Volume 6 — OPINIONS OF THE PRESS (continued 2)

This being so, Captain Sir Richard Burton, in the interests of Oriental scholarship—which he rightly judges to be nowhere more important than among a people who have so vast an Eastern empire to govern and safeguard as we have—has for years past been engaged upon a literal translation of the Nights which should be worthy at once of the original sources from which it was taken and of his own hard-earned reputation. At the very time that he was putting the finishing touches to his work and preparing for publication, however, he learnt by accident that Mr. John Payne had undertaken for the Villon Society a precisely similar task. Upon that Sir Richard, with characteristic chivalry, stood aside, and allowed Mr. Payne to have the advantage of prior publication; we mean, of course, such publication as he himself contemplated and the Villon Society contents itself with—the issue, that is, of a strictly limited number of copies supplied to subscribers only. Of his rival’s translation Sir Richard Burton, with the enthusiasm of a true scholar, says, “It is most readable; his (Mr. Payne’s) English, with a sub-flavour of Mabinogionic archaism, is admirable, and his style gives life and light to the nine volumes whose matter is frequently heavy enough; he succeeds admirably in the most difficult passages, and he often hits upon choice and special terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign word, so happily and so picturesquely that all future translators must perforce use the same expression under pain of falling far short.” Nevertheless, though coming four or five years afterwards, Sir Richard’s own edition fairly takes the field, and is likely, we should say, to hold it permanently against all future comers. The notes alone carry it to a point of perfection hitherto unattained. It is the work of a man better qualified for the task than any other living being. On the one hand, we know of no one who is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit and soaked in the traditions of Arab life as the traveller who, disguised as an Arab, succeeded in making the pilgrimage to Mecca without detection; on the other, we know of no translator who has at his command such an amazing vocabulary of English words wherewith to reflect every shade of meaning, every turn of phrase, every subtile touch of literary colour in the language from which he translates. As illustrating his mastery of the secrets both of Arab life and of picturesque English, take the following passage from his “Foreword.” He is speaking of the solace and satisfaction which he derived from working upon his translation of the Nights during his long years of official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western Africa, and to the dull and dreary half-clearings of South America.

“From my commonplace and ‘respectable’ surroundings (he says) the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my predilection, Arabia—a region so familiar to my mind that even at first sight it seemed a reminiscence of some bygone metemphysic life in the distant past. Again I stood under the diaphanous skies in air glorious as ether, whose every breath raises men’s spirits like sparkling wine. Once more I saw the evening star hanging like a solitaire from the pure front of the western firmament; and the after-glow transfiguring and transforming, as if by magic, the homely and rugged features of the scene into a fairy-land, lit with a light which never shines on other soils or seas. Then would appear the woollen tents, low and black, of the true Bedawin, mere dots in the boundless waste of lion-tawny clays and gazelle-brown gravels, and the camp fire dotting like a glowworm the village centre. Presently, sweetened by distance, would be heard the wild weird song of lads and lasses, driving, or rather pelting, through the gloaming their sheep and goats; and the measured chant of the spearmen gravely stalking behind their charge, the camels; mingled with the bleating of the flocks and the bellowing of the humpy herds; while the reremouse flitted overhead with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the jackal resounded through deepening glooms, and—most musical of music—the palm-trees answered the whispers of the night-breeze with the softest tones of falling 484water. And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and ‘White-beards’ of the tribe gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts like hillocks on the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp-fire, whilst I reward their hospitality and secure its continuance by reading or reciting a few pages of their favourite tales. The women and children stand motionless as silhouettes outside the ring, and all are breathless with attention; they seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well as with ears. The most fantastic lights of fancy, the wildest improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear to them utterly natural—mere matters of every-day occurrence. They enter thoroughly into each phase of feeling touched upon by the author; they take a personal pride in the chivalrous nature and knightly prowess of Taj al-Mulúk; they are touched with tenderness by the self-sacrificing love of Azizah; their mouths water as they hear of heaps of untold gold given away in largesse like clay; they chuckle with delight every time a Kázir or a Fakír—a judge or a reverend—is scurvily entreated by some Pantagruelist of the Wilderness; and, despite their normal solemnity and impassibility, all roar with laughter, sometimes rolling upon the ground till the reader’s gravity is sorely tried, at the tales of the garrulous Barber and of Ali and the Kurdish sharper.”

Clearly an Englishman who can thus hold an Arab encampment spell-bound by reciting to them their own folk-stories in their own tongue has at least one indisputable qualification for translating the famous collection of these stories embodied in the “Alf Laylah wa Laylah”—the “Thousand Nights and a Night.”

