Professor Max Seligsohn with the texts referred to by Burton as existing in the Libraries of Paris, Gotha and Copenhagen.
175. The Fate of the Catullus.
The fate of the Catullus was even more tragic than that of The Scented Garden. This work, like The Scented Garden, was left unfinished. Burton had covered his Latin copy and his manuscript with pencil notes looking like cobwebs, and on one page was written “Never show half finished work to women or fools.” The treatment meted to his manuscript would, if Burton had been a poet of the first order, have drawn tears from a milestone. But it must be borne in mind that Lady Burton did consider him a poet of the first order, for she ranked his Camoens and his Kasidah with the work of Shakespere. And this is how she treated a work which she considered a world-masterpiece. First she skimmed it over, then she expurgated it, and finally she either typed it herself,[FN#663] or, what is more likely, put it into the hands of a typist who must have been extremely illiterate or abominably careless. Then, without even troubling to correct the copy, she sent the manuscript of the Catullus up the chimney after that of The Scented Garden. The typewritten copy was forwarded to the unhappy and puzzled Mr. Leonard C. Smithers, with the request, which was amusing enough, that he would “edit it” and bring it out. Just as a child who has been jumping on the animals of a Noah’s Ark brings them to his father to be mended.
“To me,” observes Mr. Smithers piteously, “has fallen the task of editing Sir Richard’s share in this volume from a type-written copy literally swarming with copyist’s errors.[FN#664] Lady Burton has without any reason constantly refused me even a glance at his MS.” The book, such as it was, appeared in 1894. If Burton had not been embalmed he would have turned in his coffin. We may or may not pardon Lady Burton for destroying the MS. of The Scented Garden, but it is impossible not to pass upon her at any rate a mild censure for having treated in that way a translation of Catullus after it had been expurgated to her own taste. Whether Burton would have considerably improved the poetry of his version we cannot say; but as it stands no single poem is superior to the work of his predecessors. One need only compare his rendering of the lines “To the Peninsula of Sirmio” with the Hon. George Lamb’s[FN#665]
“Sirmio of all the shores the gem,”
or Leigh Hunt’s
“O, best of all the scattered spots that lie,”
to see what a fall was there, and yet neither Lamb’s version nor Hunt’s is satisfactory. His “Atys” pales before Cranstoun’s, and his “Epithalamium,” is almost unreadable; while the lines “On the death of Lesbia’s Sparrow” naturally compel comparison with Byron’s version. Nor will readers of the translations by Sir Theodore Martin or Robinson Ellis gain anything by turning to Burton.
On the other hand, we can well believe that his work, considered as a commentary on Catullus–for nearly all his loose notes have perished–would have been as valuable to us as, viewed in the same light, is his edition of Camoens. He had explored all the Catullus country. Verona, the poet’s birthplace, “Sweet Sirmio,” his home on the long narrow peninsula that cleaves Garda’s “limpid lake,” Brescia, “below the Cycnaean peak,”[FN#666] the “dimpling waters” of heavenly Como, and the estate of Caecilius;[FN#667] all were familiar to him. He knew every spot visited by the poet in his famous voyage in the open pinnance[FN#668] from Bithynia “through the angry Euxine,” among the Cyclades, by “purple Zante,” up the Adriatic, and thence by river and canal to ‘Home, sweet home.’ He was deep in every department of Catullian lore. He had taken enormous pains; he had given his nights and days to the work. The notes at the end of the printed volume are a mere drop compared with the ocean he left. However, the manuscript with its pencilled cobwebs, the voluminous “loose notes”–all–good and bad–went up the chimney.
Personally we have never expended a sigh over the loss of The Scented Garden, and we should not have minded one straw if Lady Burton had burnt also her typewritten travesty of the Catullus; but her destruction of Sir Richard’s private journals and diaries was a deed that one finds it very hard to forgive. Just as Sir Richard’s conversation was better than his books, so, we are told, his diaries were better than his conversation. Says Mr. W. H. Wilkins,[FN#669] referring to Sir Richard, “He kept his diaries and journals, not as many keep them, with all the ugly things left out, but faithfully and fully,” and again, “the private journals and diaries which were full of the secret thoughts and apologia of this rare genius have been committed to the flames.” Dr. Baker, who was favoured with the sight of portions of these diaries, tells me that Sir Richard used to put in them not only an epitome of every important letter written or received by him, and of every conversation he had with persons of consequence; but also any remarks that struck him, uttered by no matter whom.[FN#670]
176. Lisa Departs, November 1890.
Like Chico, like Khamoor, Lisa, the Baroness lady-companion, had through injudicious treatment grown well-nigh unendurable. While Burton was alive she still had some dim notion of her place, but after his death she broke the traces, and Lady Burton had, with deep regret, to part with her. They separated very good friends, however, for Lady Burton was generosity itself. By this time she had been pretty well cured of lady’s maid and servant pets, at any rate we hear of no other.
Lady Burton was also distressed by an attack make in The Times upon the memory of her husband by Colonel Grant, who declared that Burton had treated both Speke and their native followers with inhumanity. Lady Burton replied with asperity–giving the facts much as we have given them in Chapter ix. Grant died 10th February 1892.
Chapter XXXIX
January 1891 to July 1891
Lady Burton in England
Bibliography (Posthumous works):
81. Morocco and the Moors, by Henry Leared, edited by Burton. 1891. 82. Il Pentamerone, published 1893.
83. The Kasidah (100 copies only). 1894. [Note.–In 1900 an edition of 250 copies appeared].
177. Lady Burton in England.
By the new year Lady Burton had completed all her arrangements. The swarms of servants and parasites which her good nature had attracted to her had been paid, or thrown, off; and the books and the mutilated manuscripts packed up. Every day she had visited her “beloved in the chapelle ardente.” “I never rested,” she says, “and it was a life of torture. I used to wake at four, the hour he was taken ill, and go through all the horrors of his three hours’ illness until seven.”
On January 20th, Burton’s remains were taken to England by the steamer “Palmyra.” Lady Burton then walked round and round to every room, recalling all her life in that happy home and all the painful events that had so recently taken place. She gazed pensively and sadly at the beautiful views from the windows and went “into every nook and cranny of the garden.” The very walls seemed to mourn with her.
On arriving in England on February 9th her first concern was to call on Lady Stisted and Miss Stisted, in order to “acquaint them with the circumstances of her husband’s death and her intentions.” The meeting was a painful one both to them and to her. They plainly expressed their disapproval of the scenes that had been enacted in the death chamber and at the funerals at Trieste; and they declared that as Protestants they could not countenance any additional ceremonial of a like nature. Lady Burton next visited Ilkeston, in Derbyshire, where she had implored “Our Lady of Dale” to bring about her husband’s conversion. Entering the Catholic Church there, she knelt before the altar and cried “Here I asked! Here I obtained! Our Lady of Dale, deliver his soul from Purgatory!”[FN#671]
Burton’s remains arrived–by “long sea”–in England on February 12th (1891) and were placed temporarily in the crypt of the Catholic Church at Mortlake; and Lady Burton then devoted the whole of her time to arranging for a public funeral in England.
To Mrs. E. J. Burton she wrote (23rd March 1891): “You must have thought me so ungrateful for not answering your sweet letter of five months ago, but, indeed, I have felt it deeply. Losing the man who had been my earthly God for thirty-five years, was like a blow on the head, and for a long time I was completely stunned.”[FN#672]
178. The Funeral at Mortlake, 15th June 1891.
The sum of £700 having been raised by Burton’s admirers, a mausoleum, made of dark Forest of Dean stone and white Carrara marble, and shaped like an Arab tent, was erected in the Catholic Cemetery at Mortlake. Over the door is an open book inscribed with the names of Sir Richard and Lady Burton, and below the book runs a ribbon with the words “This monument is erected to his memory by his loving countrymen.” Among those present at the funeral were Major St. George Burton, Dr. E. J. Burton, Mr. Mostyn Pryce, Lord Arundell, Mr. Gerald Arundell, Lord Gerard, Lord Northbrook, Mr. Van Zeller, Dr. Baker, Dr. Leslie, Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, Commander Cameron, and Mr. Justin Huntley McCarthy; and Canon Wenham officiated.
The coffin was laid in the middle of the church upon trestles, which were covered by “a cramoisie velvet pall.” Tall silver candlesticks with wax candles surrounded it. An unseen choir sang solemn chants. Lady Burton, “a pathetic picture of prayerful sorrow,” occupied a prie-dieu at the coffin’s side. When the procession filed out priests perfumed the coffin with incense and sprinkled it with holy water, acolytes bore aloft their flambeaux, and the choir, now seen to be robed in black, sang epicedial hymns. The service had all been conducted in Latin, but at this point Canon Wenham, turning to the coffin, said in English, “with a smile and a voice full of emotion,[FN#673] ‘Enter now into Paradise.'”
