. He said he hated the sound.
420 We cannot say. Burton was a fair Persian scholar, but he could not have known much Russian.
421 See Chapter ix.
422 This essay will be found in the 10th volume of Burton’s Arabian Nights, and in the eighth volume (p. 233) of the Library Edition.
423 Mr. Payne’s account of the destruction of the Barmecides is one of the finest of his prose passages. Burton pays several tributes to it. See Payne’s Arabian Nights, vol. ix.
424 Tracks of a Rolling Stone, by Hon. Henry J. Coke, 1905.
425 Lady Burton’s edition, issued in 1888, was a failure. For the Library Edition, issued in 1894, by H. S. Nichols, Lady Burton received, we understand, £3,000.
426 Duvat inkstand, dulat fortune. See The Beharistan, Seventh Garden.
427 Mr. Arbuthnot was the only man whom Burton addressed by a nickname.
428 Headings of Jami’s chapters.
429 It appeared in 1887.
430 Abu Mohammed al Kasim ibn Ali, surnamed Al-Hariri (the silk merchant), 1054 A. D. to 1121 A. D. The Makamat, a collection of witty rhymed tales, is one of the most popular works in the East. The interest clusters round the personality of a clever wag and rogue named Abu Seid.
431 The first twenty-four Makamats of Abu Mohammed al Kasim al Hariri, were done by Chenery in 1867. Dr. Steingass did the last 24, and thus completed the work. Al Hariri is several times quoted in the Arabian Nights. Lib. Ed. iv., p. 166; viii., p. 42.
432 Times, 13th January 1903.
433 Lib. Ed. vol. 8, pp. 202-228.
434 See Notes to Judar and his Brethren. Burton’s A. N., vi., 255; Lib. Ed., v., 161.
435 Burton’s A. N. Suppl., vi., 454; Lib. Ed., xii., 278. Others who assisted Burton were Rev. George Percy Badger, who died February 1888, Mr. W. F. Kirby, Professor James F. Blumhardt, Mr. A. G. Ellis, and Dr. Reinhold Rost.
436 See Chapter xxx.
437 This work consists of fifty folk tales written in the Neapolitan dialect. They are supposed to be told by ten old women for the entertainment of a Moorish slave who had usurped the place of the rightful Princess. Thirty-one of the stories were translated by John E. Taylor in 1848. There is a reference to it in Burton’s Arabian Nights, Lib. Ed., ix., 280.
438 Meaning, of course, Lord Houghton’s money.
439 Cf. Esther, vi., 8 and 11.
440 Ought there not to be notices prohibiting this habit in our public reference libraries? How many beautiful books have been spoilt by it!
441 The joys of Travel are also hymned in the Tale of Ala-al-Din. Lib. Ed., iii., 167.
442 Cf. Seneca on Anger, Ch. xi. “Such a man,” we cry, “has done me a shrewd turn, and I never did him any hurt! Well, but it may be I have mischieved other people.”
443 Payne’s Version. See Burton’s Footnote, and Payne vol. i., p. 93.
444 Burton’s A. N. i., 237; Lib. Ed., i., 218. Payne translates it: If thou demand fair play of Fate, therein thou dost it wrong; and blame it not, for ’twas not made, indeed, for equity. Take what lies ready to thy hand and lay concern aside, for troubled days and days of peace in life must surely be.
445 Burton’s A. N., ii., 1; Lib. Ed., i., 329; Payne’s A. N., i., 319.
446 Payne has— “Where are not the old Chosroes, tyrants of a bygone day? Wealth they gathered, but their treasures and themselves have passed away.” Vol. i., p. 359.
