The Burtons remained in London until after the publication of Mrs. Burton's book "A.E.I.," 318 and then Burton set out alone on a tour through Germany. Mrs. Burton, who was to meet him at Trieste, left London 27th April; and then followed a chapter of accidents. First she fell with influenza, and next, at Paris, when descending the stairs, which had been waxed, she "took one header from the top to the bottom," and so damaged herself that she had to be removed in a coupe lit. 319 She reached Trieste after "an agonizing sixty hours" and was seriously ill for several weeks. All the while, Burton, whose purse, like that of one of his favourite poets, Catullus, was "full of cobwebs," had been turning his thoughts to Midian again. He still asseverated that it was a land of gold, and he believed that if he could get to Egypt the rest would be easy. Says Mrs. Burton, writing to Miss Stisted, 12th December 1879: "Darling Dick started on Friday 5th, a week ago, in high spirits. My position is singular, no child, no relative, and all new servants." She then speaks of her Christmas book, which had just gone to the publishers. She says, "It is for boys from 12 to 16, culled from ten volumes: Dick's three books on Sind, his Goa, Falconry, Vikram, Bayonet and Sword Exercise, and my A.E.I." and she was in hopes it would revive her husband's earliest works, which by that time were forgotten. The fate of this work was a melancholy one, for the publisher to whom the manuscript was entrusted went bankrupt, and no more was every heard of it. 320 Burton's hope that he would be able to lead another expedition to Midian was not realised. Ismail was no longer Khedive, and Tewfik, his successor, who regarded the idea as chimerical, declined to be bound by any promise of his father's. His Excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha 321 and others of Burton's Egyptian friends expressed sympathy and tried to expedite matters, but nothing could be done. To make matters worse, Burton when passing through Alexandria was attacked by thieves, who hit him on the head from behind. He defended himself stoutly, and got away, covered however, with bruises and blood.
60. Camoens, 6 vols. 1 and 2, the Lusiads. 1880. 3 and 4, Life of Camoens and Commentary. 1882. 5 and 6, The Lyrics. 1884. 61. The Kasidah. 1880. 62. Visit to Lissa and Pelagoza. 1880. 63. A Glance at the Passion Play. 1881. 64. How to deal with the Slave Trade in Egypt. 1881. 65. Thermae of Montfalcone. 1881.
Burton had brought with him to Egypt his translation of The Lusiads, which had been commenced as early as 1847, and at which, as we have seen, he had, from that time onward, intermittently laboured. At Cairo he gave his work the finishing touches, and on his return to Trieste in May it was ready for the press. There have been many English translators of Camoens, from Fanshawe, the first, to Burton and Aubertin; and Burton likens them to the Simoniacal Popes in Dante's Malebolge-pit—each one struggling to trample down his elder brother. 322 Burton's work, which appeared in 1882, was presently followed by two other volumes consisting of a Life of Camoens and a Commentary on The Lusiads, but his version of The Lyrics did not appear till 1884.
Regarded as a faithful rendering, the book was a success, for Burton had drunk The Lusiads till he was super-saturated with it. Alone among the translators, he had visited every spot alluded to in the poem, and his geographical and other studies had enabled him to elucidate many passages that had baffled his predecessors. Then, too, he had the assistance of Aubertin, Da Cunha and other able Portuguese scholars and Camoens enthusiasts. Regarded, however, as poetry, the book was a failure, and for the simple reason that Burton was not a poet. Like his Kasidah, it contains noble lines, but on every page we are reminded of the translator's defective ear, annoyed by the unnecessary use of obsolete words, and disappointed by his lack of what Poe called "ethericity." The following stanza, which expresses ideas that Burton heartily endorsed, may be regarded as a fair sample of the whole:
The first six lines contain nothing remarkable, still, they are workmanlike and pleasant to read; but the two concluding lines are atrocious, and almost every stanza has similar blemishes. A little more labour, even without much poetic skill, could easily have produced a better result. But Burton was a Hannibal, not a Phormion, and no man can be both. He is happiest, perhaps, in the stanzas containing the legend of St. Thomas, 324 or Thome, as he calls him,
According to Camoens, while Thorme was preaching to the potent Hindu city Meleapor, in Narsinga land 325 a huge forest tree floated down the Ganges, but all the king's elephants and all the king's men were incompetent to haul it ashore.