Lady Burton then laid on the coffin a bunch of forget-me-nots, and said, “Here lies the best husband that ever lived, the best son, the best brother, and the truest staunchest friend.”
The bystanders were moved according to their temperaments and religious views, but all were touched by the tempestuousness of Lady Burton’s grief. She seemed as “one of the Eumenides.” To some the pomp and scenic effects were gratifying. Others were affected by the reflection that the great traveller, after roaming through almost every known land, had at last been laid in a quiet nook in an English graveyard. Others who were familiar with Burton’s religious views considered “the whole ceremony an impertinence.” All, however, whatever their opinions, were united in the desire to honour the great Englishman whose motto had been “Honour not Honours.” So at last, after four funerals, Sir Richard Burton was left in peace.
The interior of the tomb remains much as it did on that day. Facing the entrance is an altar with pictures, vases and the other customary appurtenances. Sir Richard’s sarcophagus lies to one’s left, and on the right has since been placed the coffin of Lady Burton, while over all hang ropes of camel bells, which when struck give out the old metallic sound that Sir Richard heard so often in the desert.
The ceremony over, Lady Burton went to spend ten days in the convent of the canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre at Chelmsford–“my convent,” as she called it, because she was educated there. She then hired longing at No. 5, Baker Street, London, until a house–No. 67–in the same street could be made ready for her. By the kindness of Queen Victoria she was allowed a pension of £150 a year.
179. The Scented Garden Storm, June 1891.
In the meantime, the fifteen hundred subscribers to The Scented Garden kept writing to Lady Burton to ask when the promised work was to be in their hands. As she could not possibly reply to so many persons, and as the nature of some of the letters cast her into a state of wild perturbation, there seemed only one course open to her–namely, to write to the press. So she sent to The Morning Post the well-known letter which appeared 19th June, 1891, mentioning some of her reasons for destroying the manuscript, the principal being her belief that out of fifteen hundred men, fifteen would probably read it in the spirit of science in which it was written, the other fourteen hundred and eighty-five would read it “for filth’s sake.” The principal cause, the apparition of her husband, she did not mention.[FN#674]
The letter in The Morning Post had no sooner appeared than a cry arose against her from one end of the country to the other. The Press castigated her, private persons expressed their indignation by post. Burton’s family in particular bitterly resented what they considered a “foolish, mad act, insulting alike to the dead and the living.”
Lady Burton then wrote a second letter, which she sent to The Echo. She said that if Burton had lived “he would have been perfectly justified in carrying out his work. He would have been surrounded by friends to whom he could have explained any objections or controversies, and would have done everything to guard against the incalculable harm of his purchasers lending it to their women friends and to their boyish acquaintances, which I could not guarantee. … My husband did no wrong, he had a high purpose[FN#675] and he thought no evil of printing it, and could one have secured the one per cent. of individuals to whom it would have been merely a study, it would probably have done no harm.” Later she made some further defence in the New Review.
The opinions of Burton’s friends and intimate acquaintances on the matter were as follows: Mr. Payne and Mr. Watts-Dunton[FN#676] thought that Lady Burton did quite rightly, considering the circumstances, in destroying the work. Mr. W.F. Kirby thought that, though from her own point of view she was justified in so doing, she would have done better to present it to the College of Surgeons, where it would have been quite harmless and might have been consulted by bona-fide students.
Mr. Arbuthnot considered that in fulfilment of Burton’s promise it should have been given to him. He would, of course, have published it as a volume of the Kama Shastra Society, taking the usual precautions to prevent it from falling into unsuitable hands.
Chapter XL
July 1891-December 1893
O Tomb, O Tomb!
Bibliography:
84. Life of Sir Richard Burton, 2 vols. 1893. 85. Translation of Catullus. 1894.
86. The Library Edition of The Arabian Nights, 12 vols. 1894.
180. A Letter to Miss Stisted.
In July 1891 there appeared in Temple Bar an article by Miss Stisted, entitled “Reminiscences of Sir Richard Burton,” and upon reading it, Lady Burton, who headed her letter “5 or 67 Baker Street, Portman Square,” wrote as follows:
“Dearest Georgy,[FN#677] I read last night your clever and well-written article on my darling, and send you a little notice out of The Daily News. I congratulate you on it and on being able to write again. I was very sorry you and Maria [Lady Stisted] would not come to the funeral. When you come in August I shall give you a photo of the monument and a list of the people who were invited. … There were 850 asked, 400 influenza refusals and over 500 were present, counted by the police at the gates. … When you come I shall be I trust at No. 67.[FN#678] Your loving aunt Zoo.”
But the comic always treads on the heels of the pathetic for it is not probable that Miss Stisted valued very much the photograph of what in her “True Life,” she thought fit to call “an eccentric tomb” in a “shabby sectarian cemetery.”[FN#679] The removal into 67, Baker Street, took place in September 1891, and a little later Lady Burton hired a cottage at Wople End, near Mortlake, where she spent her summer months. During the last decade of her husband’s life she had become, to use her own words, coarse and rather unwieldy, but her sorrow had the effect of restoring to her some of the graces of person that had marked her early days. That this is no figment of our imagination may easily be seen by anyone who compares her portrait in the group taken by Miller in 1888 with the photograph by Gunn and Stuart,[FN#680] where she is in her widow’s cap with its long white streamers. In this photograph and others taken at the time she looks handsome and stately. She is once more “Empress of Damascus.” The house in baker Street has thus been described: “No sooner have you crossed Lady Burton’s threshold than you are at once transported, as if by magic, to Eastern climes. You are greeted by a handsome woman whose black dress and white widow’s cap present a striking contrast to the glow of rich but subdued colour which surrounds her. Opposite the fireplace is a full length and very characteristic portrait of Burton in fencing costume.[FN#681] Among the curiosities are the necklace[FN#682] of human bones given to Burton by Gelele, some specimens of old Istrian china picked up in the cottages near Trieste, and a three-sided mirror and two crystals with which Burton used to mesmerise his wife. From the ceiling hung a quaint Moorish lamp with many branches, and its softened rays often fall on a Damascene silver gilt coffee service studded with turquoises.” At the top of the house and approached by a narrow staircase and a ladder was a large loft, built by herself, for storing her husband’s manuscripts and books. On one side glittered a “small but tastefully decorated altar,” while scattered around were the many relics which have since drifted to Camberwell.
181. The writing of the Life August 1892-March 1893.
In this loft Lady Burton spent many hours examining her husband’s papers, and in the autumn of 1902 she commenced in earnest to write his life–a work that occupied her about eight months. That she was absolutely unfitted for the task must be clear to all who have any knowledge of Burton. Indeed, she was quite incapable of doing literary work of any kind properly. The spirit in which she wrote may be gauged both from the book itself, with its frequent offences against good taste, and the following citation from a letter to a friend: “I do not know,” she said, “if I can harden my heart against the curs, but I can put out my tongue and point my pen and play pussy cat about their eyes and ears.” By “curs” she means those who rated her for burning her husband’s manuscripts, but in justice to her, let it be borne in mind that she had received some letters that were quite unworthy of the writers.
The great questions was, Would she live to complete her task? Owing to an incurable complaint she could give only a limited portion of her time to the work, and there were whole days in which no progress was made. Every page bears evidences of hurry. We have already told the story of the three appearances of Sir Richard just before the burning of The Scented Garden MS. Lady Burton persistently declared that after the third appearance her husband came again and never left her until she had finished her work. “He was constantly with me,” she said to Mr. Murray, “appearing exactly as in life, and he advised and comforted me. He helped me most materially towards the compilation of his own biography, and gave me references to books and manuscripts so that the biography came comparatively easy to my hand. He gave me absolutely the position of the book in the shelf and the page and reference itself which I required.”
A letter[FN#683] of one of Burton’s friends contains the following comments on the work. “I plainly see that the objects of writing the Life were two-fold. First to prove Sir Richard a Roman Catholic, and thus fit him to be buried with her, and secondly to whitewash his escapades and insubordination. As to the first, I know he despised[FN#684] the Roman Catholic religion; and if any very deep sense of religious feeling existed at all, it was of the Mohammedan rather than anything else; but his religion was not very apparent, though he was fundamentally an honest and conscientious man, and I think he had but one enemy–himself. He was a very great man; very like a magnificent machine one part of which had gone wrong–and that was his hot temper.”