447 To distinguish it from date honey—the drippings from ripe dates.
448 Ja’afar the Barmecide and the Beanseller.
449 Burton’s A. N., v., 189; Lib. Ed., iv., 144; Payne’s A. N., iv., 324.
450 Burton’s A. N., vi., 213; Lib. Ed., v., 121; Payne’s A. N., vi., 1.
451 Burton’s A. N., ix., 304; Lib. Ed., vii., 364; Payne’s A. N., ix., 145.
452 Burton’s A. N., ix., 134; Lib. Ed., viii., 208; Payne’s A. N., viii., 297.
453 Burton’s A. N., ix., 165; Lib. Ed., vii., 237; Payne’s A. N., viii., 330.
454 Burton’s A. N., viii., 264 to 349; ix., 1 to 18; Lib. Ed., vii., 1 to 99; Payne’s A. N., viii., 63 to 169.
455 Burton’s A. N., vol. x., p. 1; Lib. Ed., vol. viii., p. 1; Payne’s A. N., vol. ix., p. 180.
456 Satan—See Story of Ibrahim of Mosul. Burton’s A. N., vii., 113; Lib. Ed., v., 311; Payne’s A. N., vi., 215.
457 Payne.
458 “Queen of the Serpents,” Burton’s A. N., v., 298; Lib. Ed., iv., 245; Payne’s A. N., v., 52.
459 Burton’s A. N., vi., 160; Lib. Ed., v., 72; Payne’s A. N., v., 293.
460 See Arabian Nights. Story of Aziz and Azizeh. Payne’s Translation; also New Poems by John Payne, p. 98.
461 Here occurs the break of “Night 472.”
462 Burton’s A. N., ii., p. 324-5; Lib. Ed., ii., p, 217; Payne, ii., p. 247.
463 The reader may like to compare some other passages. Thus the lines “Visit thy lover,” etc. in Night 22, occur also in Night 312. In the first instance Burton gives his own rendering, in the second Payne’s. See also Burton’s A. N., viii., 262 (Lib. Ed., vi., 407); viii., 282 (Lib. Ed., vii., 18); viii., 314 (Lib. Ed., vii., 47); viii., 326 (Lib. Ed., vii., 59); and many other places.
464 Thus in the story of Ibrahim and Jamilah [Night 958], Burton takes 400 words—that is nearly a page—verbatim, and without any acknowledgement. It is the same, or thereabouts, every page you turn to.
465 Of course, the coincidences could not possibly have been accidental, for both translators were supposed to take from the four printed Arabic editions. We shall presently give a passage by Burton before Payne translated it, and it will there be seen that the phraseology of the one translator bears no resemblance whatever to that of the other. And yet, in this latter instance, each translator took from the same original instead of from four originals. See Chapter xxiii.
466 At the same time the Edinburgh Review (July 1886) goes too far. It puts its finger on Burton’s blemishes, but will not allow his translation a single merit. It says, “Mr. Payne is possessed of a singularly robust and masculine prose style. .. Captain Burton’s English is an unreadable compound of archaeology and slang, abounding in Americanisms, and full of an affected reaching after obsolete or foreign words and phrases.”
467 “She drew her cilice over his raw and bleeding skin.” [Payne has “hair shirt.”]—“Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince.” Lib. Ed., i., 72.
468 “Nor will the egromancy be dispelled till he fall from his horse.” [Payne has “charm be broken.”]—“Third Kalendar’s Tale.” Lib. Ed., i., 130. “By virtue of my egromancy become thou half stone and half man.” [Payne has “my enchantments.”]—“Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince.” Lib. Ed., i., 71.
469 “The water prisoned in its verdurous walls.”—“Tale of the Jewish Doctor.”
470 “Like unto a vergier full of peaches.” [Note.—O.E. “hortiyard” Mr. Payne’s word is much better.]—“Man of Al Zaman and his Six Slave Girls.”
471 “The rondure of the moon.”—“Hassan of Bassorah.” [Shakespeare uses this word, Sonnet 21, for the sake of rhythm. Caliban, however, speaks of the “round of the moon.”]
472 “That place was purfled with all manner of flowers.” [Purfled means bordered, fringed, so it is here used wrongly.] Payne has “embroidered,” which is the correct word.—“Tale of King Omar,” Lib. Ed., i., 406.
473 Burton says that he found this word in some English writer of the 17th century, and, according to Murray, “Egremauncy occurs about 1649 in Grebory’s Chron. Camd. Soc. 1876, 183.” Mr. Payne, however, in a letter to me, observes that the word is merely an ignorant corruption of “negromancy,” itself a corruption of a corruption it is “not fit for decent (etymological) society.”
474 A well-known alchemical term, meaning a retort, usually of glass, and completely inapt to express a common brass pot, such as that mentioned in the text. Yellow copper is brass; red copper is ordinary copper.