But this is not all. Sir Richard Burton has a literary conscience which craves to be satisfied, and an imitative faculty, supported by exhaustless wealth and ingenuity of expression, capable of satisfying it. Not content with giving us a faithful transcript both of the matter and of the informing spirit of the great Arabian Saga-book, he is careful to reproduce for us even its mechanism and its music—its peculiarities of structure, the balance of its sentences, the rhyme, the rhythm, the assonances, the cadences, the melody, the lilt, the very jingle of its language. How necessary all this is to the preservation of what may be termed the literary flavour of the original may be gathered from the first few lines upon which we light on turning to a page at random. A king sending gifts and a missive to another king by his wazir commands that functionary “to shorten his skirts and strain his strength and make all expedition in going and returning. ‘Hearkening and obedience!’ quoth the minister, who fell to making ready without stay, and packed up his loads and prepared all his requisites without delay. This occupied him three days, and on the dawn of the fourth he took leave of his king and marched right away, over desert and hill-way, stony waste and pleasant lea, without halting by night or day,” and so on—in which passage, as one sees, the recurrence of the same consonantal sounds, and of rhyming and nearly rhyming words at irregular distances gives a distinctive character to the style of the narrative. Many other passages might be quoted in illustration of similar tricks and subtleties of literary skill, which impart an additional charm to the book, if for no other reason, because they are racy of the soil from which it sprang, and give an air of greater vraisemblance to the translation. But the space at our disposal is well-nigh exhausted, and we are desirous of giving just one quotation from Sir Richard Burton’s “Foreword” as to the matter of the Nights.

“The general tone” (he writes) “is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional feeling often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep and genuine: tender, simple, and true; utterly unlike much of our modern tinsel. Its life, strong, splendid, and multitudinous, is everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy which strike deepest root under the brightest skies, and which sigh in the face of heaven. Poetical justice is administered by the literary Kázi with exemplary impartiality and severity, ‘denouncing evil-doers and eulogising deeds admirably achieved.’ The morale is sound and healthy, and at times 485we descry vistas of a transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates or Plato. It is, indeed, this unique contrast of a quaint element childish crudities, jostling the finest and highest views of life and character, shown in the kaleidoscopic shiftings of the marvellous picture with many a ‘rich truth in a tale’s pretence,’ pointed by a rough, dry humour which compares well with ‘wut;’ the alternatives of strength and weakness; of pathos and bathos; of boldest poetry (the diction of Job) and the baldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day); and, finally, the whole dominated everywhere by that marvellous Oriental fancy wherein the spiritual and the supernatural are as common as the material and the natural; it is this contrast, I say, which forms the chiefest charm of the Nights, which gives it the most striking originality, and which makes it a perfect expositor of the mediæval Moslem mind.”

The Academy, March 12th, 1887.

The second volume contains inter alia, the delightful story of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badr ool Budoor, which loses none of its old charm as “The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman,” and gains incalculably by being translated into Sir Richard Burton’s rich, quaint, and picturesque English. The third volume brings another, and a still more familiar favourite, in the story of “Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman,” told with a force and vivacity which make it all seem as true as it seemed in the days of our credulous childhood. In both volumes we find a large number of minor tales which are not included in Lane’s edition; as, for instance, the stories of four chiefs of police, and a whole series of charming fables about beasts, and “other small game.” The long chivalric history of “King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his sons, Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan” (also one of those omitted by Lane), is a distinct gain in a collection so complete and extensive as the present. As regards Sir Richard Burton’s dramatis personæ, treatment and style, we need only say that his foul fiends and ancient duennas are more variously hideous, his couplets more steeped in Oriental passion, his descriptive passages more elaborately rhythmic than ever; while the foot-notes are so interesting and full of information that one only regrets that they are so sparingly inserted.

Manchester Examiner, March 16th, 1887.

Whatever differences of opinion there may be concerning the translator’s taste or judgment, all will agree that the work in its complete form is emphatically a student’s book—that in the mind of the general reading public it is an impossibility to reproduce the naïf simplicity with which the story-tellers of an earlier age and a warmer clime treated those incidents which a contemporary essayist has happily termed “the enclosed facts of life.” Concerning the original, it is not necessary to speak at length. The Arabian Nights is one of the great books of the world, and as a revelation of the outer and inner life of the Orient is quite unique, but it is only during quite recent years that the general reader has had any opportunity of knowing the full extent of its riches. True, English translations have been common enough for the last century, but they have been, for the most part taken, not immediately from the Arabic, but immediately through a French reproduction, often so garbled in substance, and in form as to convey nothing like a voracious impression of the original. Of late, however, serious study of Arabic has become more common among English scholars, and we have at least three translations—those of Mr. John Payne, of Mr. Lane, and of Sir Richard Burton—not one of which can be charged with doing injustice to the great classic. As a mere translations each will have its supporters, and it would be absurd for a critic who is 486unacquainted with Arabic to say that this or that is the best; but it may be urged on behalf of Sir Richard Burton that he is more than a mere translator, that he is an accomplished Orientalist, and that the best years of his life have been spent among the very scenes with which the ancient romancers deal. Then, too, his personal idiosyncrasy is such that he can enter easily, naturally, and without any strain into the life of which the stories are a crowded panorama, can breathe the spirit of the times and manners, and reproduce it in such wise that we can breathe it too. It is no exaggeration to say that he possesses unique qualifications for the task he has so laboriously and adequately performed.

County Gentleman, March 19th, 1887.