This excites the jealousy and hatred of the Brahmins, for
The chief Brahmin then kills his own son, and tries to saddle the crime on Thome, who promptly restores the dead youth to life again and "names the father as the man who slew." Ultimately, Thome, who is unable to circumvent the further machinations of his enemies, is pierced to the heart by a spear; and the apostle in glory is thus apostrophised:
In a stanza presented as a footnote and described as "not in Camoens," Burton gives vent to his own disappointments, and expends a sigh for the fate of his old friend and enemy, John Hanning Speke. As regards himself, had he not, despite his services to his country, been relegated to a third-rate seaport, where his twenty-nine languages were quite useless, except for fulminating against the government! The fate of poor Speke had been still more lamentable:
Burton, however, still nursed the fallacious hope that his merits would in time be recognised, that perhaps he would be re-instated in Damascus or appointed to Ispahan or Constantinople.
In August (1880) the Burtons paid a visit to Ober Ammergau, which was just then attracting all eyes on account of its Passion Play. Burton's object in going was "the wish to compare, haply to trace some affinity between, this survival of the Christian 'Mystery' and the living scenes of El Islam at Mecca," while Mrs. Burton's object may be gauged by the following prayer which she wrote previous to their departure from Trieste: "O Sweet Jesu... Grant that I, all unworthy though I be, may so witness this holy memorial of thy sacrificial love, Thy glorious victory over death and hell, that I may be drawn nearer to Thee and hold Thee in everlasting remembrance. Let the representation of Thy bitter sufferings on the cross renew my love for Thee, strengthen my faith, and ennoble my life, and not mine only, but all who witness it." Then follows a prayer for the players.
Burton found no affinity between the scenes at Ober Ammergau and those at Mecca, and he was glad to get away from "a pandemonium of noise and confusion," while Mrs. Burton, who was told to mind her own business by a carter with whom she remonstrated for cruelly treating a horse, discovered that even Ober Ammergau was not all holiness. Both Burton and his wife recorded their impressions in print, but though his volume 326 appeared in 1881, hers 327 was not published till 1900.
The following letter from Mrs. Burton to Miss Stisted, who had just written a novel, A Fireside King, 328 gives welcome glimpses of the Burtons and touches on matters that are interesting in the light of subsequent events. "My dearest Georgie, On leaving you I came on to Trieste, arriving 29th May, and found Dick just attacked by a virulent gout. We went up to the mountains directly without waiting even to unpack my things or rest, and as thirty-one days did not relieve him, I took him to Monfalcone for mud baths, where we passed three weeks, and that did him good. We then returned home to change our baggage and start for Ober Ammergau, which I thought glorious, so impressive, simple, natural. Dick rather criticises it. However, we are back.... I read your book through on the journey to England. Of course I recognised your father, Minnie, 329 and many others, but you should never let your heroine die so miserably, because the reader goes away with a void in his heart, and you must never put all your repugnances in the first volume, for you choke off your reader.... You don't mind my telling the truth, do you, because I hope you will write another, and if you like you may stand in the first class of novelists and make money and do good too, but put your beasts a little further in towards the end of the first volume. I read all the reviews that fell in my way, but though some were spiteful that need not discourage... Believe me, dearest G., your affectionate Zookins."
Miss Stisted's novel was her first and last, but she did write another book some considerable time later, which, however, would not have won Mrs. Burton's approval. 330
This year, Burton, emulous of fame as an original poet, published The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, A Lay of the Higher Law, which treats of the great questions of Life, Death and Immortality, and has certain resemblances to that brilliant poem which is the actual father of it, Edward FitzGerald's rendering of The Rubaiyat of Oman Khayyam. Lady Burton tells us that The Kasidah was written about 1853, or six years before the appearance of FitzGerald's poem. Nothing, however, is more certain than that, with the exception of a few verses, it was written after FitzGerald's poem. The veriest tyro in literature, by comparing the two productions, would easily understand their relationship. 331 The facts are these. About 1853, Burton, in a time of dejection, caused by the injustice done him in India, planned a poem of this nature, wrote a few stanzas, and then put it by and forgot all about it. FitzGerald's version of Omar Khayyam appeared in 1859, and Burton no sooner read than he burned to rival it. So he drew from the pigeon-hole what he called his Lay, furbished up the few old verses, made a number of new ones, reconstructed the whole, and lo, The Kasidah! Burton calls it a translation of a poem by a certain Haji Abdu. There may have been a Haji Abdu who supplied thoughts, and even verses, but the production is really a collection of ideas gathered from all quarters. Confucius, Longfellow, Plato, the FitzGeraldian Oman Khayyam, Aristotle, Pope, Das Kabir and the Pulambal are drawn upon; the world is placed under tribute from Pekin to the Salt Lake City. A more