475 Fr. ensorceler—to bewitch. Barbey d’Aurevilly’s fine novel L’Ensorcelee, will be recalled. Torrens uses this word, and so does Payne, vol. v., 36. “Hath evil eye ensorcelled thee?”
476 Lib. Ed., ii., 360.
477 Swevens—dreams.
478 Burton, indeed, while habitually paraphrasing Payne, no less habitually resorts, by way of covering his “conveyances,” to the clumsy expedient of loading the test with tasteless and grotesque additions and variations (e.g., “with gladness and goodly gree,” “suffering from black leprosy,” “grief and grame,” “Hades-tombed,” “a garth right sheen,” “e’en tombed in their tombs,” &c., &c.), which are not only meaningless, but often in complete opposition to the spirit and even the letter of the original, and, in any case, exasperating in the highest degree to any reader with a sense of style.
479 Burton’s A. N., v., 135; Lib. Ed., iv., 95.
480 Or Karim-al-Din. Burton’s A. N., v., 299; Lib. Ed., iv., 246; Payne’s A. N., v. 52.
481 Le Fanu had carefully studied the effects of green tea and of hallucinations in general. I have a portion of the correspondence between him and Charles Dickens on this subject.
482 Burton’s A. N., Suppl. ii., 90-93; Lib. Ed., ix., 307, 308.
483 Lib. Ed., iv., 147.
484 “The Story of Janshah.” Burton’s A. N., v., 346; Lib. Ed., iv., 291.
485 One recalls “Edith of the Swan Neck,” love of King Harold, and “Judith of the Swan Neck,” Pope’s “Erinna,” Cowper’s Aunt.
486 Burton’s A. N., x., 6; Lib. Ed., viii., 6.
487 Burton’s A. N., viii., 275; Lib. Ed., vii., 12.
488 Burton’s A. N., vii., 96; Lib. Ed., v., 294.
489 Burton’s A. N., Suppl. Nights, vi., 438; Lib. Ed., xii., 258.
490 Burton’s A. N., x., 199; Lib. Ed., viii., 174; Payne’s A. N., ix., 370.
491 The writer of the article in the Edinburgh Review (no friend of Mr. Payne), July 1886 (No. 335, p. 180.), says Burton is “much less accurate” than Payne.
492 New York Tribune, 2nd November 1891.
493 See Chapter xxxiii.
494 Still, as everyone must admit, Burton could have said all he wanted to say in chaster language.
495 Arbuthnot’s comment was: “Lane’s version is incomplete, but good for children, Payne’s is suitable for cultured men and women, Burton’s for students.”
496 See Chapter xii., 46.
497 Burton’s A. N., x., 180, 181; Lib. Ed., viii., 163.
498 Burton’s A. N., x., 203; Lib. Ed., viii., 184.
499 Of course, all these narratives are now regarded by most Christians in quite a different light from that in which they were at the time Burton was writing. We are all of us getting to understand the Bible better.
500 Lady Burton gives the extension in full. Life, vol. ii, p. 295.
501 The Decameron of Boccaccio. 3 vols., 1886.
502 Any praise bestowed upon the translation (apart from the annotations) was of course misplaced—that praise being due to Mr. Payne.
503 Lady Burton’s surprise was, of course, only affected. She had for long been manoeuvering to bring this about, and very creditably to her.
504 Life, ii., 311.
505 Dr. Baker, Burton’s medical attendant.
506 Burton’s Camoens, i., p. 28.
507 Life, vol. i., p. 396.
508 Note to “Khalifah,” Arabian Nights, Night 832.
509 Childe Harold, iv., 31, referring, of course, to Petrarch.
510 Terminal Essay, Arabian Nights.
511 It reminded him of his old enemy, Ra’shid Pasha. See Chap. xiv.
512 Pilgrimage to Meccah, ii., 77.
513 Mission to Gelele, ii., 126.
514 Task, Book i.
515 By A. W. Kinglake.
516 See Lib. Ed. Nights, Sup., vol. xi., p. 365.
517 Chambers’s Journal, August 1904.
518 Chambers’s Journal.
519 Ex Ponto, iv., 9.
520 Or words to that effect.
521 This was no solitary occasion. Burton was constantly chaffing her about her slip-shod English, and she always had some piquant reply to give him.