Lady Burton’s book was finished at Mortlake on 24th March 1893, and appeared in the autumn of that year. She then commenced the issue of the Memorial Edition of her husband’s works. The Pilgrimage to Al Medinah and Meccah (2 vols.), The Mission to Gelele (2 vols.), and Vikram and the Vampire appeared in 1893, First Footsteps in East Africa in 1894. The venture, however, proved a failure, so no more volumes were issued. She published her husband’s Pentameron in 1893, and the Catullus in 1894.
Writing 11th July 1893 to Mrs. E. J. Burton just before a visit to that lady, Lady Burton says–and it must be borne in mind that her complaint often made her feel very ill–“Send me a line to tell me what is the nearest Roman Catholic Church to you, as I must drive there first to make all arrangements for Sunday morning to get an early confession, communion and mass (after which I am at liberty for the rest of the day) because, as you know, I have to fast from midnight till I come back, and I feel bad for want of a cup of tea. …The Life is out to-day.”
The reception accorded to her work by the Press, who, out of regard to Sir Richard’s memory, spoke of it with the utmost kindness, gave Lady Burton many happy hours. “It is a great pleasure to me,” she says, “to know how kind people are about my book, and how beautifully they speak of darling Richard.”[FN#685]
Most of Lady Burton’s remaining letters are full of gratitude to God, tender and Christian sentiment, faulty English and bad spelling.[FN#686] “I did see The Times,” she says, “and was awfully glad of it. Kinder still is The Sunday Sun, the 1st, the 8th and the 15th of October, five columns each, which say that I have completely lifted any cloud away from his memory, and that his future fame will shine like a beacon in all ages. Thank God!” St. George Burton was wicked enough to twit her for her spelling, and to say that he found out as many as seventeen words incorrectly spelt in one letter. But she deftly excused herself by saying that she used archaic forms. “Never mind St. George,” she writes good-humouredly, to Mrs. E. G. Burton, “I like old spelling.” She did not excuse her slang by calling it old, or refer her friends to Chaucer for “awfully glad.”
The greatest pleasure of her life was now, as she oddly expresses it, to “dress the mausoleum” on “darling Dick’s anniversary.” She says (21st October 1893 to Mrs. E. J. Burton),[FN#687] “I received your dear flowers, and the mausoleum was quite lovely, a mass of lights and flowers sent by relations and affectionate friends. Yours stood in front of the altar.” Then follows a delicious and very characteristic sample of Lady Burton’s English: “We had mass and communion,” she says, “and crowds of friends came down to see the mausoleum and two photographers.”
She was glad to visit and decorate the Mortlake tomb certainly, but the pleasure was a very melancholy one, and she could but say, borrowing a thought from The Arabian Nights:
“O tomb, O tomb, thou art neither earth nor heaven unto me.”[FN#688]
When Lady Stisted died (27th December 1893), Lady Burton felt the blow keenly, and she wrote very feelingly on the subject, “Yes,” she says, in a letter to Mrs. E. J. Burton, “I was very shocked at poor Maria’s death, and more so because I wish nothing had come between us.” “Poor Maria,” she wrote to St. George Burton, “You would be surprised to know, and I am surprised myself, how much I feel it.” In a letter to Madame de Gutmansthal-Benvenuti (10th January 1894), Lady Burton refers to the Burton tableau to Madame Tussaud’s. She says, “They have now put Richard in the Meccan dress he wore in the desert. They have given him a large space with sand, water, palms; and three camels, and a domed skylight, painted yellow, throws a lurid light on the scene. It is quite life-like. I gave them the real clothes and the real weapons, and dressed him myself.”
“I am so glad,” she writes to Miss Stisted,[FN#689] “you went to Tussaud’s, and that you admired Dick and his group. I am not quite content with the pose. The figure looks all right when it stands up properly, but I have always had a trouble with Tussaud about a certain stoop which he declares is artistic, and which I say was not natural to him.”
182. The Library Edition of The Nights 1894.
Lady Burton now authorised the publication of what is called the Library Edition of The Arabian Nights. According to the Editorial Note, while in Lady Burton’s Edition no fewer than 215 pages of the original are wanting[FN#690] in this edition the excisions amount only to about 40 pages. The Editor goes on: “These few omissions are rendered necessary by the pledge which Sir Richard gave to his subscribers that no cheaper edition of the entire work should be issued; but in all other respects the original text has been reproduced with scrupulous fidelity.”
By this time Lady Burton had lost two of her Trieste friends, namely Lisa, the baroness-maid who died in 1891, and Mrs. Victoria Maylor, Burton’s amanuensis, who died in 1894.
Chapter XLI
Death of Lady Burton
Bibliography:
87. The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam. 1898. 88. Wanderings in Three Continents. 1901.
183. Lady Burton at Eastbourne.
Lady Burton spent the year 1894 and part of 1895 at Baker Street and Mortlake, making occasional visits to friends. As at Trieste, she surrounded herself with a crowd of servants and other idle people whom, in her good nature, she systematically pampered, and who in their turn did their best to make her life unendurable. She could, however, easily afford these luxuries, for thanks to the large sums received for her Life of Sir Richard, the Library Edition, &c., she was now in affluent circumstances. She won to herself and certainly deserved the character of “a dear old lady.” In politics she was a “progressive Conservative,” though what that meant neither she nor those about her had any clear notion. She dearly loved children–at a safe distance–and gave treats, by proxy, to all the Catholic schools in the neighbourhood. She took an active interest in various charities, became an anti-vivisectionist, and used very humanely to beat people about the head with her umbrella, if she caught them ill-treating animals. If they remonstrated, she used to retort, “Yes, and how do you like It?” “When she wanted a cab,” says Mr. W. H. Wilkins, “she invariably inspected the horse carefully first, to see if it looked well fed and cared for; if not, she discharged the cab and got another; and she would always impress upon the driver that he must not beat his horse under any consideration.” On one occasion she sadly forgot herself. She and her sister, Mrs. FitzGerald, had hired a cab at Charing Cross Station and were in a great hurry to get home. Of course, as usual, she impressed upon the cabman that he was not to beat his horse. “The horse, which was a wretched old screw, refused, in consequence, to go at more than a walking pace,” and Lady Burton, who was fuming with impatience, at last so far forgot herself as to put her head out of the window and cry to the driver, “Why don’t you beat him? Why don’t you make him go?”[FN#691] She occasionally met her husband’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mr. Payne. One day at some dinner it transpired in the course of conversation that Mr. Payne had all his life been an habitual sufferer from insomnia.
“I can tell you how to cure that,” said Lady Burton.
“How?” said Mr. Payne. “Say your prayers,” said she.
After an attack of influenza Lady Burton hired a cottage–Holywell Lodge–at Eastbourne[FN#692] where she stayed from September to March 1896, busying herself composing her autobiography.[FN#693] Two letters which she wrote to Miss Stisted from Holywell Lodge are of interest. Both are signed “Your loving Zoo.” The first contains kindly references to Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot, who had been visiting her, and to the widow of Professor Huxley[FN#694] who was staying at Eastbourne; and the second, which is amusing enough, records her experiences among some very uncongenial people at Boscombe. Wherever she went, Lady Burton, as we have seen, was always thrusting her opinions, welcome or not, upon other persons; but at Boscombe the tables were turned, and she experienced the same annoyance that she herself had so often excited in others.
“I went,” she says, “to a little boarding-house called. … The house was as comfortable as it could be, the food plain, but eatable, but the common table was always chock full of Plymouth Brethren and tract-giving old maids, and we got very tired of it.”
Then follows an account of her establishment at Eastbourne. “It consists,” she says, “of my secretary (Miss Plowman) and nurse, and we have our meals together, and drive out together whenever I am able. Then my servants are a maid, house-parlour-maid, a housemaid and a cook (my Baker Street lot). The cottage [at Mortlake] is in charge of a policeman, and Baker Street a caretaker. My friend left three servants in the house, so we are ten altogether, and I have already sent one of mine back, as they have too much to eat, too little to do, and get quarrelsome and disagreeable.” Thus it was the same old story, for Lady Burton, though she had the knack of living, was quite incapable of learning, or at any rate of profiting by experience.
The letter concludes sadly, “As to myself, I am so thin and weak that I cannot help thinking there must be atrophy, and in any case my own idea is that I may be able to last till March.”