Volume III. consists of no less than 83 tales, which bring down the marvellous sequence of stories invented in self-defence by “the liberator of her sex” to the 557th night. Of these tales, while many of the less familiar are full of beauty and suggestiveness, the last, relating the wonderful adventures of Sindbad the Seaman will be welcomed as an old and much-esteemed friend. The old friend, too, though he does not come to us with exactly a new face, offers to our charmed recognition a face much brightened and beautified, and decked with the goodly raiment of Sir Richard Burton’s inimitable translation. Many of the tales are very short, but some of the shortest are really the most delightful. Take, for example, the one recording the generous dealing of Yahya, son of Khalid, with a convicted forger, and the one referring to the Caliph Al-Maamun and the Strange Scholar. The directness and forceful simplicity of these brief narratives, which would merit a high place in any collection of succinct apologues of the virtues, as well as the almost Christianity of their teaching, cannot fail to impress any discerning reader. The note on page 58 to the first of these tales is one of similar commentaries throwing light upon Eastern customs and institutions. At the same time it marks the continuity of Oriental political ideas.

Army and Navy Gazette, March 27th, 1887.

This volume, bringing us down to the 557th night, and to the fifth voyage of Sindbad the Seaman, includes a large number of stories quite new to the reader, some of them brimful of humour, and others most interesting from many points of view, from which it would be easy to quote endless readable items. Harun al-Rashid, Al-Maamun, Isaac of Mosul, and Ja’afar the Barmecide figure here very often; but more amusement is to be derived from the doings of lesser people, as, for example, the sharp-witted vagabonds who generally escape the chastisement they deserve by some ingenious trick, such as the Oriental mind delights in. The story of Al-Maamun and the Pyramids of Egypt (omitted by Lane) illustrates the mediæval Arabic view of those monuments—viz., that they were rich treasure-houses, which it was desirable to plunder if possible; and there are other tales dealing with crusading times, and with the relations of Christians and Moslems. One great charm of these stories is their endless variety, which prevents them from ever becoming monotonous, and Sir Richard Burton’s English has a quaint and sometimes quite archaic cast which accords well with his subject. As we said, in speaking of the earlier volumes, this is by far the best translation of the Nights for general reading, and we are sure, in its present handsome form, it will find a place on most library shelves.

487

Liverpool Mercury, March 31st, 1887.

Then Sir Richard goes on to tell us all about the origin of the Nights, their birth-place, and their probable date; the means by which, and the strangely incomplete and inaccurate forms in which they found their way into Europe; the matter and the manner of the Nights, the social condition of Al-Islam which they disclose, and the peculiarities of the prose-rhyme and poetry in which they are written. The work—translation and commentary alike—is done throughout with the thoroughness which characterises everything Sir Richard Burton takes in hand; and, in the result, we have such a conspectus of Arab life, Arab thought, and Arab literature as could only have proceeded from the mind of one who years ago was so soaked in Arabian customs and traditions as to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, in the character of a good Moslem, without detection. A complete index to the tales and proper names, and a bibliography of all the principal editions of the Nights, fittingly round off a work which, as it can never be superseded, must inevitably take its place among the few achievements of human effort from which Time reverently withholds his destroying hand.

Christian Union, April, 1887.

Those who are at all conversant with the old productions of this work will readily discover the distinctive difference and characteristic features of Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation, that it excels in originality, style, and graphicness all other editions of the Arabian Nights. No one who has read the work will hesitate to accept. Regard it in whatever aspect we will, it is unique in its production, and will henceforth take the precedence of all other translations.

Morning Advertiser, April 8th, 1887.

As pointed out in previous notices of this admirable work, it possesses many charms which have hitherto been lost to European readers by the manner in which the tales have been presented to them in the current versions of the narratives. Although these stories, among many other collections, have been in circulation for ages through the East, they have not yet been known in Europe for two hundred years. They were first introduced into Christendom, indeed, by means of the translation of Antoine Galland, a distinguished French Orientalist. They were, as a matter of course, everywhere hailed with delight, although, with perhaps rare exceptions, until the appearance of Lane’s edition, the many translations of the tales into European languages, merely gave the narratives themselves. The numerous and ample notes and philological comparisons, which are profusely scattered through it, and which serve to convey the exact meaning of important words in the text, are not only most interesting in themselves, but are often of indispensable necessity to the grasping of the point of the story. Several examples of this will again be found in the present volume. In some places the translator is completely at variance with Lane, who appears, in the instances cited, to have missed the point of the story, from a misapprehension of the true signification of an important word. A remarkable example of the extent to which the force of the narrative is seen to depend on the skill of the translator, occurs in the story of “the Illiterate, who sit up as a teacher,” in which it is remarked in a foot-note, that Lane appears to have mistaken for a girdle, a word which simply means the usual brazier for the charcoal which serves for a fire, and so to have missed the whole point of the tale. In this 488volume will also be seen several fine examples of the rhymed prose, which form one of the great beauties of the work. The translations of the many pieces of Eastern poetry which adorn the tales, are most elegant and felicitous. They are also most unique in their character. In many instances obsolete words have been introduced with wonderfully pleasing effect, and in other Saxon words and Saxon locutions in close relation with modern German, from their immediate connexion with the text, the notes are full of learning—geographical, philological, and antiquarian—which contains an immense body of useful knowledge on the matters to which they relate.