522 See Chapter xxxv., 166.
523 Now Queen Alexandra.
524 Life, ii., 342.
525 This remark occurs in three of his books, including The Arabian Nights.
526 Stories of Janshah and Hasan of Bassorah.
527 One arch now remains. There is in the British Museum a quarto volume of about 200 pages (Cott. MSS., Vesp., E 26) containing fragments of a 13th Century Chronicle of Dale. On Whit Monday 1901, Mass was celebrated within the ruins of Dale Abbey for the first time since the Reformation.
528 The Church, however, was at that time, and is now, always spoken of as the “Shrine of Our Lady of Dale, Virgin Mother of Pity.” The Very Rev. P. J. Canon McCarthy, of Ilkeston, writes to me, “The shrine was an altar to our Lady of Sorrows or Pieta, which was temporarily erected in the Church by the permission of the Bishop of Nottingham (The Right Rev. E. S. Bagshawe), till such time as its own chapel or church could be properly provided. The shrine was afterwards honoured and recognised by the Holy See.” See Chapter xxxix.
529 Letter to me, 18th June 1905. But see Chapter xxxv.
530 Murphy’s Edition of Johnson’s Works, vol, xii., p. 412.
531 Preface to The City of the Saints. See also Wanderings in West Africa, i., p. 21, where he adds, “Thus were written such books as Eothen and Rambles beyond Railways; thus were not written Lane’s Egyptians or Davis’s Chinese.”
532 The general reader will prefer Mrs. Hamilton Gray’s Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria, 1839; and may like to refer to the review of it in The Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1841.
533 Phrynichus.
534 Supplemental Nights, Lib. Ed., x., 302, Note.
535 The recent speeches (July 1905) of the Bishop of Ripon and the letters of the Rev. Dr. Barry on this danger to the State will be in the minds of many.
536 Burton means what is now called the Neo-Malthusian system, which at the time was undergoing much discussion, owing to the appearance, at the price of sixpence, of Dr. H. Allbutt’s well-known work The Wife’s Handbook. Malthus’s idea was to limit families by late marriages; the Neo-Malthusians, who take into consideration the physiological evils arising from celibacy, hold that it is better for people to marry young, and limit their family by lawful means.
537 This is Lady Burton’s version. According to another version it was not this change in government that stood in Sir Richard’s way.
538 Vide the Preface to Burton’s Catullus.
539 We are not so prudish as to wish to see any classical work, intended for the bona fide student, expurgated. We welcome knowledge, too, of every kind; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that in much of Sir Richard’s later work we are not presented with new information. The truth is, after the essays and notes in The Arabian Nights, there was nothing more to say. Almost all the notes in the Priapeia, for example, can be found in some form or other in Sir Richard’s previous works.
540 Decimus Magnus Ausonius (A.D. 309 to A.D. 372) born at Burdegala (Bordeaux). Wrote epigrams, Ordo Nobilium Urbium, short poems on famous cities, Idyllia, Epistolae and the autobiographical Gratiarum Actio.
541 Among the English translations of Catullus may be mentioned those by the Hon. George Lamb, 1821, and Walter K. Kelly, 1854 (these are given in Bohn’s edition), Sir Theodore Martin, 1861, James Cranstoun, 1867, Robinson Ellis, 1867 and 1871, Sir Richard Burton, 1894, Francis Warre Cornish, 1904. All are in verse except Kelly’s and Cornish’s. See also Chapter xxxv. of this work.
542 Mr. Kirby was on the Continent.
543 Presentation copy of the Nights.
544 See Mr. Kirby’s Notes in Burton’s Arabian Nights.
545 See Chapter xxix.
546 Now Professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge.
547 Chapter xxxi.
548 Burton’s book, Etruscan Bologna, has a chapter on the contadinesca favella Bolognese, pp. 242-262.
549 20th September 1887, from Adeslberg, Styria.
550 Writer’s cramp of the right hand, brought on by hard work.
551 Of the Translation of The Novels of Matteo Bandello, 6 vols. Published in 1890.
552 Mr. Payne had not told Burton the name of the work, as he did not wish the news to get abroad prematurely.
553 She very frequently committed indiscretions of this kind, all of them very creditable to her heart, but not to her head.