184. Death of Lady Burton, 22nd Mar. 1896.
Lady Burton from that time gradually grew weaker; but death, which “to prepared appetites is nectar,” had for her no terrors. To her it meant release from pain and suffering, ultimate reception into the presence of an all-merciful God, re-union with her beloved husband. She did, however, last, as she had anticipated, till March. Early in that month she returned to Baker Street, where she died rather suddenly on Sunday the 22nd.
By her will dated, 28th December 1895, she left some £12,000 to her sister, Mrs. FitzGerald,[FN#695] and the following persons also benefitted: her sister, Mrs. Van Zeller, £500; her secretary, Miss Plowman £25; Khamoor £50; her nephew Gerald Arthur Arundell, the cottage at Mortlake; the Orphanage at Trieste, £105. She directed that after her heart had been pierced with a needle her body was to be embalmed in order that it might be kept above ground by the side of her husband. She stated that she had bought a vault close to the tent, and that two places were to be reserved in it in order that if a revolution should occur in England, and there should be fear of the desecration of the dead, the coffins of her husband and herself might be lowered into it. She provided for 3,000 masses to be said for her at once at Paris, and left an annuity to pay for a daily mass to be said there perpetually. The attendance of priests at her funeral was to be “as large as possible.”
Lady Burton was buried on Friday March 27th, the service taking place in the Catholic church at Mortlake where five years previous she had knelt beside the coffin of her husband; and a large number of mourners was present. After mass her remains were carried to the Arab Tent, and so she obtained her wish, namely, that in death she and her husband might rest in the same tomb.
185. Miss Stisted’s “True Life.”
As might have been expected, Lady Burton’s Life of her husband gave umbrage to the Stisted family–and principally for two reasons; first its attempt to throw a flood of Catholic colour on Sir Richard, and secondly because it contained statements which they held to be incorrect. So after Lady Burton’s death, Miss Stisted wrote and published a small work entitled The True Life of Sir Richard Burton. It is written with some acerbity, for Lady Burton as a Catholic was not more militant than Miss Stisted as a Protestant. It throws additional and welcome light on Sir Richard’s early days, but as we have elsewhere remarked, the principal charge that it made against Lady Burton, namely that she was the main cause of her husband’s downfall at Damascus, is unsupported by sufficient evidence.
186. Mr. Wilkins’s Work, 1897.
That there should be a counterblast to The True Life was inevitable, and it came in the shape of The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, which consists of Lady Burton’s unfinished autobiography and a continuation by Mr. W. H. Wilkins. The work is a valuable addition to Burton lore, but Mr. Wilkins’s friendship for Lady Burton led him to place her on a far higher pedestal than we have been able to give her. Perhaps it was natural that in dealing with the True Life he should have betrayed some heat. However, death has now visited Miss Stisted[FN#696] as well as Lady Burton, and the commotion made by the falling of the stone into the pool is at this distance represented only by the faintest of circles. In 1898, Mr. Wilkins published, with an acceptable preface, three of Burton’s unfinished works in one volume, with the title of The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam, and in 1901 he placed the public under further obligation to him by editing and issuing Burton’s Wanderings in Three Continents.
187. Burton’s Friends.
Most of Burton’s friends have followed him to the tomb. Edward Rehatsek died at a ripe age at Worli on 11th December 1891, and was cremated in Hindu fashion. At the time of his death he was working at the translation of the third part of The Rauzat-us- Safa.[FN#697] In his last letter to Mr. Arbuthnot, after referring to his declining health, he finished by saying, “Hope, however, never dies; and as work occupies the mind, and keeps off despair, I am determined to translate for you, though slowly, the third part of the Rauzat-us-Safa, so as to make the history of the Khalifahs complete.”[FN698]
Mr. Arbuthnot continued to take interest in Oriental matters and wrote prefaces for several translations by Rehatsek and Dr. Steingass, including the First Part of Rehatsek’s Rauzat-us-Safa (1891) and Steingass’s Assemblies of Al Haririr (1898). His Arabic Authors appeared in 1890, his Mysteries of Chronology in 1900. He died in May 1901, and was buried at Shamley Green, Guildford. He left money for the Oriental Translation Fund, of which, it will be remembered, he was the founder, and his memory will always be honoured by Orientalists. A memorial of him–the Arbuthnot Institute–was opened at Shamley Green on 31st May 1905.
Mr. Ashbee died in 1900, Dr. F. J. Steingass in January, 1903.
After Burton’s death, Mr. Letchford went to Bohemia as the guest of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis. At Vienna his next resort, he painted many beautiful pictures, one of the best being founded on Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “Silence.” Finally he went to Naples, where he produced the series of pictures that has given him immortality–the illustrations to The Arabian Nights. Then followed days of darkness and trouble, but he was always courageous. “He felt that what he had striven for so long was now within his reach; he had the presentiment that he was about to take those flights of art which are permitted to very few.” His portrait of the son of Sir William Wollcock is a work of genius.
In July 1905, hearing that Mr. Letchford was ill, I wrote to his sister, Daisy,[FN#699] who lived with him. The letter was received, and Mr. Letchford intended replying to it himself. “He was only waiting to feel a little stronger,” wrote Miss Letchford, “he never thought the end was near. On Monday morning of the 24th of July he still kept making wonderful plans for the future. He had the room in which he spent his last hours crowded with flowers, and as he felt his powers failing him he recited Swinburne’s beautiful poem, ‘The Garden of Proserpine’:
“Though one were fair as roses
His beauty clouds and closes.”
“Suddenly he lost consciousness, and he awoke from his comatose state only to repeat the identical words which were Sir Richard Burton’s last–‘I am dying–I am dead.’ His beautiful soul had left this world for ever, for it was indeed a beautiful soul.”[FN#700]
Major Edward Burton, Sir Richard’s brother, died 31st October 1895–after his terrible silence of nearly forty years. He was never married. Miss Stisted died in 1904. So of Burton’s parents there are now no descendants. Within fifteen years of his death, the family was extinct.
Of the friends and intimate acquaintances of Burton who still survive we must first mention Mr. A. C. Swinburne, Mr. Watts-Dunton and Mr. John Payne. Mr. Swinburne has, year after year, it is scarcely necessary to say, added to his fame, and all Englishmen are proud of his genius. The Definitive Edition of his works has delighted all his admirers; and just as we are going to press everyone is reading with intense interest his early novel Love’s Cross Currents. Mr. Watts-Dunton is in excellent health, and his pen is as vigorous as ever. He enjoys the proud position of being our greatest living literary critic.
Mr. Payne, who is still hard at work, ahs published since Burton’s death translations of The Novels of Matteo Bandello (six vols. 1890), the Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam (1898), and–Atlantean task– the Poems of Hafiz (3 vols. 1901). His Collected Poems (1862-1902) in two handsome volumes, appeared in 1902; and he has since issued Vigil and Vision (1903), Songs of Consolation, and Hamid the Luckless (1904). In the last he returns to his old love, The Arabian Nights, most of the poems being founded on tales in that work.
Mr. W. F. Kirby, Dr. Grenfell Baker, Mrs. E. J. Burton, Major St. George Burton, Mr. Frederick Burton, Mr. P. P. Cautley, Mr. A. G. Ellis, and Professor Blumhardt are also living. His excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha is still Minister of Instruction at Cairo; Mr. Tedder is still at the Athenaeum.
Our task is ended. Sir Richard Burton was inadequately regarded in his lifetime, and even now no suitable memorial of him exists in the capital of the Empire, which is so deeply indebted to him. Let us hope that this omission will soon be rectified. His aura, however, still haunts the saloons of his beloved Athenaeum, and there he may be seen any day, by those who have eyes latched[FN#701] over, busily writing at the round table in the library–white suit, shabby beaver, angel forehead, demon jaw, facial scar, and all. He is as much an integral part of the building as the helmeted Minerva on the portico; and when tardy England erects a statue to him it ought to select a site in the immediate neighbourhood of his most cherished haunt.
Our task, we repeat, is ended. No revolution, so far as we are aware, has distracted modern England, and Sir Richard and Lady Burton still sleep in sepulchral pomp in their marmorean Arab Tent at Mortlake. More than fifteen years have now elapsed since, to employ a citation from The Arabian Nights, there came between them “the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies and glory be to Him who changeth not, neither ceaseth, and in whom all things have their term.”[FN#702]
THE END.
Verses on the Death of Richard Burton[FN#703] By Algernon Charles Swinburne
Night of light is it now, wherein
Sleeps, shut out from the wild world’s din, Wakes, alive with a life more clear,
One who found not on earth his kin?