Daily News, April 28th, 1887.

The present volume contains not many of our old friends, like “Aladdin” and the “Forty Thieves,” but is rich in those Oriental stories of beasts, which often much resemble the romances of “Uncle Remus.” The tale of the Animals and the Son of Adam, if one remembers correctly, does come, with a difference, in “Uncle Remus.” As an example of the value and interest of the notes, may be cited the remarks on the “lucky signs,” which add to the value of horses. Mohammed disliked horses with white stockings on alternate hoofs. The tale of the Wolf and the Fox is again in Uncle Remus’s style. It is a very difficult thing to account for the migration of these stories. Even the bushmen have a version of vestigia nulla retrorsum, and Professor Hartt was told similar fables by the Indians of the Amazon. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, knew that such stories were current among the Hurons and Iroquois, whose hero, if not exactly Brer Rabbit, is usually Brer Hare. The Sawahílis, also, make an animal very like a rabbit take the best parts. Occasionally, the translation itself needs notes for some readers, who may ask what the Fox means when he sings of the Wolf that “garred me drain eisel and fell.” It will interest some mythologists to know that dawn, in Persian, is called by a name meaning “Wolf’s tail.” Prince Kamar al-Zaman is in this volume in all his glory, compared to which, that of Solomon was mere tinsel. Probably only Orientalists can properly estimate the labour and erudition of these Arabian Nights. The notes on the Diamond Valley, and the Roc, and other pleasant marvels are very instructive. The following note is curious. We say melanchólia, with the accent on the o: the Arabs say Malikhulíya, with the accent on the penultimate, and probably, or rather certainly, the Greeks from who we both borrowed the word did the same, as the Greek accent indicates. But how they read their own poetry, on this system, who can explain or understand?

Spectator, April 2, 1887.

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

Sir Richard Burton has certainly conferred a great boon on the reading public, great and small, by this edition of The Arabian Nights. The Arabian Nights has hitherto been known to us chiefly as Aristotle is said to have been known to the Schoolmen, in a translation of a translation. The work of Galland, a Frenchman who was, according to Lane and Burton, not over well-skilled in Arabic, and who knew little of Arabic manners and customs, has hitherto, in various translations and adaptations, been the source of popular knowledge of The Arabian Nights. Lane’s own translation was a little too much like Sir Richard Burton’s magnum opus, in being too close to the original for modern manners or drawing room use. And, to tell the truth, it is also a trifle bald and dull. Moreover, it is disfigured to the ordinary eye, much like Grote’s Greece, by uncouth 489renderings of more or less familiar names. It is terrible, for instance, to see Aziz and Azizah rendered by Azeez and Azeezah, to find Sindbad converted into es-Sindhibad, and our old friend the Vizier turned into a Weezer; and to be encountered on every page by some terrible Arabic word for the meaning of which you have to refer to notes, those torments of the interested reader. Sir Richard Burton indeed, does not wholly spare our old friends. But Wazir for Vizier is better than Weezer; and while Lane converts Noureddin and the fair Persian into Noor ed-Deen and Enees-al-Jalees, Sir Richard Burton only goes so far as Nur al-Din and Anis al-Jalis. The most striking novelty in this translation is the preservation of the rhymed prose, a jingle of assonance running through the more lively passages, particularly where love or fighting are concerned. Thus, in the Second Kalendar’s tale, we have,—“Her figure measured five feet in height: her form was firm and upright: her cheek a very garden of delight: her colour lively bright: her face gleamed like dawn through curly tresses which gloomed like night;” and when Sharrkan, the Moslem cavalier fights the Franks, “they fell to fighting and to wheeling left and right, and necks were stretched out to see the sight, nor did they stint from strife and sword-play, and lunge of lance with main and might, till the day turned to night and darkness overwhelmed the light.” Taken in connection with the context, the effect, though strange and bizarre, is not unpleasing, and gives a sense of something outlandish which accords well with the subject. Another novelty is the translation into verse of the verses copiously scattered about the stories, which have hitherto been omitted or turned into prose. It must be admitted that these verses are rather boring. They are mostly of the ultra-sentimental and “high falutin’” order, with exaggerated sentiment and metaphors. Here is a sample:—

“Had we known of thy coming, we fain had dispread ✿ the cores of our hearts or the balls of our eyes:

Our cheeks as a carpet to greet thee had thrown, ✿ and our eyelids had strown for thy feet to betread.”

Some of them, however, are pretty enough in feeling and expression. But the translator has invented a barbarous expedient for plaguing the reader, and preventing his taking them quickly, by placing an asterisk in the middle of each line to represent the couplets of the original. As he does not really retain the metres of the original, there is no valid excuse for thus disfiguring the page and trying the reader’s temper, and we sincerely hope that, if not for later volumes, at all events for later editions, he will abandon this excruciating invention.