554 Folkestone, where Lady Stisted was staying.
555 Lady Stisted and her daughter Georgiana.
556 Verses on the Death of Richard Burton.—New Review. Feb. 1891.
557 With The Jew and El Islam.
558 Mr. Watts-Dunton, need we say? is a great authority on the Gypsies. His novel Aylwin and his articles on Borrow will be called to mind.
559 My hair is straight as the falling rain
And fine as the morning mist.
—Indian Love, Lawrence Hope.
560 The Jew, The Gypsy, and El Islam, p. 275.
561 It is dedicated to Burton.
562 Burton’s A. N., Suppl. i., 312; Lib. Ed., ix., 209. See also many other of Burton’s Notes.
563 Lib. Ed., vol. x.
564 Lib. Ed., x., p. 342. xi., p. 1.
565 Lib. Ed., xii.
566 Burton differed from Mr. Payne on this point. He thought highly of these tales. See Chapter xxxv, 167.
567 This paragraph does not appear in the original. It was made up by Burton.
568 One friend of Burton’s to whom I mentioned this matter said to me, “I was always under the impression that Burton had studied literary Arabic, but that he had forgotten it.”
569 Life, ii., 410. See also Romance, ii., 723.
570 As most of its towns are white, Tunis is called The Burnous of the Prophet, in allusion to the fact that Mohammed always wore a spotlessly white burnous.
571 As suggested by M. Hartwig Derenbourg, Membre de l’Institut.
572 The nominal author of the collection of Old English Tales of the same name.
573 Ridiculous as this medical learning reads to-day, it is not more ridiculous than that of the English physicians two centuries later.
574 Juvenal, Satire xi.
575 Religio Medici, part ii., section 9.
576 We should word it “Pauline Christianity.”
577 Arabian Nights, Lib. Ed., vii., 161.
578 See the example we give in 160 about Moseilema and the bald head.
579 Also called The Torch of Pebble Strown River Beds, a title explained by the fact that in order to traverse with safety the dried Tunisian river beds, which abound in sharp stones, it is advisable, in the evening time, to carry a torch.
580 Mohammed, of course.
581 It contained 283 pages of text, 15 pages d’avis au lecteur, 2 portraits, 13 hors testes on blue paper, 43 erotic illustrations in the text, and at the end of the book about ten pages of errata with an index and a few blank leaves.
582 He also refers to it in his Arabian Nights, Lib. Ed., vol. viii., p. 121, footnote.
583 See Chapter xxvi.
584 But, of course, the book was not intended for the average Englishman, and every precaution was taken, and is still taken, to prevent him from getting it.
585 Court fool of Haroun al Rashid. Several anecdotes of Bahloul are to be found in Jami’s Beharistan.
586 A tale that has points in common with the lynching stories from the United States. In the Kama Shastra edition the negro is called “Dorerame.”
587 Chapter ii. Irving spells the name Moseilma.
588 Chapter ii. Sleath’s Edition, vol. vi., 348.
589 It must be remembered that the story of Moseilema and Sedjah has been handed down to us by Moseilema’s enemies.
590 The struggle between his followers and those of Mohammed was a fight to the death. Mecca and Yamama were the Rome and Carthage of the day—the mastery of the religious as well as of the political world being the prize.
591 As spelt in the Kama Shastra version.
592 Burton’s spelling. We have kept to it throughout this book. The word is generally spelt Nuwas.
593 The 1886 edition, p. 2.
594 Vol. i., p. 117.
595 Cf. Song of Solomon, iv., 4. “Thy neck is like the Tower of David.”
596 See Burton’s remarks on the negro women as quoted in Chapter ix., 38.
597 Women blacken the inside of the eyelids with it to make the eyes look larger and more brilliant.
598 So we are told in the Introduction to the Kama Shastra edition of Chapters i. to xx. Chapter xxi. has not yet been translated into any European language. Probably Burton never saw it. Certainly he did not translate it.
