Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/417

Burton sketched out in three volumes, of which only the first was destined to appear (1884). Despite the advantages of handsome print and numerous illustrations, it fell almost still-born from the press. It deals mainly with the archæology of the subject, and in archæology Burton took a perverse pleasure in being heterodox. It remains a splendid torso, a monument of erudition, abounding with speculative theories, which subsequent research is as likely to confirm as to refute.

Of Burton’s translation of ‘The Arabian Nights’ it is difficult to speak freely. While the ‘Camoens’ was only a succès d’estime, and ‘The Book of the Sword’ little short of a failure, the private circulation of ‘The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night’ (1885–6, 10 vols.), with the ‘Supplemental Nights’ (1887–8, 5 vols.), brought to the author a profit of about 10,000l., which enabled him to spend his declining years in comparative luxury. This much at least may be said in justification of some of the baits that he held out to the purchaser. For it would be absurd to ignore the fact that the attraction lay not so much in the translation as in the notes and the terminal essay, where certain subjects of curiosity are discussed with naked freedom. Burton was but following the example of many classical scholars of high repute, and indulging a taste which is more widespread than modern prudery will allow. In his case something more may be urged. The whole of his life was a protest against social conventions. Much of it was spent in the East, where the intercourse between men and women is more according to nature, and things are called by plain names. Add to this Burton’s insatiable curiosity, which had impelled him to investigate all that concerns humanity in four continents.

So much for the ‘anthropological’ notes. The translation itself, with very slight revision, was reissued by his wife ‘for household reading’ (1887–8, 6 vols.) The book had been the companion of his early travels in Arabia and Eastern Africa, where he saw with his own eyes how faithful was its portraiture of oriental thought and manners. He intended the translation to be a legacy to his countrymen, of whose imperial mission he was ever mindful, and to perpetuate the fruit of his own oriental experiences, which are never likely to be repeated. Burton was three parts an oriental at heart, as is shown most plainly in his mystical poem ‘The Kasidah’ (1880; 2nd edit. 1894), which contains the fullest revelation that he ever made of himself. In his ‘Arabian Nights’ he stands forth as the interpreter of the East to the West, with unique qualifications. Though the language was almost as familiar to him as his mother tongue, he laboured like a scholar over the various versions and manuscripts. Originally he had proposed to translate only the numerous metrical passages with which the text is interspersed, leaving the prose to an old Aden friend, Dr. Steinhauser. But when this friend died, and nothing was found of his manuscript, he took the whole task upon his own shoulders. By a fortunate accident the hitherto unknown Arabic original of two of the most familiar tales, ‘Alladin’ and ‘All Baba,’ came to light in time to be incorporated in the ‘Supplemental Nights.’ Of the merit of Burton’s translation no two opinions have been expressed. The quaintnesses of expression that some have found fault with in the ‘Lusiads’ are here not out of place, since they reproduce the topsy-turvy world of the original. If an eastern story-teller could have written in English he would write very much as Burton has done. A translator can expect no higher praise.

While Burton was still engaged on ‘The Arabian Nights,’ his health finally failed. Hitherto his superb constitution had enabled him to shake off the attacks of fever and other tropical complaints acquired during his travels. But from 1883 onwards he was a victim to gout. In the spring of 1887, when he was staying on the Riviera, alarming symptoms developed, and never afterwards could he dispense with the personal attendance of a doctor. He continued his wandering habits almost to the last. During a trip to Tangier in the winter of 1885–6 he was cheered by a letter from Lord Salisbury announcing his nomination as K.C.M.G., though he would have preferred the reversion of the consul-generalship at Morocco. He was never actually knighted, and only wore his star at an official dinner at Trieste on the occasion of the queen’s jubilee. He paid frequent visits to England, and travelled through Switzerland and Tyrol in the vain search for health. If he had lived till March 1891 he would have become entitled to a consular pension, but the foreign office refused to anticipate his full term of service. In the autumn of 1890 he returned to Trieste, and there he died on 20 Oct., worn out before he had finished his seventieth year. While he was in his death agony, his wife called in a priest to administer the last rites of the Roman church, and she brought his body home to be buried, with a full religious ceremonial, in the catholic cemetery at Mortlake, on 15 June 1891. His monument