Sleep were sweet for awhile, were dear Surely to souls that were heartless here, Souls that faltered and flagged and fell, Soft of spirit and faint of cheer.
A living soul that had strength to quell Hope the spectre and fear the spell,
Clear-eyed, content with a scorn sublime And a faith superb, can it fare not well?
Life, the shadow of wide-winged time, Cast from the wings that change as they climb, Life may vanish in death, and seem
Less than the promise of last year’s prime.
But not for us is the past a dream
Wherefrom, as light from a clouded stream, Faith fades and shivers and ebbs away, Faint as the moon if the sundawn gleam.
Faith, whose eyes in the low last ray Watch the fire that renews the day,
Faith which lives in the living past, Rock-rooted, swerves not as weeds that sway.
As trees that stand in the storm-wind fast She stands, unsmitten of death’s keen blast, With strong remembrance of sunbright spring Alive at heart to the lifeless last.
Night, she knows, may in no wise cling To a soul that sinks not and droops not wing, A sun that sets not in death’s false night Whose kingdom finds him not thrall but king.
Souls there are that for soul’s affright Bow down and cower in the sun’s glad sight, Clothed round with faith that is one with fear, And dark with doubt of the live world’s light.
But him we hailed from afar or near
As boldest born of his kinsfolk here And loved as brightest of souls that eyed Life, time, and death with unchangeful cheer,
A wider soul than the world was wide, Whose praise made love of him one with pride What part has death or has time in him, Who rode life’s list as a god might ride?
While England sees not her old praise dim, While still her stars through the world’s night swim A fame outshining her Raleigh’s fame,
A light that lightens her loud sea’s rim,
Shall shine and sound as her sons proclaim The pride that kindles at Burton’s name. And joy shall exalt their pride to be
The same in birth if in soul the same.
But we that yearn for a friend’s face,–we Who lack the light that on earth was he,– Mourn, though the light be a quenchless flame That shines as dawn on a tideless sea.
APPENDICES
Appendix I
Bibliography of Richard Burton
1. Grammar of the Jataki or Belochi Dialect. (Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.) 1849.
2. Remarks on Dr. Dorn’s Chrestomathy of the Afghan Tongue. (Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.) 1849. 3. Reports addressed to the Bombay Government. (1.) General Notes on Sind.
(2.) Notes on the Population of Sind. 4. Grammar of the Mooltanee Language.
5. Goa and the Blue Mountains. 1851. 6. Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley. 2 vols., 1851. 7. Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus. 1851. 8. Falconry in the Valley of the Indus. 1852. 9. Commencement (with Dr. Steinhauser) of The Arabian Nights. 1852. 10. A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise. 1853. 11. The Kasidah. (Written. Published in 1880.) 12. El Islam. (Written. Published with The Jew and the Gypsy in 1898.)
13. Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah. 3 vols. 1855-6. 2nd edition, 1857; 3rd edition, 1879.
14. First Footsteps in East Africa, or an Exploration of Harar. 1856.
15. Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa. 2 vols., 1860. 16. Volume 33 of the Royal Geographical Society. 1860. 17. The City of the Saints and across the Rocky Mountains to California. 1861.
18. Wanderings in West Africa. 2 vols., 1863. 19. Prairie Traveller, by R. B. Marcy. Edited by Burton, 1863. 20. Abeokuta and the Cameroons. 2 vols., 1863. 21. A Day among the Fans. 17th February 1863. 22. The Nile Basin. 1864.
23. A Mission to the King of Dahome. 2 vols., 1864. 24. Marcy’s Prairie Traveller. Notes by Burton, (Anthropological Review), 1864.
25. Speech at Farewell Dinner given by the Anthropological Society to R. F. B. before his departure for South America, 4th April 1865. (Anthropological Review, iii., 167-182.) 26. Wit and Wisdom from West Africa. 1865. 27. Pictorial Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. 1865. 28. Psychic Facts. Stone Talk, by Francis Baker [Burton]. 1865. 29. Notes on Certain Matters connected with the Dahoman. 1865. 30. On an Hermaphrodite from the Cape de Verde Islands. 1866. 31. Exploration of the Highlands of the Brazil. … also Canoeing down 1,500 Miles of the great River Sao Francisco, from Sabara to the Sea. 2 vols., 1869.
32. Vikram and the Vampire. (Adapted from the Baital Pachisi.) 1870. 33. Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. 1870. 34. Proverba Communia Syriaca. (Royal Asiatic Society.) 1871. (See No. 37.)
35. The Jew. (Written 1871. Published 1898 with The Gypsy and El Islam).
36. Zanzibar: City, Island and Coast. 2 vols., 1872. 37. Unexplored Syria, by Burton and C. Tyrwhitt Drake. 2 vols., 1872. No. 24 is included in Vol. i.
38. On Human Remains, and other Articles from Iceland. 1872. 39. Medinah and Meccah. 3 vols. in one, 1873. 40. Minas Geraes and the Occupations of the Present Inhabitants. 7th January 1873.
41. Lacerda’s Journey to Cazembe in 1798, translated and annotated by Capt. R. F. Burton. 1873.
42. The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse, in A.D. 1547-1555, among the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. Translated by Albert Tootal, of Rio de Janeiro, and annotated by Burton. 1874. 43. Articles on Rome. (Macmillan’s Magazine.) 1874-5. 44. The Catellieri, or Prehistoric Ruins of the Istrian Peninsula. 45. Gerber’s Province of Minas Geraes. Translated by Burton. (Royal Geographical Society.) 1874.
46. New System of Sword Exercise. 1875. 47. Ultima Thule; or a Summer in Iceland. 2 vols., 1875. 48. Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo. 2 vols., 1875.
49. Inner Life of Syria. 2 vols., 1875. By Isabel Burton. 50. The Long Wall of Salona and the Ruined Cities of Pharia and Gelsa di Lesina. 1875.
51. The Port of Trieste.
52. The Gypsy. (Written in 1875. Published in 1898 with The Jew and El Islam.)
53. Etruscan Bologna. 1876.
54. New System of Sword Exercise for Infantry. 1876. 55. Sind Revised. 2 vols., 1877.
56. The Gold Mines of Midian and the Ruined Midianite Cities. 1878. 57. A. E. I. (Arabia, Egypt, India.) By Isabel Burton. 58. Ogham Runes and El Mushajjar. 1879.
59. The Land of Midian Revisited. 2 vols., 1879. 60. Camoens. (1.) The Lusiands. 2 vols., 1879. (2.) Life of Camoens and Commentary. 1882. (3.) The Lyrics. 1884.
61. Kasidah. 1880.
62. Visit to Lissa and Pelagoza.[FN#704] 1880. 63. A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881.
64. How to deal with the Slave Scandal in Egypt. 1881. 65. Thermae of Monfalcone. 1881.
66. Lord Beaconsfield, a Sketch. Pp. 12. 1882? 67. To the Gold Coast for Gold. By Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron. 2 vols., 1883.
68. Stone Implements from the Gold Coast. By Burton and Cameron. 1883.
69. Publications of the Kama Shastra Society:– The Kama Sutra. 1883.
The Ananga Ranga. 1885.
The Arabian Nights. 1885-1886.
The Scented Garden. 1886.
The Beharistan. 1887.
The Gulistan. 1888.
The Nigaristan, etc. (Unpublished.) 70. The Book of the Sword. 1884.
71. The Thousand Nights and a Night. 1st vol., 12th September 1885. 10th vol., 12th July 1886.
72. Il Pentamerone. Translated. Printed in 2 vols., 1892. 73. Iracema or Honey Lips; and Manuel de Moraes the Convert. Translated from the Brazilian. 1886.
74. Six Months at Abbazia. By Burton and Lady Burton. 1888. 75. Lady Burton’s Edition of The Arabian Nights. 6 vols. 1888. 76. Supplemental Volumes to The Arabian Nights. 1st vol., 1st December 1886.
6th vol., 1st August 1888.
77. The Scented Garden. Translated. 1888-1890. 78. Catullus. (Translated 1890. Printed 1894). 79. The Golden Ass, and other Works. Left unfinished. 80. Priapeia. 1890.
Posthumous Publications
81. Morocco and the Moors. By Henry Leared. Edited by Burton. Printed 1891.
82. Il Pentamerone; or the Tale of Tales. 2 vols., 1893. 83. The Kasidah. An edition of 100 copies. 84. Life of Sir Richard Burton, by Lady Burton. 1893. 85. Catullus. Printed 1894.
86. Library Edition of The Arabian Nights. 87. The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam. Printed 1898. 88. Wanderings in Three Continents. 1901.