With this exception, there is no doubt that this is the most readable as well as the most complete, or probably because it is the most complete, version of The Arabian Nights yet produced. In this first volume we have our old friends the Porter and the three Ladies of Baghdad, with the three Kalendars, the Hunchback, and the silent Barber. But one of the most striking of the stories has not appeared in any former edition,—the tale, namely, of King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his sons. This is a Moslem chivalrous romance, with all the characteristics of a mediæval romance founded on the Crusades; but, of course, the facts are reversed. Instead of a Christian knight falling in love with a Moslem maiden, and slaughtering her kith and kin by thousands and defeating their treacherous attempts at murder by violence and stealth, by ambuscade and poison, the hero is a Moslem prince and knight, and the heroine is a Christian maiden, and the villains and villainesses are all Christians, and it is the Christians who are slaughtered in their thousands by his single arm. As in the Christian romances, too, the plot wanders off from episode to episode, and, it must be admitted, becomes insufferably tedious, for before the end the grandchildren of the original hero are become the principal personages of the tale. But the leading incident and the opening episode of Sharrkan and Abrizah are worthy to rank with the tales of Sigurd and Brynhild. In fact, it may be questioned whether there is any personage in mediæval romance who outshines the fair 490Amazonian Abrizah in purity and nobility of womanly character, or any more devoted and chivalrous lover than Sharrkan. But the story does not remain throughout at the same high level, and the fate of Aurora Leigh, which is inflicted on Abrizah by Sharrkan’s father (only darkly hinted at in this edition), and her death by the hands of a negro slave, and the horribly Eastern sufferings that befall Nuzhat al-Zaman, are worse than those which befell the heroines of Western tales of chivalry, bad as they often are. It would be interesting to know the origin of this story, which certainly strikes one as out of its place in the Thousand Nights and a Night; for though its adventures are many of them exaggerated and improbable, yet they are more casually connected, more coherent, and more natural and human and less inverted, than the weird and monstrous incidents of the true Arabian tales. Among these stand conspicuous the Third Kalendar’s tale, with its Loadstone Mountain and its man of brass, its castle plated with red gold, and the inevitable decree of blind Fate; the First Lady’s tale, with its city of stone men; and above all, the delightful tale of the Fisherman and the Ifreet,—the enchanted city with its King turned into marble from the waist downwards, and its citizens into white, red, blue, and yellow fishes that lift up their heads from the frying-pan and recite “verses in writing.” Assuredly the tales that used to charm one’s childhood have no less charm with the added anthropological interest which is lent them by Sir Richard Burton’s translation and notes.

County Gentleman, May 14th, 1887.

The well-known and widely appreciated yarns of Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman are brought to a conclusion. The less familiar but most powerful and typically Oriental story “The City of Brass” follows and, though we are far from wishing to join the yelping pack already at Mr. Haggard’s heels, readers of this colossal conception will feel inclined to agree with Solomon that “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Army and Navy Gazette, May 14th, 1887.

The present volume brings us up to the 761st “night,” and, like its predecessors, contains a number of stories quite unknown to the general reader. It concludes the history of Sindbad, giving a variant rendering, from the Calcutta edition, of the seventh voyage, and contains a large number of stories concerning the “Craft and Malice of Women,” which are of the highest value as illustrations of social conditions, and it has besides, many tales to which it would be a pleasure to allude individually. * * * As a translation, it is unequalled in fidelity, and Sir Richard Burton’s familiarity with Oriental scenes has enabled him to preserve the greater part of the quaint flavour of the original.

Liverpool Mercury, August 24th, 1887.

We have already fully described this latest edition of the Arabian Nights and have spoken at large of its merits, both as a singularly faithful translation and a finished work of high literary art. It is the only rendering of The Nights which has any pretentions to literalness and completeness, and in this and all other respects is far away the best edition extant.

491

Army and Navy Gazette, August 27th, 1887.

Bringing us up to the 944th night, this volume includes the curious tale of the “Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife,” and others omitted by Lane. One of the most characteristic of these is that of “King Jali’ad of Hind and his Wazir Shimas,” which belongs to the oldest series in The Nights and has attached to it a number of animal and other fables, all very remarkable. Lane found the story “puerile,” and it is very true that from many points of view, it is so; but as an illustration of the ways of Arabian society and an example of a class of stories largely circulated amongst the Oriental peoples of that date, it cannot be overlooked, and if read in the proper appreciative spirit, it is by no means devoid of amusement. The style of the translation, as we have previously remarked, has a strange archaic charm, and the unusual locutions of which Sir Richard Burton is master, harmonize admirably with his subject, while the rhythmic portions, which he has reproduced with so much skill and diversify, render still more picturesque the whole.

Morning Advertiser, October 12th, 1887.