599 From the Paris version of 1904. See Chapter xxxviii. of this book, where the Kama Shastra version is given.
600 Life, by Lady Burton, ii., 441.
601 The pen name of Carl Ulrichs.
602 Life, by Lady Burton, ii., 444.
603 There is an article on Clerical Humorists in The Gentleman’s Magazine for Feb. 1845.
604 Mr. Bendall.
605 On the Continent it was called “The Prince of Wales shake.”
606 It is now in the Public Library, Camberwell.
607 John Elliotson (1791-1868). Physician and mesmerist. One always connects his name with Thackeray’s Pendennis.
608 A reference to a passage in Dr. Tuckey’s book.
609 James Braid (1795-1850) noted for his researches in Animal Magnetism.
610 See Chapter xxiv, 112.
611 The famous Finnish epic given to the world in 1835 by Dr. Lonnrot.
612 Letter to Mr. Payne, 28th January 1890.
613 As ingrained clingers to red tape and immobility.
614 I give the anecdote as told to me by Dr. Baker.
615 Letter of Mr. T. D. Murray to me 24th September 1904. But see Chapter xxxi. This paper must have been signed within three months of Sir Richard’s death.
616 On 28th June 1905, I saw it in the priest’s house at Mortlake. There is an inscription at the back.
617 Alaeddin was prefaced by a poetical dedication to Payne’s Alaeddin, “Twelve years this day,—a day of winter dreary,” etc.
618 See Chapter xxxiii., 156. Payne had declared that Cazotte’s tales “are for the most part rubbish.”
619 Mr. Payne’s translation of The Novels of Matteo Bandello, six vols. Published in 1890.
620 Now Professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge.
621 6th November 1889.
622 Lib. Ed., vol. xii., p. 226.
623 See Introduction by Mr. Smithers.
624 11th July 1905.
625 We quote Lady Burton. Mr. Smithers, however, seems to have doubted whether Burton really did write this sentence. See his Preface to the Catullus.
626 A Translation by Francis D. Bryne appeared in 1905.
627 I am indebted to M. Carrington for these notes.
628 Unpublished.
629 Dr. Schliemann died 27th December, 1890.
630 Not the last page of the Scented Garden, as she supposed (see Life, vol. ii., p. 410), for she tells us in the Life (vol. ii., p. 444) that the MS. consisted of only 20 chapters.
631 Told me by Dr. Baker.
632 Life, ii., 409.
633 Communicated by Mr. P. P. Cautley, the Vice-Consul of Trieste.
634 Asher’s Collection of English Authors. It is now in the Public Library at Camberwell.
635 She herself says almost as much in the letters written during this period. See Chapter xxxix., 177. Letters to Mrs. E. J. Burton.
636 See Chapter xxxi.
637 Letters of Major St. George Burton to me, March 1905.
638 Unpublished letter to Miss Stisted.
639 Unpublished letter.
640 Verses on the Death of Richard Burton. The New Review, Feb. 1891.
641 Unpublished. Lent me by Mr. Mostyn Pryce.
642 Unpublished.
643 See Chapter xiv, 63.
644 See The Land of Midian Revisited, ii., 223, footnote.
645 The Lusiads, Canto ii., Stanza 113.
646 She impressed them on several of her friends. In each case she said, “I particularly wish you to make these facts as public as possible when I am gone.”
647 We mean illiterate for a person who takes upon herself to write, of this even a cursory glance through her books will convince anybody.
648 For example, she destroyed Sir Richard’s Diaries. Portions of these should certainly have been published.
649 Some of them she incorporated in her “Life” of her husband, which contains at least 60 pages of quotations from utterly worthless documents.
650 I am told that it is very doubtful whether this was a bona fide offer; but Lady Burton believed it to be so.
651 Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol. ii., p. 725.
652 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton.
653 Lady Burton, owing to a faulty translation, quite mistook Nafzawi’s meaning. She was thinking of the concluding verse as rendered in the 1886 edition, which runs as follows:—
“I certainly did wrong to put this book
together,
But you will pardon me, nor let me pray in vain;
O God! award no punishment for this on judgment day!
And thou, O reader, hear me conjure thee to say, So be
it!”
But the 1904 and, more faithful edition puts it very differently. See Chapter xxxiv.
654 An error, as we have shown.
655 Mr. T. Douglas Murray, the biographer of Jeanne d’Arc and Sir Samuel Baker, spent many years in Egypt, where he met Burton. He was on intimate terms of friendship with Gordon, Grant, Baker and De Lesseps.