Appendix II
List of works included in the “Memorial Edition” of Burton’s works. Only 7 vols. appeared.
1. Pligrimage to Al Medinah and Meccah. Vol. i., 1893. 2. ” ” ” Vol. ii. “
3. Mission to Gelele. Vol. i., 1893. 4. ” ” Vol. ii., “
5. Vikram and the Vampire. 1893.
6. First Footsteps in East Africa. Vol. i., 1894. 7. ” ” Vol. ii.
Appendix III
List of Biographies of Sir Richard Burton and Lady Burton.
By A. B. Richards, A. Wilson and St. Clair Baddeley. 1886. By F. Hitchman. 2 vols., 1887.
By Lady Burton. 2 vols., 1893.
By Miss G. M. Stisted. 1896.
By W. J. Wilkins (The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton). 2 vols., 1897. By Thomas Wright. 2 vols., 1906.
Appendix IV
Extracts relating to Burton
From the Index to the Publications of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, including the Journal and Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London (1843-1871); the Journal and Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London (1863-1871); the Anthropological Review; and the Journal of the Anthropological Institute (1871-1891).
On the Akkas. Title only, with Remarks by E. B. Tylor. 27th March 1888. J.A.I., [FN#705] xviii., 121.
On Anthropological Collections from the Holy Land. With Discussion. 20th November 1871. 3 plates. J.A.I., 300-312, 319, 320. No. II. With Discussion. 4th December 1871. (2 plates). J.A.I., i., 331-345.
No. III. (Notes on the Hamah Stones, with Reduced Transcripts.) With Discussion. 4th March 1872. (10 plates.) J.A.I., ii., 41-52, 62, 63.
A Day among the Fans. 17th February 1863. T.E.S.,[FN#706] iii., 36-47.
A Day among the Fans. A.R.,[FN#707] i., 43-54. A Day among the Fans. Discussion. 24th March, 1863. A.R., i., 185.
Ethnological Notes on M. du Chaillu’s Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. T.E.S. i., 316-326.
Farewell Dinner given by the Anthropological Society to R. F. B. before his departure for South America, 4th April, 1865. A.R., iii., 167-182.
Flint Flakes from Egypt. 13th November 1877. (Wood cut.) J.A.I., vii., 323, 324.
On an Hermaphrodite from the Cape de Verde Islands. Notice only. 17th April 1866. A.R., iv. J.A.S.,[FN#708] p. cl. xxv. On Human Remains and other Articles from Iceland. With Discussion. 19th November 1872. J.A.I., ii., 342-344, 346, 347. Kitchen-Midden in Brazil. Anthrop.[FN#709] 44. Letter. 15th May 1866. A.R. iv., J.A.S., pp. cxciii., cxciv. Letter. Antrop., 2, 3.
The Long Wall of Salona and the Ruined Cities of Pharia and Gelsa di Lesina. With Discussion. 8th July 1875. (2 plates and woodcut.) J.A.I., v., 252-299.
A Mission to Dahome. Review by W. W. Reade. A.R. ii., 335. Notes on the Castellieri or Prehistoric Ruins of the Istrian Peninsula. Anthrop., 376.
Notes on Certain Matters connected with the Dahoman. 1st November 1864. M.A.S.,[FN#710] i., 308-321.
Discussion on ditto. A.R., iii., J.A.S., pp. vi.-xi. Notes on an Hermaphrodite. 1st May 1866. M.A.S., 262-263. Notes on Scalping. A.R., ii., 49-52.
Notes on Waitz’s Anthropology. A.R., ii., 233-250. Obituary Notice. By E.W. Brabrook. J.A.I., xx., 295-298. The Pelagosa Finds. Title only. 14th March 1876. J.A.I., vi., 54. The Present State of Dahome. 22nd November 1864. T.E.S., iii., 400-408.
The Primoridal Inhabitants of Minas Geraes, and the Occupations of the Present Inhabitants. With Discussion. 7th January, 1873. J.A.I., ii., 407-423.
Reply to letter on Castellieri dell’Istria. Anthrop., 412. On Slavery in Brazil. A.R., vi., 56.
Stones and Bones from Egypt and Midian. 10th December 1878. (2 plates.) J.A.I., viii., 290-319.
A Word to the Reader. Anthrop., 375. Captain Burton. A.R., vi., 462,
Yabrud. Captain Burton’s Collection. By Dr. C. Carter Blake. J.A.I., ii., 58.
Marcy, Randolph B. (Captain U.S. Army), The Prairie Traveller. Edited by Burton. Review. A.R., i., 145-149. On Skulls from Annabom in the West African Seas. By Burton and C. Blake. 19th April 1864. A.R., ii., J.A.S., pp. ccxxx., ccxxxi. Burton and Cameron on Stone implements from the Gold Coast. With Discussion. 11th July 1882. (Plate.) J.A.I., xii., 449-454. Burton and Antonio Scampecchio (LL.D.) and Antonio Covaz. More Castellieri (The Seaboard of Istria). 13th November 1877. J.A.I., vii., 341-363.
Burton’s Explorations in the Brazil. Review. A.R., vii., 170.
Appendix V
Bibliography of Foster FitzGerald Arbuthnot
1. Early Ideas. A group of Hindoo Stories. Collected by an Aryan. 1881.
2. Persian Portraits. A Sketch of Persian History, Literature and Politics. 1887.
3. Arabic Authors. A Manual of Arabian History and Literature. 1890.
4. The Rauzat-us-safa. … By Muhammed ibu Khavendshah bin Mahmud, commonly called Mirkhond. Edited by F. F. Arbuthnot. 1891. 5. The Assemblies of Al Hariri. … Prefaced and indexed by F. F. Arbuthnot. 8. 1898.
6. The Mysteries of Chronology. 1900. 7. Life of Balzac. Unpublished. 1902.
Appendix VI
Bibliography of F. Steingass
1. English Arabic Dictionary, for the use of both travelers and students. pp. viii., 466. 1882.
2. The Student’s Arabic-English Dictionary. pp. xvi., 1242. 1884. 3. An Arabic Reading Book, by A. R. Birdwood, with preliminary remarks by F. Steingass. 1890.
4. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. … Being Johnson and Richardson’s Dictionary revised by F. Steingass. 1892. 5. The last twenty-four Makamats of Abu Muhammad al Kasim al Hariri, forming Vol. ii.; Chenery’s translation of the first twenty-four Makamats is sold with it as Vol. i. 1898.
Appendix VII
Bibliography of John Payne[FN#711]
1. The Masque of Shadows and other Poems. 1870. 2. Intaglios; Sonnets. 1871.
3. Songs of Life and Death. 1872.
4. Lautrec: A Poem. 1878.
5. The Poems of Francois Villon. 1878. 6. New Poems. 1880.
7. The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night. Nine vols. 1882-4.
8. Tales from the Arabic. 3 vols. 1884. 9. The Decameron of Boccaccio. 3 vols. 1886. 10. Alaeddin and Zein ul Asnam. 1889.
11. The Novels of Matteo Bandello. 6 vols. 1890. 12. The Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam. 1898. 13. The Poems of Hafiz. 3 vols. 1901.
14. Collected Poems. (1862-1902). 2 vols. 1902. 15. Vigil and Vision. New Sonnets. 1903. 16. Songs of Consolation. New Lyrics. 1904. 17. Hamid the Luckless and other Tales in Verse. 1904.
Appendix VIII
Notes on Rehatsek’s Translation of the Beharistan
The Beharistan consists of eight chapters: 1. Aromatic Herbs from the Life of Shaikh Junaid, etc.– a glorification of Sufism.
2. Philosophical Ana.
3. The Blooming Realms by Wisdom.
4. The Trees of Liberality and Generosity. 5. Tender State of the Nightingale of the Garden of Love. 6. Breezes of Jocular Sallies.
7. Signing Birds of Rhyme and Parrots of Poetry. 8. Animal Fables.
We give the following as specimens of the Stories: First Garden, pp. 14 and 15.
Story
Bayazid having been asked what the traditional and the divine law amounted to, he replied that the former is to abandon the world, and the latter to associate with the Lord. [These two laws are the Sonna and the Farz.]
Verses
O thou who concerning the law of the men of the period Askest about the traditional and divine command; The first is to turn the soul from the world away, The second is to find the way of proximity to the Lord.
Story
Shebli (may his secret be sanctified) having become demented was taken to the hospital and visited by acquaintances. He asked who they were, and they replied: “Thy friends,” whereon he took up a stone and assaulted them. They all began to run away, but he exclaimed:–“O pretenders, return. Friends do not flee from friends, and do not avoid the stones of their violence.”