Several of the stories comprised in this latter group are familiar under other forms in most parts of Europe, and there are few of them which do not embody the practical wisdom and the sound and generous moral precepts which are, as a rule, characteristic of the Arabian Nights. Taken in conjunction with the numerous and excellent notes which the translator has supplied, this version as we have before had occasion to observe, presents the exact sense of the original Arabic text, which the fanciful phraseology in which the narratives are expressed largely assists in realising, while lending an additional charm to the tales themselves. * * * In this volume are contained, among others, the stories of Hasan of Bassorah, of Khalifah the Fisherman of Baghdad, of Ali Nur Al-Din and Miriam the Girdle Girl, of the Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife, of the Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-Girl, and the long series of tales, fables and allegories, in which the astrologers and other wise men variously interpret a dream which had disturbed the great King Jali’ad of Hind, and on which he had consulted them. Several of the stories comprised in this latter group are familiar under other forms in most parts of Europe, and there are few of them which do not embody the practical wisdom and the sound and generous moral precepts which are, as a rule, characteristic of the Arabian Nights. The volume contains also the interesting history of King Wird Khan, with his women and Wazirs. This monarch was weak and uxorious, and disregarding the sage counsels of Shimas, the chief of his Wazirs, pursued a profligate and effeminate career, as the result of which great troubles arose in his realm, and an extensive conspiracy was formed to get rid of him. Acting on the suggestion of his favourite wife, he caused his Wazirs, grandees, and notables to be put to death after the fashion of Eastern despots. The weakness to which his kingdom was thus reduced tempted aggression by a neighbouring king, and it was threatened with immediate invasion, rapine, and slaughter. From this strait he was delivered by the sagacity of a boy whom he had accidentally fallen in with in the course of a stroll he made incog. one evening through his capital whilst pondering over his desperate position. The stories introduced in the course of the history contain the counsel offered him in the successive stages of his difficulty, through which he is at length conducted in safety and then returns to a more rational course of life. Lane omits this story as being exceedingly puerile. That judgment will hardly be supported by the reader when he now reads it. It is one of the two oldest tales in the whole series of the Arabian Nights as is here pointed out, and at the same time very 492characteristic. Taken in conjunction with the numerous and excellent notes here supplied, this version, as we have before had occasion to observe, presents the exact sense of the original Arabic text, which the fanciful phraseology in which the narrative are expressed largely assists in realising, while lending an additional charm to the tales themselves.

Glasgow Evening Times, December 3, 1887.

The third of the five Supplemental volumes of Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night is in the hands of the subscribers this week. It is one of the most interesting, and (we have Sir Richard’s word for it) the most innocent of the series. It contains some of the best known of the Eastern tales, including “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” which did not find a place either in Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Nights or in that of Mr. John Payne for the Villon Society, for the very good reason that they were then unknown except through the French translation of Galland, and were under suspicion of not being of Eastern origin at all. The doubts about Galland’s translations have, however, now been removed, for all his tales have been discovered in Hindustani, and some of them in Arabic under circumstances which preclude these versions from having been translated from that of the French writer. In his preface Sir Richard Burton tells the story in detail, but we need not follow him there. He has now had these old favourites translated afresh, and they form a fitting pendant to his work. He courts comparison of his translation with the long popular version of Galland by printing the English translation of the latter’s Aladdin along with his own. Sir Richard’s notes are, it may be expected, full of curious information.

Academy, December 10, 1887.

THE KAMA SHASTRA SOCIETY.

Sir Richard F. Burton has just issued to his subscribers the third volume of his Supplemental Nights, the printing of which was delayed through his illness during the early part of the year. Sir Richard intends to pass the winter at Fiume, where the climate is less trying than at Trieste. He hopes to come to England in May, bringing with him the MS. of the fifth and last volume of the Supplemental Nights. The fourth volume is already in the hands of the printers to the Kama Shastra Society.

The third volume of the Supplemental Nights was originally intended to be the fourth; but the order has been altered on account of the difficulties which Sir Richard experienced in transcribing the Wortley-Montague MS. in the Bodleian, as narrated by himself in the Academy of November 13, 1886. Students, however, will not regret the change, in consideration of their delight at here finding for the first time the true Oriental version of “Aladdin,” which has hitherto only been known through Galland’s French. As Sir Richard announced in the Academy of January 22, 1887, an Arabic original of “Aladdin” and some other tales was quite recently purchased for the Bibliothèque Nationale by M. Hermann Zotenberg, who will shortly publish a full bibliographical description of his discovery. Meanwhile he has placed a copy of the MS. at Sir Richard’s disposal; and from this the translation of “Aladdin,” or rather, “Allaeddin,” has been made. “Ali Baba” is another of the most familiar of the Arabian Nights stories for which no Arabic original has yet been found. In order to produce a genuine Orientalised version of this, Sir Richard has had recourse to the following device. After much searching in vain among Persian and Turkish MSS., he at last found a Hindustani 493version containing the missing tales, which Mr. J. F. Blumhardt, of Cambridge, helped to English. He was thus enabled to escape from the plan he had originally contemplated—of turning Galland’s French into Arabic, and then translating that.

In addition to these welcome novelties, the volume is noticeable for its bulk, for Sir Richard generally gives his subscribers more than he promised. We have here the popular English form of Galland’s “Aladdin,” to compare with the version now first made from the original Arabic; and also an appendix of about 100 pages, contributed by Mr. W. A. Clouston, which describes in detail the variants and analogues of all the tales in the volume.