careless "borrower" to use Emerson's expression, never lifted poetry. Some of his lines are transferred bodily, and without acknowledgment, from Hafiz; 332 and, no doubt, if anybody were to take the trouble to investigate, it would be found that many other lines are not original. It is really not very much to anyone's credit to play the John Ferriar to so careless a Sterne. He doesn't steal the material for his brooms, he steals the brooms ready-made. Later, as we shall see, he "borrowed" with a ruthlessness that was surpassed only by Alexandre Dumas. Let us say, then, that The Kasidah is tesselated work done in Burton's usual way, and not very coherently, with a liberal sprinkling of obsolete works. At first it positively swarmed with them, but subsequently, by the advice of a friend, a considerable number such as "wox" and "pight" was removed. If the marquetry of The Kasidah compares but feebly with the compendious splendours of FitzGerald's quatrains; and if the poem 333 has undoubted wastes of sand, nevertheless, the diligent may here and there pick up amber. But it is only fair to bear in mind that the Lay is less a poem than an enchiridion, a sort of Emersonian guide to the conduct of life rather than an exquisitely-presented summary of the thoughts of an Eastern pessimist. FitzGerald's poem is an unbroken lament. Burton, a more robust soul than the Woodbridge eremite, also has his misgivings. He passes in review the great religious teachers, and systems and comes to the conclusion that men make gods and Gods after their own likeness and that conscience is a geographical accident; but if, like FitzGerald, he is puzzled when he ponders the great questions of life and afterlife, he finds comfort in the fact that probity and charity are their own reward, that we have no need to be anxious about the future, seeing that, in the words of Pope, "He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." He insists that self-cultivation, with due regard for others, is the sole and sufficient object of human life, and he regards the affections and the "divine gift of Pity" as man's highest enjoyments. As in FitzGerald's poem there is talk of the False Dawn or Wolf's Tail, "Thee and Me," Pot and Potter, and here and there are couplets which are simply FitzGerald's quatrains paraphrased 334—as, for example, the one in which Heaven and Hell are declared to be mere tools of "the Wily Fetisheer." 335 Like Omar Khayyam, Haji Abdu loses patience with the "dizzied faiths" and their disputatious exponents; like Omar Khayyam too, Haji Abdu is not averse from Jamshid's bowl, but he is far less vinous than the old Persian.
Two of the couplets flash with auroral splendour, and of all the vast amount of metrical work that Burton accomplished, these are the only lines that can be pronounced imperishable. Once only—and only momentarily—did the seraph of the sanctuary touch his lips with the live coal.
and
We are also bidden to be noble, genuine and charitable.
"To seek the true, to glad the heart, such is of life the Higher Law."
Neglecting the four really brilliant lines, the principal attraction of The Kasidah is its redolence of the saffron, immeasurable desert. We snuff at every turn its invigorating air; and the tinkle of the camel's bell is its sole and perpetual music.
At first Burton made some attempt to create the impression that there was actually a Haji Abdu, and that the verses were merely a translation. Indeed, he quotes him, at the end of his Supplemental Nights, vol. ii., and elsewhere, as an independent author. Later, however, the mask which deceived nobody was removed. Not only was The Kasidah written in emulation of FitzGerald's Omar, but Burton made no secret that such was the case. To further this end Mr. Schutz Wilson, who had done so much for the Rubaiyat, was approached by one of Burton's friends; and the following letter written to Burton after the interview will be read with some amusement. "Dear Richard," it runs, "'Wox' made me shudder! If you give more specimens do be good and be sparing of the 'pights,' 'ceres' and 'woxes.' I showed the Lay to Schutz Wilson. He seemed absorbed in the idea of Omar, and said 'Oh! I am the cause of its going through five editions.' I told him this was even more striking than Omar, but he didn't seem able to take in the new idea! When you want people's minds they are always thinking of something else." 336 Although the critics as a body fell foul of The Kasidah, still there were not wanting appreciators, and its four great lines have often been quoted.
By this time Mrs. Burton had provided herself with another Chico. Chico the Third (or Chica the Second) was a tall and lank, but well-built Italian girl, daughter of a baron. Lisa had Khamoor's ungovernable temper, but to the Burtons she at first exhibited the faithfulness of a dog. Her father lived formerly at Verona, but in the war of 1866, having sided with Austria, 337 he fell upon evil days; and retired to Trieste on a trifling pension. Mrs. Burton and Lisa had not been long acquainted before Lisa became a member of the Burton household as a kind of lady's maid, although she retained her title of Baroness, and Mrs. Burton at once set about Anglicising her new friend, though her attempt, as in Khamoor's case, was only partially successful. For instance, Lisa, would never wear a hat, "for fear of losing caste." She was willing, however, to hang out her stocking on Christmas eve; and on finding it full next morning said, "Oh, I like this game. Shall we play it every night!" Just however, as a petted Khamoor had made a spoilt Khamoor; so a petted Lisa very soon made a spoilt Lisa.
