Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/418

 Burton consists of a white marble mausoleum, sculptured in the form of an Arab tent, the cost of which was partly defrayed by public subscription. Within is a massive sarcophagus, with a cross on the lid, placed before a consecrated altar.

Burton lived a full life, which recalls the Elizabethan age of adventure. Considering only his explorations, few have traversed a larger portion of the earth’s little-known spaces, and none with more observant eyes. His achievement as a writer is scarcely less remarkable. His total output amounts to more than fifty volumes, some of considerable dimensions. Though all are not literature, they all represent hard work and are the product of an original brain. A good deal more lies buried in the ‘Transactions’ of learned societies and in current periodicals, for Burton was prodigal with his pen. In addition, he left behind large quantities of literary material, of which his widow failed to make proper use. Behind the traveller and the author there emerges the figure of a man who dared to be ever true to himself. His career was all of his own making. No physical hardships could daunt his resolution; no discouragements could permanently sour his temper. Probably no one knew every facet of his strange character, certainly not his wife. But those who knew him best admired him most. He was ever ready to assist, from the stores of his own experience, young explorers and young students; but here, as in all else, he was impatient of pretentiousness and sciolism. His virile and self-centred personality stamped everything he said or wrote. No one could meet him without being convinced of his sincerity. He concealed nothing; he boasted of nothing. Such as circumstances had made him, he bore himself to all the world: a man of his hands from his youth, a philosopher in his old age; a good hater, but none the less a staunch friend.

The face was characteristic of the man. Burned by the sun and scarred with wounds, he looked like one who knew not what fear meant. His mouth was hard, but not sensual; his nose and chin strongly outlined. His eyes, when in repose, had a far-away look; but they could flash with passion or soften in sympathy. The robustness of his frame was shown by a herculean chest and shoulders, which made him look shorter than his actual height. His hands and feet were particularly small. His gestures were dignified, and his manners marked by old-world courtesy. Lord Leighton’s portrait of him, taken in middle life, is well known. Another picture, painted by François Jacquand at Boulogne in 1852, representing him as a young man in the uniform of his Bombay regiment, is now in the possession of his sister’s family. A cast of his face and bust, taken after death, did not turn out satisfactorily.

Burton appointed his wife to be his literary executor, with absolute control over everything that he left behind. Among her first acts was to burn the manuscript of a translation of an Arabic work called ‘The Scented Garden,’ which, with elaborate annotations of the same sort as those appended to ‘The Arabian Nights,’ had occupied the last year of his life. After she had finished his biography she likewise destroyed his private diaries. And by her own will she forbad anything of his to be published without the express sanction of the secretary of the National Vigilance Society. She did, however, permit the appearance of his translation from the original Neapolitan dialect of the ‘Pentamerone’ of Basile (1893, 2 vols.), and of his verse rendering of ‘Catullus’ (1894). There has also been published, under the editorship of Mr. W. H. Wilkins, a not very valuable posthumous treatise on ‘The Jew, the Gipsy, and El Islam’ (1897). Lady Burton further commenced a ‘memorial edition’ of her husband’s better-known works, of which seven volumes appeared before her death.

 BURY,. [See, seventh , 1832–1894.]  BUSHER, LEONARD (fl. 1614), pioneer of religious toleration, appears to have been a citizen of London who spent some time in ‘exile’ at Amsterdam, where he seems to have made the acquaintance of John Robinson (1576?–1625) [q. v.], the famous pastor of the pilgrim fathers, and probably of John Smith (d. 1612) [q. v.], the se-baptist. He adopted in the main the principles of the Brownists, and after his return to England Busher apparently became a member of the congregation of Thomas Helwys [q. v.], and published in 1614 his treatise advocating 