In the meantime, the Kama Shastra Society has begun a fresh undertaking—the production of a literal and unexpurgated translation of three famous Persian works:—(1) The Gulistân, or “Rose Garden,” of Sa’dí (A.D. 1258), which may be called not unfamiliar in incomplete versions; (2) the Nigaristân, or “Picture Gallery,” of Mu’in-uddín Jawini (A.D. 1334), which has never been translated into any Western language; and (3) the Behâristân, or “Abode of Spring,” of Jâmi (A.D. 1487), of which one chapter or “garden” was translated a few years ago by Mr. C. E. Wilson, under the title of Persian Wit and Humour (Chatto and Windus, 1883). For a popular account of these authors and their rank in Persian literature, we may refer our readers to a little volume published by Mr. Bernard Quaritch in the early part of the present year called Persian Portraits. Of the three translations which the Kama Shastra Society propose to issue to a very limited number of subscribers, the Behâristân of Jâmi—the latest in date but the greatest in reputation—is now ready. It forms a volume of less than 200 pages with a few notes.

Morning Post, March 19, 1888.

As is well shown in this volume, there is as much in the manner of these tales as in the matter of them. If Oriental fiction delights our fancy by transferring us from the common places of our workaday life to realms and to communities fairer than any of which we have daily experience here, any aids from language by which the dominance of fascination may be maintained are clearly legitimate and useful. That the subject is worthy of a warm and ornate rendering such as has been bestowed upon it in these delightful volumes is made abundantly evident from a glance at the splendour of the Arabian Empire during the period covered by The Nights but particularly in the earlier portion of it.

Athenæum, May 12, 1888.

Sir Richard Burton’s complete translation of the Arabian Nights may be considered the magnum opus of one who had already added much to his country’s literature by the record of his own personal travel and adventure. To render the original text of such a work as The Arabian Nights into a European language so as to make the reader apprehend the style and spirit of the Arabic is necessarily a task demanding exceptional qualifications; and success in so bold an attempt, were it but partial, would imply the exercise of more than Oriental scholarship. It could only be achieved by one who understood, in all shades and phases, the genius and imaginary, the ways and habits, the tastes and prejudices, the pathos and humour of both Western and Eastern peoples. Probably there is no Englishman living who could have ventured on the undertaking with better chances of success than Sir R. Burton.

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Liverpool Daily Post, May 3, 1888.

The sale of Sir Richard Burton’s uncompromising translation of the Thousand and One Nights was so great that Sir Richard has undertaken to supply five supplementary volumes. The “copy” has just reached the publishers from Trieste, and the volumes will be disposed of on the same terms as the early ones—that is to say, by subscription. The price fixed is pretty high, but so overmastering is the purely literary curiosity in the matter that not only was the original edition sold to the last copy, but the book is now at a very considerable premium in the market. Sir Richard Burton proposes to himself to take a little rest, after which he will commence a work that cannot fail to equal in interest even the Arabian Nights, and will be much better adapted for appearance on the drawing-room table. Sir Richard is going to write his autobiography—a work that will cover one of the most remarkable careers of modern times. The efforts made in influential quarters to secure an adequate retiring pension for this gallant explorer and man of letters still prove unavailing, and he goes on with his dull, uncongenial work as Consul at Trieste—a place in which he has never enjoyed really good health.

The County Gentleman, October 17th, 1885.

How fearfully cold it is, to be sure! My overcoat is neither lined with rabbit skin nor tipped with astrachan, and I feel the bitter breeze. A friend of mine, who has subscribed to Captain Burton, tells me that if I carried a copy of the first volume of the new translation of the Arabian Nights in my breast-pocket I would find it very warm. I daresay he is right, but the copies published a month ago at a guinea have gone up in value to ten. I suppose the reports of a severe winter have sent the work to a premium. Or, may be, Mr. Stead’s review gives it enhanced value.

Burton’s new Arabian Nights is the book of the season. But, strange to say, it is not to be had at Mudie’s or at Smith’s. Only a thousand copies were issued, and these went to subscribers. And the owners of a copy of the first volume are already personages of importance. School-girls cry for the book, and the Social Purity people borrow it when they can. Inquisitive folk ask everybody if they have seen it, and wonder why there should be so much fuss made about it. Wags look knowing and give evasive answers, but the man who tells the truth sayeth in reply, “because it is the highest book ever printed in English.” The captain is not the only writer that has gone to the Thousand and One Nights.

Burton’s book makes one feel sorry for Rabelais and Stead. Indeed, Rabelais borrowed from the original, and Burton of immortal Melancholy, like his namesake the peripatetic captain, knew something of it. The new edition will be prized by a few students, perhaps, but its chief value in the eyes of many that hold copies of it will be its high qualities. A few of the volumes were to be had in Holywell-street, but these have all been bought up at big prices.

“Jehu Junior,” Vanity Fair, October 24th, 1885.