With Mrs. Burton, her Jane Digbys, her Chicos, and her servants, Burton rarely interfered, and when he did interfere, it was only to make matters worse; for his judgment was weaker even than hers. On one occasion, however, he took upon himself to dismiss the cook and to introduce another of his own finding. On being requested to prepare the dinner the new acquisition set about it by drinking two bottles of wine, knocking down the housemaid, and beating the kitchenmaid with the saucepan. Burton, who flew to their rescue, thought he must be in Somali-land once more.
Burton had for several years been acquainted with the African traveller V. Lovett Cameron, 338 and in August 1881 they met accidentally at Venice. A geographical conference was being held in the city and representatives from all nations were assembled; but, naturally, the first geographer of the day, Captain Burton, was not invited either to speak or even to be present. On the morning of the conference, Burton, Mrs. Burton and Cameron gave themselves the treat of going over to the Lido for bathing and breakfast; and being in puckish mood, the two men, notwithstanding the great crowd of pleasure seekers, took off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trousers, and made sand castles. "Look, nurse," bawled Burton to his wife, "see what Cammy and I have done!" "If you please, nursey," whined Cameron, "Dick's snatched away my spade." At that moment Lord Aberdeen, President of the Royal Geographical Society, and a party of grave antiquaries and geographers, mostly run to nose, spectacles, and forehead, arrived on the scene; with the result of infinite laughter, in which Burton and Cameron joined heartily; and henceforward Mrs. Burton answered to no name but "Nursey." Burton, however, was justly indignant on account of his not having been invited to the conference, and his revenge took the shape of a pungent squib which he wrote on his card and left in the Congress Room. Next day, while Burton and Cameron were strolling in front of St. Mark's, a Portuguese gentleman came up and saluted them. To Burton's delight it was his old friend Da Cunha, the Camoens enthusiast; and then ensued a long argument, conducted in Portuguese, concerning Burton's rendering of one of Camoens' sonnets, Burton in the end convincing his friend of its correctness. Having parted from Da Cunha, they ran against an Egyptian officer who had just visited Mecca and brought back a series of photographs. The conversation this time was conducted in Arabic, and Burton explained to the Egyptian the meaning of much of the ritual of the pilgrimage. "As a cicerone," says Cameron, "Burton was invaluable. His inexhaustible stock of historical and legendary lore furnished him with something to relate about even the meanest and commonest buildings." 339 There were trips about the green canals in a long black gondola on the day and night of the regatta, when the Grand Canal and St. Mark's were illuminated, all of which Burton enjoyed thoroughly, for round him had gathered the elite of Venice, and his brilliant personality, as usual, dazzled and dominated all who listened to him.
We now come to that absorbing period of Burton's life which is connected principally with The Arabian Nights. Amazing as the statement may seem, we feel ourselves compelled to say at once, though regretfully, that Burton's own account of the history of the translation, given in his Translator's Foreword to the Arabian Nights, and Lady Burton's account, given in her life of her husband, do not tally with the facts as revealed in his letters. In matters relating to his own history Burton often spoke with amazing recklessness, 340 and perhaps he considered he was justified in stating that his translation of The Arabian Nights was well advanced by November 1881, seeing that it had for thirty years intermittently occupied his thoughts. As regards Lady Burton, no doubt, of some of the facts presently to be given, she was unaware. But she was one who easily deceived herself. Whatever she wished, she was apt to believe. The actual facts compiled from existing documentary evidence—including Burton's own letters—will now be revealed for the first time; and it will be found, as is generally the case, that the unembroidered truth is more interesting than the romance. The story is strangely paralleled by that of the writing of The Kasidah; or in other words it recalls traits that were eminently characteristic of Burton. As early as 1854, as we have seen, Burton and Steinhauser had planned a translation of The Arabian Nights, Steinhauser was to furnish the prose, Burton the poetry. They corresponded on the subject, but made only trifling progress. Steinhauser died in 1866, his manuscripts were scattered, and Burton never heard of them again. Absolutely nothing more was done, for Burton was occupied with other matters—travelling all over the world and writing piles of voluminous books on other subjects. Still, he had hoards of Eastern manuscripts, and notes of his own on Eastern manners and customs, which had for years been accumulating and an even greater mass of curious information had been stored in his brain. Again and again he had promised himself to proceed, but something every time hindered.