Verses
He is a friend, who although meeting with enmity From his friend, only becomes more attached to him. If he strikes him with a thousand stones of violence The edifice of his love will only be made more firm by them.
Appendix IX
Notes on the Nigaristan and Other Unpublished Translations by Rehatsek, Presented to the Royal Asiatic Society by F. F. Arbuthnot.
1. The Nigaristan (Picture Gallery), by Mu’in-uddin Jawini. Faithfully translated from the Persian by E. Rehatsek. 1888.
The Preface is by Arbuthnot. He points out that there are three great Persian didactic works, viz.:–The Gulistan, or Rose Garden, by Sadi; The Nigaristan by Jawini; and The Beharistan by Jami. The Nigaristan contains 534 stories in prose and verse. Some particulars of it are given in Arbuthnot’s Persian Portraits (Quaritch, 1887), p. 106. “These three books,” to use Arbuthnot’s works, “abound in pure and noble sentiments such as are to be found scattered throughout the Sacred Books of the East, the Old and New Testaments, and the Koran.”
The two following extracts will give some idea of the contents and style of the Nigaristan:
Zohra[FN#712]
If Zohra plays the guitar a thousand years, The musician’s song will always be this: Try to become the subject of a good tale, Since everyone who lives becomes a tale.
Fath Mousuli’s Prayer
After having been very prosperous and rich, Fath Mousuli fell into poverty and misery. After a while, however, when he had accustomed himself more to his position, he said, “O Lord, send me a revelation that I may know by what act I have deserved this gift, so that I may offer thanks for this favour.”
2. Translations from the Persian, by the late E. Rehatsek. i. A Persian Tract on the observances of the Zenanah, pp. 1 to 10.
ii. A Persian Essay on Hospitality, or Etiquette of Eating and Drinking, pp. 20 to 29.
iii. A short Persian Manuscript on Physiognomies, pp. 1 to 8.
The last consists of a preface and ten chapters. “These leaves,” we are told, “are the compendium of a treatise written by the Ema’n Fakhr-al-din Al-Ra’zy–may God overwhelm him with forgiveness– on the Science of Physiognomies.” We are told how the abode influences character; when the character of a man corresponds with that of a beast; that “the index of the dominant passion is the face;” that “the male is among all animals stronger and more perfect than the female,” and so on.
A short quotation must suffice:
“When does the character of a man correspond to that of a beast?”
“If a man has a long face, protuberant eyes, and the tip of his nose long, drawn out like the snout of a dog, because as we have explained above, external appearances and internal qualities are closely connected with each other, so that if a man happens to resemble some animal he will possess the nature of it also.”
3. Translations from the Persian and Arabic, by the late E. Rehatsek.
Persian.
i. Short anecdotes, stories and fables picked out and translated from the Nuzhat al Yaman, pp. 1 to 7.
ii. The Merzuban Namah, from which animal fables have been translated, pp. 7 to 21.
Arabic.
i. Selected historical and other extracts from the celebrated Arabic work, Al Moustairaf, pp. 1 to 5.
ii. Some extracts from the well-known Siraj-ul-moluk, pp. 5 to 7. iii. Twenty-five chapters of Extracts from the Arabic Tuhfat ekhoan us safa, under the title of “Discussion between man and animals before the King of the Jinns,” pp. 7 to 33.
4. Biography of our Lord Muhammed, Apostle of Allah (Benediction of Allah and peace be on him).
According to the tradition of A’bdu-l-Malik Ebn Hasham, obtained from Muhammed Ebn Esahag. Translated from the Arabic by Edward Rehatsek. Preface by F. F. Arbuthnot.
There is some account of this work in F. F. Arbuthnot’s Arabic Authors, pp. 52 and 53.
Appendix X
W. F. Kirby
William Forsell Kirby, F.L.S., F.E.S., is the son of Samuel Kirby, banker, and his wife Lydia, nee Forsell; nephew of William Kirby, well-known in connection with the London Orphan Asylum; and cousin to the popular authoresses, Mary and Elizabeth Kirby. Born at Leicester, 14th January 1844. He was assistant in the museum of Royal Dublin Society (later National Museum of Science and Art) from 1867 to 1879, and later was transferred to the Zoological Department of the British Museum. He is member of several learned societies, and has written a large number of Entomological Works. He has made a special study of the European editions of the Arabian Nights and its imitations, and has a very fine collection of books relating to this subject. To his contributions to Sir Richard Burton’s translation we have already alluded. He has also written Ed-Dimiryaht and other poems (1867); The New Arabian Nights (1883); and The Hero of Esthonia (1905); and his translation of the Kalevala is in the press. Mr. Kirby married in 1866, Johanna Maria Kappel, who died in 1893, leaving one son, William E. Kirby, M.D.
Appendix 11
Genealogical Table. The Burtons of Shap
{Unable to reproduce the table.}
Footnotes:
[FN#1] The few anecdotes that Lady Burton does give are taken from the books of Alfred B. Richards and others.
[FN#2] Lady Burton to Mrs. E. J. Burton, 23rd March 1891. See Chapter xxxix.
[FN#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.
[FN#4] Mrs. Van Zeller had, in the first instance, been written to, in my behalf, by Mrs. E. J. Burton.
[FN#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.
[FN#6] See Chapter xvii.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#9] Between Payne and Burton on the one side and the adherents of E. W. Lane on the other.
[FN#10] At the very outside, as before stated, only about a quarter of it can by any stretch of the imagination be called his.
[FN#11] Burton’s work on this subject will be remembered.
[FN#12] 31st July 1905.
[FN#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.
[FN#14] Thus she calls Burton’s friend Da Cunha, Da Gama, and gives Arbuthnot wrong initials.
[FN#15] I mean in a particular respect, and upon this all his friends are agreed. But no man could have had a warmer heart.
[FN#16] Particularly pretty is the incident of the families crossing the Alps, when the children get snow instead of sugar.
[FN#17] Particularly Unexplored Syria and his books on Midian.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#23] Conclusion of The Beharistan.
[FN#24] They came from Shap.
[FN#25] Thus there was a Bishop Burton of Killala and an Admira Ryder Burton. See Genealogical Tree in the Appendix.
[FN#26] Mrs. Burton made a brave attempt in 1875, but could never fill the gap between 1712 and 1750.
[FN#27] Now the residence of Mr. Andrew Chatto, the publisher.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#30] The clergyman was David Felix.
[FN#31] Weare’s grave is unmemorialled, so the spot is known only in so far as the group in the picture indicates it.
[FN#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.
[FN#33] For a time Antommarchi falsely bore the credit of it.
[FN#34] Maria, 18th March 1823; Edward, 31st August 1824.
[FN#35] Beneath is an inscription to his widow, Sarah Baker, who died 6th March, 1846, aged 74 years.
[FN#36] Her last subscription to the school was in 1825. In 1840 she lived in Cumberland Place, London.
[FN#37] The original is now in the possession of Mrs. Agg, of Cheltenham.
[FN#38] Wanderings in West Africa, ii. P. 143.
[FN#39] Life, i. 29.
[FN#40] Goldsmith’s Traveller, lines 73 and 74.
[FN#41] Life, i. 32.
[FN#42] It seems to have been first issued in 1801. There is a review of it in The Anti-Jacobin for that year.
[FN#43] She was thrown from her carriage, 7th August 1877, and died in St. George’s Hospital.
[FN#44] Life, by Lady Burton, i. 67.
[FN#45] Dr. Greenhill (1814-1894), physician and author of many books.
[FN#46] Vikram and the Vampire, Seventh Story, about the pedants who resurrected the tiger.
[FN#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.
[FN#48] City of the Saints, P. 513.
[FN#49] Short died 31st May 1879, aged 90.
[FN#50] In Thomas Morton’s Play Speed the Plough, first acted in 1800.
[FN#51] Grocers.
[FN#52] Life, i. 81.
[FN#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.
[FN#54] He died 17th November 1842, aged 65.
[FN#55] Robert Montgomery 1807-1855.
[FN#56] “My reading also ran into bad courses–Erpenius, Zadkiel, Falconry, Cornelius Agrippa”–Burton’s Autobiographical Fragment.
[FN#57] Sarah Baker (Mrs. Francis Burton), Georgiana Baker (Mrs. Bagshaw).
[FN#58] Sind Revisited. Vol. ii. pp. 78-83.
[FN#59] 5th May 1843. He was first of twelve.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.”
