The Life of Sir Richard Burton | Page 6

amazing to say, the
public have given Burton credit for a gift which he did not
possess[FN#8]--that of being a great translator. If the public are sorry,
we are deeply sorry, too, but we cannot help it. Burton's exalted
position, however, as ethnologist and anthropologist, is unassailable.
He was the greatest linguist and traveller that England ever produced.
And four thrones are surely enough for any man. I must mention that
Mr. Payne gave me an absolute free hand--nay, more than that, having

placed all the documents before me, he said--and this he repeated again
and again--"Wherever there is any doubt, give Burton the benefit of it,"
and I have done so.
In dealing with the fight[FN#9] over The Arabian Nights I have
endeavoured to write in such a way as to give offence to nobody, and
for that reason have made a liberal use of asterisks. I am the more
desirous of saying this because no one is better aware than myself of
the services that some of Burton's most bitter opponents-- those ten or
twelve men whom he contemptuously termed Laneites-- have rendered
to literature and knowledge. In short, I regard the battle as fought and
won. I am merely writing history. No man at the present day would
dream of mentioning Lane in the same breath with Payne and Burton.
In restoring to Mr. Payne his own, I have had no desire to detract from
Burton. Indeed, it is impossible to take from a man that which he never
possessed. Burton was a very great man, Mr. Payne is a very great man,
but they differ as two stars differ in glory. Burton is the magnificent
man of action and the anthropologist, Mr. Payne the brilliant poet and
prose writer. Mr. Payne did not go to Mecca or Tanganyika, Burton did
not translate The Arabian Nights,[FN#10] or write The Rime of
Redemption and Vigil and Vision. He did, however, produce the
annotations of The Arabian Nights, and a remarkable enough and
distinct work they form.
I recall with great pleasure an evening spent with Mr. Watts-Dunton at
The Pines, Putney. The conversation ran chiefly on the Gipsies,
[FN#11] upon whom Mr. Watts-Dunton is one of our best authorities,
and the various translations of The Arabian Nights. Both he and Mr. A.
C. Swinburne have testified to Burton's personal charm and his
marvellous powers. "He was a much valued and loved friend," wrote
Mr. Swinburne to me[FN#12], "and I have of him none but the most
delightful recollections." Mr. Swinburne has kindly allowed me to give
in full his magnificent poem on "The Death of Richard Burton." Dr.
Grenfell Baker, whom I interviewed in London, had much to tell me
respecting Sir Richard's last three years; and he has since very kindly
helped me by letter.

The great object of this book is to tell the story of Burton's life, to
delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character-- his magnetic
personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and friend. In writing
it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton himself was woefully
inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must also add regretfully that
we have occasionally found him colouring history in order to suit his
own ends.[FN#13] He would have put his life to the touch rather than
misrepresent if he thought any man would suffer thereby; but he seems
to have assumed that it did not matter about keeping strictly to the truth
if nobody was likely to be injured. Secondly, Lady Burton, with
haughty indifference to the opinions of everyone else, always exhibited
occurrences in the light in which she herself desired to see them. This
fact and the extreme haste with which her book was written are
sufficient to account for most of its shortcomings. She relied entirely
upon her own imperfect recollections. Church registers and all such
documents were ignored. She begins with the misstatement that Burton
was born at Elstree, she makes scarcely any reference to his most
intimate friends and even spells their names wrongly.[FN#14] Her
remarks on the Kasidah are stultified by the most cursory glance at that
poem; while the whole of her account of the translating of The Arabian
Nights is at variance with Burton's own letters and conversations. I am
assured by several who knew Burton intimately that the
untrustworthiness of the latter part of Lady Burton's "Life" of her
husband is owing mainly to her over-anxiety to shield him from his
enemies. But I think she mistook the situation. I do not believe Burton
had any enemies to speak of at the time of his death.
If Lady Burton's treatment of her husband's unfinished works cannot be
defended, on the other hand I shall show that the loss as regards The
Scented Garden was chiefly a pecuniary