In November 1881, Burton, who was then at Trieste, noticed a paragraph in The Athenaeum 341 to the effect that Mr. John Payne, the well-known author of The Masque of Shadows and of a famous rendering of The Poems of Francois Villon, was about to issue a Translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and one Nights. Burton, who was an enthusiastic admirer of the Villon and who, moreover, had not relinquished his own scheme, though it had lain so long quiescent, wrote at once to The Athenaeum a letter which appeared on 26th November 1881. He said: "Many years ago, in collaboration with my old and lamented friend, Dr. F. Steinhauser, of the Bombay Army, I began to translate the whole 342 of The Thousand Nights and a Night. The book, mutilated in Europe to a collection of fairy tales, and miscalled the Arabian Nights, is unique as a study of anthropology. It is a marvellous picture of Oriental life; its shiftings are those of the kaleidoscope. Its alternation of pathos and bathos—of the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) with the baldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day) and finally, its contrast of the highest and purest morality with the orgies of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter, take away the reader's breath. I determined to render every word with the literalism of Urquhart's Rabelais, and to save the publisher trouble by printing my translation at Brussels.
"Not non omnia possumus. Although a host of friends has been eager to subscribe, my work is still unfinished, nor could it be finished without a year's hard labour. I rejoice, therefore, to see that Mr. John Payne, under the Villon Society, has addressed himself to a realistic translation without 'abridgments or suppressions.' I have only to wish him success, and to express a hope that he is resolved verbum reddere verbo, without deference to any prejudice which would prevent his being perfectly truthful to the original. I want to see that the book has fair play; and if it is not treated as it deserves, I shall still have to print my own version. 343 'Villon,' however, makes me hope for the best."
In this letter Burton oddly enough speaks of his own work as "still unfinished." This was quite true, seeing that it was not even begun, unless two or three pages which he once showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton, 344 and the pigeon-holing of notes be regarded as a commencement. Still, the announcement of Mr. Payne's edition—the first volume of which was actually in the press—must have caused him a pang; and the sincere good wishes for his rival's success testify to the nobility, unselfishness and magnanimity of his character.
Mr. Payne, supposing from his letter that Burton had made considerable progress with his translation, wrote on November 28th to Burton, and, using the words Tantus labor non sit cassus, suggested collaboration. Thus commenced one of the most interesting friendships in the annals of literature. Before relating the story, however, it will be helpful to set down some particulars of the career of Mr. Payne. John Payne was born in 1842 of a Devonshire family, descended from that breezy old sea-dog, Sir John Hawkins. Mr. Payne, indeed, resembles Hawkins in appearance. He is an Elizabethan transferred bodily into the 19th and 20th centuries, his ruff lost in transit. Yet he not infrequently has a ruff even—a live one, for it is no uncommon event to see his favourite Angora leap on to his shoulders and coil himself half round his master's neck, looking not unlike a lady's boa—and its name, Parthenopaeus, is long enough even for that. For years Mr. Payne followed the law, and with success, but his heart was with the Muses and the odorous East. From a boy he had loved and studied the old English, Scotch and Welsh writers, with the result that all his productions have a mediaeval aroma. The Faerie Queene, Chaucer and his successors—the Scottish poets of the 15th and 16th Centuries, The Morte d'Arthur, the authorised version of the Bible and North's Plutarch have always lain at his elbow. Then, too, with Dante, Shakespeare and Heine's poems he is supersaturated; but the authorised version of the Bible has had more influence on him than any other book, and he has so loved and studied it from boyhood that he had assimilated its processes and learned the secrets of the interior mechanism of its style. It is not surprising that his first publication should have been a book of poetry. The merits of The Masque of Shadows and other Poems were acknowledged on all sides. It was seen that the art of ballad writing—which Goethe calls the most difficult of arts—was not, as some averred, a forgotten one. The Masque of Shadows itself is melodious and vivid from the first line to the end, but the captain jewel is the necromantic and thrilling Rime of Redemption—the story of a woman who erred and of a man who prayed and wrestled with God in prayer for her, and ultimately wrung her salvation by self-sacrifice from Divine Justice. Here and there are passages that we could have wished modified, but surely such a terrific fantasy was never before penned! It is as harrowing as The Ancient Mariner, and appeals to one more forcibly than Coleridge's "Rime," because it seems actual truth. Other volumes, containing impassioned ballads, lyrics, narrative poems and sonnets, came from Mr. Payne's pen. His poems have the rush and bound of a Scotch waterfall. This is explained by the fact that they are written in moments of physical and mental exaltation. Only a mind in a quasi-delirious state, to be likened to that of the pythoness on the tripod, could have evolved the Rime of Redemption 345 or Thorgerda 346. No subject comes amiss to him. His chemic power turns everything to gold. "He sees everything," as Mr. Watts-Dunton once said to the writer—"through the gauze of poetry." His love for beautiful words and phrases leads him to express his thoughts in the choicest language. He puts his costliest wine in myrrhine vases; he builds his temple with the lordliest cedars. Mr. Payne does not write for the multitude, but few poets of the day have a more devoted band of admirers. Some readers will express a preference for The Building of the Dream, 347 others for Lautrec 348 or Salvestra 349, and others for the dazzling and mellifluous Prelude to Hafiz. Mr. A. C. Swinburne eulogised the "exquisite and clear cut Intaglios." 350 D. G. Rossetti revelled in the Sonnets; Theodore de Banville, "roi des rimes," in the Songs of Life and Death, whose beauties blend like the tints in jewels. 351
Mr. Payne first took up the work of a translator in 1878, his earliest achievement in the new province being his admirable rendering of Villon, in which he gives the music of the thief poet, and all his humour, and this reminds us that Mr. Payne, unlike most poets, is a skilled musician. Of his life, indeed, music, in its most advanced and audacious manifestations had always been as much an essential a part as literature, hence the wonderful melodic effects of the more remarkable of his poems. Already an excellent Arabic scholar, he had as early as 1875 resolved upon a translation of The Arabian Nights, and he commenced the task in earnest on 5th February 1877. He worked with exhausting sedulity and expended upon it all the gifts in his power, with the result that his work has taken its places as a classic. The price was nine guineas. Imagining that the demand for so expensive a work would not be large, Mr. Payne, unfortunately, limited himself to the publication of only 500 copies. The demand exceeded 2,000, so 1,500 persons were disappointed.
