Page:The life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (IA b21778401).pdf/16

vi fretted against them, and the very faults which hindered his advancement would have counted to his credit three centuries before. Historians tell us that to appraise a man correctly we must judge him by the standards of his time. If that be so, then Burton's case was one of the exceptions which prove the rule, for, to judge him fairly, one must judge him not by the standards of the nineteenth century, but by those of the sixteenth.

It was in the hope that this book would tell the world how great a man it had lost in him, and how much he had been misunderstood and misjudged during his life, that it was written. In the same hope this new edition is brought forth. Would that it had been possible to publish it intact. But it was found that the two bulky volumes which formed the first edition could not possibly be compressed into one volume at a more popular price, and it was Lady Burton's wish that the book should be as widely known as possible. Upon me, therefore, the task of revision has devolved. I have endeavoured to carry it out by interfering as little as possible with the original text. I have been compelled to leave out the appendices, and two or three chapters and portions of chapters on obsolete controversies and subjects foreign to the narrative, essays in point of fact on sundry questions, which would have been better included in a separate volume. I have also deleted some press cuttings and unimportant details not germane to the subject, but that is all. The book remains to all practical purposes as Lady Burton wrote it, a notable memorial to one of the most picturesque and remarkable personalities of our era. November 1898.