656 Written in June 1891.
657 Life, ii., p. 450.
658 It would have been impossible to turn over half-a-dozen without noticing some verses.
659 We have seen only the first volume. The second at the time we went to press had not been issued.
660 See Chapter xxxiv.
661 The Kama Shastra edition.
662 See Chapter xxvi.
663 She often used a typewriter.
664 The same may be said of Lady Burton’s Life of her husband. I made long lists of corrections, but I became tired; there were too many. I sometimes wonder whether she troubled to read the proofs at all.
665 His edition of Catullus appeared in 1821 in 2 vols. 12 mos.
666 Poem 67. On a Wanton’s Door.
667 Poem 35. Invitation to Caecilius.
668 Poem 4. The Praise of his Pinnance.
669 Preface to the 1898 Edition of Lady Burton’s Life of Sir Richard Burton.
670 In her Life of Sir Richard, Lady Burton quotes only a few sentences from these Diaries. Practically she made no use of them whatever. For nearly all she tells us could have been gleaned from his books.
671 In the church may still be seen a photograph of Sir Richard Burton taken after death, and the words quoted, in Lady Burton’s handwriting, below. She hoped one day to build a church at Ilkeston to be dedicated to our Lady of Dale. But the intention was never carried out. See Chapter xxxi.
672 See Chapter xxxvii, 172.
673 It must be remembered that Canon Wenham had been a personal friend of both Sir Richard and Lady Burton. See Chapter xxxvi., 169.
674 This letter will also be found in The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 722.
675 All my researches corroborate this statement of Lady Burton’s. Be the subject what it might, he was always the genuine student.
676 “It is a dangerous thing, Lady Burton,” said Mr. Watts-Dunton to her, “to destroy a distinguished man’s manuscripts, but in this case I think you did quite rightly.”
677 Miss Stisted, Newgarden Lodge, 22, Manor Road, Folkestone.
678 67, Baker Street, Portman Square.
679 True Life, p. 415.
680 Frontispiece to this volume.
681 The picture now at Camberwell.
682 Now at Camberwell.
683 To Dr. E. J. Burton, 23rd March 1897.
684 I think this expression is too strong. Though he did not approve of the Catholic religion as a whole, there were features in it that appealed to him.
685 14th January 1896, to Mrs. E. J. Burton.
686 Sir Richard often used to chaff her about her faulty English and spelling. Several correspondents have mentioned this. She used to retort good-humouredly by flinging in his face some of his own shortcomings.
687 Unpublished letter.
688 Payne, i., 63. Burton Lib. Ed., i., 70.
689 Unpublished letter.
690 Lady Burton included only the Nights Proper, not the Supplementary Tales.
691 The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, ii., 763.
692 Holywell Lodge, Meads, Eastbourne.
693 Left unfinished. Mr. Wilkins incorporated the fragment in The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton.
694 Huxley died 29th June 1895.
695 Mrs. FitzGerald died 18th January 1902, and is buried under the Tent at Mortlake. Mrs. Van Zeller is still living. I had the pleasure of hearing from her in 1905.
696 She died in 1904.
697 Or Garden of Purity, by Mirkhond. It is a history of Mohammed and his immediate successors.
698 Part 3 contains the lives of the four immediate successors of Mohammed.
699 Now Madame Nicastro.
700 Letter of Miss Daisy Letchford to me. 9th August, 1905.
701 See Midsummer Night’s Dream, iii., 2.
702 Close of the tale of “Una El Wujoud and Rose in Bud.”
703 These lines first appeared in The New Review, February 1891. We have to thank Mr. Swinburne for kindly permitting us to use them.
704 Two islands in the middle of the Adriatic.
705 J.A.I. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
706 T.E.S.—Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London. New Series.
707 A.R.—Anthropological Review.
708 A.R. iv. J.A.S.—Fourth vol. of the Anthropological Review contained in the Journal of the Anthropological Society.
709 Anthrop. Anthropologia—the Organ of the London Anthropological Society.
710 M.A.S. Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London.
711 The titles of the volumes of original poetry are in italics. The others are those of translations.
712 Zohra—the name of the planet Venus. It is sometimes given to girls.
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