It was at this moment that Mr. Payne became acquainted with Burton. Mr. Payne admired Burton as a traveller, an explorer, and a linguist, and recognised the fact that no man had a more intimate knowledge of the manners and customs of the East; and Burton on his part paid high tribute to Mr. Payne's gifts as a translator and a poet. 352
When Mr. Payne's letter reached Trieste, Burton had just started off, with Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, on an expedition to the Gold Coast. In his Fernando Po period he had, as we have seen, been deeply interested in the gold digging and gold washing industries, 353 had himself, indeed, to use his own words, "discovered several gold mines on that coast." For years his mind had turned wistfully towards those regions, and at last, early in 1881, he was able to enter into an arrangement with a private speculator concerning the supposed mines. He and Cameron were to have all their expenses paid, and certain shares upon the formulation of the company. The travellers left Trieste on November 18th, being accompanied as far as Fiume by Mrs. Burton and Lisa, who on the 25th returned to Trieste; and on December 17th they reached Lisbon, whither Mr. Payne's letter followed them. Burton, who replied cordially, said "In April, at the latest, I hope to have the pleasure of shaking hands with you in London, and then we will talk over the 1,000 Nights and a Night. At present it is useless to say anything more than this—I shall be most happy to collaborate with you..... Do you know the Rev. G. Percy Badger (of the Dictionary)? If not, you should make his acquaintance, as he is familiar with the Persian and to a certain extent with the Egyptian terms of the Nights. He is very obliging and ready to assist Arabists 354..... I am an immense admirer of your Villon."
Writing to Burton early in the year Payne observed that as his first volume was in type, apparently it should at once go to press, but that he would be pleased to submit subsequent volumes to Burton. Terms were also suggested.
Burton's reply, addressed Axim, Gold Coast, and received by Mr. Payne, 20th March, 1882, runs as follows: "I received your welcome letter by the steamer of yesterday, and to-morrow morning my companion Cameron and I again proceed to the 'bush.' Of course you must go to press at once. I deeply regret it, but on arriving in England my time will be so completely taken up by the Gold Coast that I shall not have a moment's leisure. It would be a useless expense to keep up the type. Your terms about the royalty," he said, "are more than liberal. I cannot accept them, however, except for value received, and it remains to be seen what time is at my disposal. I am working out a scheme for Chinese immigration to the West African coast, and this may take me next winter to China. I can only say that I shall be most happy to render you any assistance in my power; at the same time I must warn you that I am a rolling stone. If I cannot find time you must apply in the matter of the introductory essay to the Rev. Percy Badger, Professor Robertson Smith (Glasgow) and Professor Palmer (Trinity, Cambridge). I have booked your private address and have now only to reciprocate your good wishes."
On April 18th Mrs. Burton and Lisa set out for England in order to rejoin Burton—Lisa, as usual, without any headgear—a condition of affairs which in every church they entered caused friction with the officials. When this began Mrs. Burton would explain the position; and the officials, when they came to find that nothing they could say or do make the slightest difference to Lisa, invariably expressed themselves satisfied with the explanation.