[FN#64] Now it is a town of 80,000 inhabitants.
[FN#65] Sind Revisited, i. 100.
[FN#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.
[FN#67] Mirza=Master. Burton met Ali Akhbar again in 1876. See chapter xviii., 84.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#71] Married in 1845.
[FN#72] She died 6th March 1846, aged 74.
[FN#73] He died 5th October 1858. See Sind Revisited, ii. 261.
[FN#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.
[FN#75] The Arabian Nights.
[FN#76] Who was broken on the wheel by Lord Byron for dressing Camoens in “a suit of lace.” See English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.
[FN#77] Begun at Goa 1847, resumed at Fernando Po 1860-64, continued in Brazil and at Trieste. Finished at Cairo 1880.
[FN#78] Napier was again in India in 1849. In 1851 he returned to England, where he died 29th August 1853, aged 71.
[FN#79] Life of Sir Charles Napier, by Sir W. Napier.
[FN#80] The Beharistan, 1st Garden.
[FN#81] She married Col. T. Pryce Harrison. Her daughter is Mrs. Agg, of Cheltenham.
[FN#82] She died 10th September 1848, and is buried at Elstree.
[FN#83] Elisa married Colonel T. E. H. Pryce.
[FN#84] That is from Italy, where his parents were living.
[FN#85] Sir Henry Stisted, who in 1845 married Burton’s sister.
[FN#86] India, some 70 miles from Goa.
[FN#87] His brother.
[FN#88] The Ceylonese Rebellion of 1848.
[FN#89] See Chapter iii., 11.
[FN#90] See Arabian Nights, Terminal Essay D, and The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, vol. ii., p. 730.
[FN#91] His Grandmother Baker had died in 1846.
[FN#92] The Pains of Sleep.
[FN#93] Byron: Childe Harold, iv. 56.
[FN#94] Ariosto’s Orlando was published in 1516; The Lusiads appeared in 1572.
[FN#95] Temple Bar, vol. xcii., p. 335.
[FN#96] As did that of the beauty in The Baital-Pachisi–Vikram and the Vampire. Meml. Ed., p. 228.
[FN#97] Tale of Abu-el-Husn and his slave girl, Tawaddud.–The Arabian Nights.
[FN#98] Life, i., 167.
[FN#99] She became Mrs. Segrave.
[FN#100] See Burton’s Stone Talk, 1865. Probably not “Louise” at all, the name being used to suit the rhyme.
[FN#101] Mrs. Burton was always very severe on her own sex.
[FN#102] See Stone Talk.
[FN#103] See Chapter x.
[FN#104] The original, which belonged to Miss Stisted, is now in the possession of Mr. Mostyn Pryce, of Gunley Hall.
[FN#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.
[FN#106] Preface to Persian Portraits.
[FN#107] Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah, Memorial Ed., vol. i., p. 16.
[FN#108] Burton dedicated to Mr. John Larking the 7th volume of The Arabian Nights.
[FN#109] Haji Wali in 1877 accompanied Burton to Midian. He died 3rd August 1883, aged 84. See Chapter xx.
[FN#110] He died at Cairo, 15th October 1817.
[FN#111] That is, in the direction of Mecca.
[FN#112] Pilgrimage, Memorial Ed., i., 116.
[FN#113] See Preface to The Kasidah, Edition published in 1894.
[FN#114] Pilgrimage, Memorial Ed., i., 165.
[FN#115] A chieftain celebrated for his generosity. There are several stories about him in The Arabian Nights.
[FN#116] An incrementative of Fatimah.
[FN#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.
[FN#118] Pilgrimage to Meccah, Memorial Ed., i., 193.
[FN#119] A creation of the poet Al-Asma’i. He is mentioned in The Arabian Nights.
[FN#120] How this tradition arose nobody seems to know. There are several theories.
[FN#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.”
[FN#122] Pilgrimage to Meccah (Mem. Ed., i., 418).
[FN#123] Mohammed’s son-in-law.
[FN#124] Mohammed’s wet nurse.
[FN#125] Son of Mohammed and the Coptic girl Mariyah, sent to Mohammed as a present by Jarih, the Governor of Alexandria.
[FN#126] Khadijah, the first wife, lies at Mecca.
[FN#127] Known to us chiefly through Dr. Carlyle’s poor translation. See Pilgrimage, ii., 147.
[FN#128] Here am I.
[FN#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.”
[FN#130] See Genesis xxi., 15.
[FN#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.”
[FN#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.
[FN#133] Burton’s A.N., v., 294; Lib. Ed., iv., 242.
[FN#134] See Chapter ix.
[FN#135] Sporting Truth.
[FN#136] The reader may believe as much of this story as he likes.
[FN#137] The man was said to have been killed in cold blood simply to silence a wagging tongue.
[FN#138] See Shakespeare’s King John, act i., scene i.
[FN#139] Burton’s translation of the Lusiads, vol. ii., p. 425.
[FN#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.
[FN#141] To some of the beauties of The Arabian Nights we shall draw attention in Chapter 27.
[FN#142] Of course both Payne and Burton subsequently translated the whole.
[FN#143] First Footsteps in East Africa. (The Harar Book.) Memorial Ed., p. 26.
[FN#144] Esther, vi., 1.
[FN#145] Boulac is the port of Cairo. See Chapter xi..
[FN#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.
[FN#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.
[FN#148] Every student, however, must be grateful to Lane for his voluminous and valuable notes.
[FN#149] Lady Burton states incorrectly that the compact was made in the “winter of 1852,” but Burton was then in Europe.
[FN#150] My authorities are Mr. John Payne, Mr. Watts-Dunton and Burton’s letters. See Chapter 22, 104, and Chapter 23, 107.
[FN#151] It was prophesied that at the end of time the Moslem priesthood would be terribly corrupt.
[FN#152] Later he was thoroughly convinced of the soundness of this theory. See Chapters xxii. to xxx.
[FN#153] In the Koran.
[FN#154] Burton’s A.N., ii. 323; Lib. Ed., ii., p. 215.
[FN#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.
[FN#156] To face it out.
[FN#157] First Footsteps in East Africa, i., 196.
[FN#158] First Footsteps in East Africa, ii., 31.
[FN#159] The legend of Moga is similar to that of Birnam Wood’s March, used by Shakespeare in Macbeth.
[FN#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.”
[FN#161] Afterwards Lord Strangford. The correspondence on this subject was lent me by Mr. Mostyn Pryce, who received it from Miss Stisted.
[FN#162] The Traveller.
[FN#163] Burton’s Camoens, ii., 445.
[FN#164] The marriage did not take place till 22nd January 1861. See Chapter x.
[FN#165] This is now in the public library at Camberwell.
[FN#166] In England men are slaves to a grinding despotism of conventionalities. Pilgrimage to Meccah, ii., 86.
[FN#167] Unpublished letter to Miss Stisted, 23rd May 1896.
[FN#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.
[FN#169] These little bags were found in his pocket after his death. See Chapter xxxviii.
[FN#170] This story nowhere appears in Burton’s books. I had it from Mr. W. F. Kirby, to whom Burton told it.
[FN#171] The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1860.
[FN#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?”
[FN#173] The ruler, like the country, is called Kazembe.
[FN#174] Dr. Lacerda died at Lunda 18th October 1798. Burton’s translation, The Lands of the Cazembe, etc., appeared in 1873.
[FN#175] The Beharistan. 1st Garden.
[FN#176] J. A. Grant, born 1827, died 10th February, 1892.
[FN#177] The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton, i., 149.
[FN#178] He is, of course, simply endorsing the statement of Hippocrates: De Genitura: “Women, if married, are more healthy, if not, less so.”
[FN#179] The anecdotes in this chapter were told me by one of Burton’s friends. They are not in his books.
[FN#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.
[FN#181] Life, i., 345.
[FN#182] 1861.
[FN#183] Vambery’s work, The Story of my Struggles, appeared in October 1904.
[FN#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.
[FN#185] Life of Lord Houghton, ii., 300.
[FN#186] Lord Russell was Foreign Secretary from 1859-1865.
[FN#187] Wanderings in West Africa, 2 vols., 1863.
[FN#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.
[FN#189] Wanderings in West Africa, vol. ii., p. 283.
[FN#190] See Mission to Gelele, ii., 126.
[FN#191] Although the anecdote appears in his Abeokuta it seems to belong to this visit.
[FN#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.
[FN#193] See Chapter xxii.
[FN#194] Lander died at Fernando Po, 16th February 1834.
[FN#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).