Burton and Cameron reached Liverpool on May 20th, and were able to report both "that there was plenty of gold, and that the mines could easily be worked." The expedition, however, was unproductive of all anticipated results and no profit accrued to Burton. Indeed it was Iceland and Midian over again. "I ought," he says in one of his letters to Payne, "to go down to history as the man who rediscovered one Gold Country and rehabilitated a second, and yet lost heavily by the discoveries." 355
66. Lord Beaconsfield. 67. To the Gold Coast for Gold. 2 vols. 1883. 68. Stone Implements from the Gold Coast. Burton and Cameron.
In May 1882, Burton called on Mr. Payne, and the matter of The Arabian Nights was fully discussed. It then transpired that Burton's project was still entirely in nubibus. He told Mr. Payne that he had no manuscript of any kind beyond "a sheet or two of notes," 356 and it was afterwards gathered from his words that these notes were a mere syllabus of the contents of the Boulac edition of the Nights—the only one of the four printed texts (Calcutta, Macnaghten, Boulac and Breslau) used and combined by Mr. Payne with which Burton was then acquainted. 357 Mr. Payne's first volume was completely in type and had for some weeks been held over for Burton's return to England. Of the remaining volumes three were ready for press, and the rest only awaited fair copying. Burton's thoughts, however, were then completely occupied with the Gold Coast, consequently the whole project of collaboration fell through. Mr. Payne's first volume duly appeared; and as the result of further conversations it was arranged that Burton should read Mr. Payne's subsequent proofs, though he declined to accept any remuneration unless it should turn out that his assistance was necessary. In June, Mr. Payne submitted the first proofs of Vol. ii. to Burton. Meantime the literalism of Mr. Payne's translation had created extraordinary stir, and Burton wrote thus forcefully on the matter (June 3rd): "Please send me a lot of advertisements. 358 I can place a multitude of copies. Mrs. Grundy is beginning to roar; already I hear the voice of her. And I know her to be an arrant w—— and tell her so, and don't care a ——- for her."
The event at Trieste that summer was the opening of a Grand International Exhibition—the hobby of the Governor of the town—Baron de Pretis, and Burton thus refers to it in a letter written to Mr. Payne, 5th August (1882). "We arrived here just in time for the opening of the Exhibition, August 1st. Everything went off well, but next evening an Orsini shell was thrown which killed one and wounded five, including my friend Dr. Dorn, Editor of the Triester Zeitung. The object, of course, was to injure the Exhibition, and the effect will be ruinous. I expect more to come and dare not leave my post. So while my wife goes to Marienbad, I must content myself with the Baths at Monfalcone, 359 distant only one hour by rail" In the next letter (August 14th) Burton refers to a proposed special quarto (large paper) edition of Mr. Payne's Nights, the scheme for which, however, fell through. "I am delighted with the idea," he says, "for though not a bibliophile in practice (£ s. d. preventing) I am entirely in theory." There is also an amusing reference to a clergyman who after giving his name for a copy withdrew it. Says Burton, "If the Rev. A. miss this opportunity of grace he can blame only himself. It is very sad but not to be helped.... And now good luck to the venture." Later he observes, "The fair sex appears wild to get at the Nights. 360 I have received notes from two upon the nice subject, with no end of complaints about stern parients, brothers and brothers-in-law."
In September Burton asks for the loan of Payne's copy of the Calcutta Edition (Macnaghten) and enquires after Vol. i. He says "What news of Vol. i.? I am very anxious to see it, and so are many female correspondents. I look forward with great pleasure to the work."
It was now understood that an attack was to be made on Payne's volume in the press. Says Burton, September 29th (1882). "Perhaps it will be best to let ———- 361 sing his song. ———— has no end of enemies, and I can stir up a small wasp's nest without once appearing in the matter. The best answer will be showing up a few of Lane's mistakes, but this must be done with the greatest care, so that no hole can be picked in the critique. 362 I enclose three sonnets, a specimen of my next volume of Camoens, and should much like any suggestions from you. They are line for line and mostly word for word. But that is nothing; the question is, are they readable English? They'll be printed at my own expense, so they will ruin nobody. Switzerland has set you up and don't let the solicitor's office pull you down."
On October 2nd he says: "Glad to hear of a new edition of Lane: it will draw attention to the subject. I must see what can be done with reviewers. Saturday and I are at drawn daggers, and ————of ——— is such a stiff young she-prig that I hardly know what to do about him. However, I shall begin work at once by writing and collecting the vulnerable points of the clique. ——- is a very much hated man, and there will be no difficulty." On the 8th, in reference to the opposing "clique," Burton writes: "In my own case I should encourage a row with this bete noire; but I can readily understand your having reasons for wishing to keep it quiet." Naturally, considering the tactics that were being employed against them, the Villon Society, which published Mr. Payne's works, had no wish to draw the attention of the authorities to the moral question. Indeed, of the possible action of the authorities, as instigated by the clique, the Society stood in some fear.
Burton goes on: "I shall write to-day to T——- to know how —— is best hit. T——- hates me—so do most people. Meanwhile, you must (either yourself or by proxy) get a list of Lane's laches. I regret to say my copy of his Modern Egyptians has been lost or stolen, and with it are gone the lists of his errata I had drawn up many years ago. Of course I don't know Arabic, but who does? One may know a part of it, a corner of the field, but all! Bah! Many thanks for the notes on the three sonnets [Camoens]. Most hearty thanks for the trouble you have taken. The remarks are those of a scholar and a translator."
Later, Burton sent Payne other Camoens sonnets to look over. Writing on 29th October 1882, he says, "Many thanks for the sonnet. Your version is right good, but it is yourself, not me. In such a matter each man expresses his own individuality. I shall follow your advice about the quatrains and tercets. No. 19 is one of the darkest on account of its extreme simplicity. I shall trouble you again."
The first proofs (pp. 1-144) of Vol. ii. were read by Burton in October 1882, and returned by him October 21st. In his letter to Mr. Payne of that date he says, "It will only be prudent to prepare for an attack. I am perfectly ready to justify a complete translation of the book. And if I am obliged to say what I think about Lane's Edition there will be hard hitting. Of course I wish to leave his bones in peace, but —- may make that impossible. Curious to see three editions of the 1,000 Nights advertised at the same time, not to speak of the bastard. 363 I return you nine sheets [of proofs] by parcels post registered. You have done your work very well, and my part is confined to a very small amount of scribble which you will rub out at discretion."
Subsequently Burton observed that Mr. Payne required no assistance of any kind; and therefore he re-refused to accept remuneration for reading the proofs. Naturally, they differed, as Arabists all do, upon certain points, but on all subjects save two Burton allowed that Mr. Payne's opinion was as good as his own.
The first concerned the jingles in the prose portions of the Nights, such as "The trees are growing and the waters flowing and Allah all good bestowing." Burton wanted them to be preserved, but to this Mr. Payne could not consent, and he gives the reasons in his Terminal Essay. The second exception was the treatment of the passages referring to a particular subject; and this indicates to us clearly the difference in the ideas and aims of the two men. Of artistry, of what FitzGerald calls "sinking and reducing," Burton had no notion. "If anything is in any redaction of the original, in it should go," he said. "Never mind how shocking it may be to modern and western minds. If I sin, I sin in good company—in the company of the authors of the Authorised Version of the Bible, who did not hesitate to render literatim certain passages which persons aiming simply at artistic effect would certainly have omitted."
Payne on the other hand was inclined to minimise these passages as much as possible. Though determined that his translation should be a complete one, yet he entirely omitted coarsenesses whenever he could find excuse to do so—that is to say, when they did not appear in all the texts. If no such excuse existed he clothed the idea in skilful language. 364 Nothing is omitted; but it is of course within the resources of literary art to say anything without real offence. Burton, who had no aptitude for the task; who, moreover, had other aims, constantly disagreed with Payne upon this point.
Thus, writing 12th May 1883, he says: "You are drawing it very mild. Has there been any unpleasantness about plain speaking? Poor Abu Nuwas 365 is (as it were) castrated. I should say 'Be bold or audace,' &c., only you know better than I do how far you can go and cannot go. I should simply translate every word."
"What I meant by literalism," he says, 1st October 1883, "is literally translating each noun (in the long lists which so often occur) in its turn, so that the student can use the translation."
This formed no part of Mr. Payne's scheme, in fact was directly opposed to the spirit of his work, which was to make the translation, while quite faithful to the original, a monument of noble English prose and verse.
"I hold the Nights," continues Burton, the best of class books, and when a man knows it, he can get on with Arabs everywhere. He thus comments on Payne's Vol. iv., some of the tales of which, translate them as you will, cannot be other than shocking. "Unfortunately it is these offences (which come so naturally in Greece and Persia, and which belong strictly to their fervid age) that give the book much of its ethnological value. I don't know if I ever mentioned to you a paper (unpublished) of mine showing the geographical limits of the evil. 366 I shall publish it some day and surprise the world. 367 I don't live in England, and I don't care an asterisk for Public Opinion. 368 I would rather tread on Mrs. Grundy's pet corn than not, she may howl on her *** *** to her heart's content." On August 24th (1883) Burton says, "Please keep up in Vol. v. this literality in which you began. My test is that every Arab word should have its equivalent English. ...Pity we can't manage to end every volume with a tidbit! Would it be dishonest to transfer a tale from one night or nights to another or others? I fancy not, as this is done in various editions. A glorious ending for Vol. iv. Would have been The Three Wishes or the Night of Power 369 and The Cabinet with Five Shelves." 370