As a bold, astute traveller, courting danger, despising hardship, and compelling fortune, Captain Burton has few equals; as a master of Oriental languages, manners and customs he has none. He is still very young, very vigorous, very full of anecdote and playful humour, and, what is remarkable in a linguist, he has not disdained even his 495own mother tongue, which he handles with a precision and a power that few can approach. He has recently crowned his literary labours by the most complete, laborious, uncompromising, and perfect translation of that collection of stories known to us as The Arabian Nights, but more correctly called A Thousand Nights and a Night. He is a wonderful man.

Whitehall Review, October 29th, 1885.

The second volume of Captain Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights has just been issued to the subscribers, who had already become impatient for a second instalment of this great and fascinating contribution to literature. The new volume is, if possible, of even greater interest than the first. It contains the whole of the fantastic semi-chivalrous story of King Omar Bin al-Nu’-uman and his sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, a knowledge of which has hitherto been confined chiefly to Oriental scholars, as Lane only admitted an episode from it into his version of Alif Laïla. Some of Sharrkan’s adventures will remind students of other Eastern stories of some of the adventures recorded of the hero of Persian romance, Hatim Taï. As usual, Captain Burton’s notes are rich, varied, and copious, of the greatest service to all serious students of Arabic manners and customs, and of Oriental life in general. * * *

Apropos of Captain Burton’s Arabian Nights, a silly story is going the round of some of the newspapers to the effect that some idiot, or company of idiots, intend to address a solemn appeal to Captain Burton to cease the publication of his work. A virtuous journal like the Pall Mall Gazette has been shocked by its Oriental freedom of speech, and it and its readers are prepared to denounce Captain Burton up hill and down dale for the crime of translating into accurate English a great Arabic masterpiece. How silly, how vulgar, how uneducated such a cry is must be obvious to any one who has made any study, no matter how limited, of any of the great literatures of the world compared to Rabelais, compared to Boccaccio, compared to La Fontaine, the Arabian Nights of Captain Burton might almost be recommended as a study for a Sunday-school. We have chosen for our examples authors all of whose works are familiarly studied and easily obtainable. It would be childish to compare Captain Burton’s Arabian Nights with other works which we could mention, which are, luckily, less generally known and also, luckily, less generally obtainable; while to compare the morality of these new Arabian Nights with the Pall Mall Gazette itself would be comparing the waters of the Mediterranean with ditchwater.

South Eastern Herald, October 31st, 1885.

At Mr. Quaritch’s trade sale the other day, Captain Burton made an interesting speech regarding The Thousand and One Nights, of which the gist was to show that his translation performs a double office. It is not only a faithful and racy version of the true original, but it also represents a better text than any which has been hitherto accessible in print or manuscript. He, in fact, produced for his own use, and by collation of the existing materials, a careful, critical recension of the original; and his rendering may, therefore, claim to stand towards the Alf Laïlah in the same manner as the Latin version of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus, towards the Greek text.

Angler’s Journal, November 21st, 1885.

To such of my brother anglers as consider something warm a necessity when pursuing their sport during the winter months, I confidently recommend the latest edition of the 496Thousand and One Nights, done into English by Captain Burton. There is no pandering to pretended prudery in this work, which is the only translation extant calculated to give one a true idea of the many subtle and hitherto unexpressed beauties of the original. This book is the more welcome from the fact of our having been lately flooded with abridged and castrated editions of the English and other classics; for, as a matter of fact, the excised portions are the only parts of such books that the British public cares to read. But what has all this to do with fishing? I fancy I hear some of my readers indulging in expletives, and language which is best expressed by the natural divisions of these paragraphs.

Morning Post, January 19th, 1886.

Everything comes to him who waits—even the long-promised, eagerly expected “Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights,” by Richard F. Burton. It is a whole quarter of a century since this translation of one of the most famous books of the world was contemplated, and we are told it is the natural outcome of the well-known pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton’s fitness for the task who can doubt? It was during that celebrated journey to the Tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab—indeed, he says, in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he not for months at a stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful, eat, drink, sleep, dress, speak, pray, like his brother devotees, the sharpest eyes failing to pierce his disguise? He knows the ways of Eastern men—and women—as he does the society of London or Trieste. How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren he showed at Cairo, when, to the amazement of some English friends who were looking on at the noisy devotions of some “howling” Dervishes, he suddenly joined the shouting, gesticulating circle, and behaved as if to the manner born. He has qualified as a “howler,” he holds a diploma as a master Dervish, and he can initiate disciples. Clearly, to use a phrase of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning—and fate and fortune have arranged—that Captain Burton should be the one of all others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine unsophisticated Thousand Nights and a Night. In the whole of our literature no book is more widely known. It is spread broadcast like the Bible, Bunyan, and Shakespeare: yet although it is in every house, and every soul in the kingdom knows something about it, yet nobody knows it as it really exists. We have only had what translators have chosen to give—selected, diluted, and abridged transcripts. And of late some so-called “original” books have been published, containing minor tales purloined bodily from the Nights.

Bat, February 8th, 1886.

Indeed of those who know the Arabian Nights as they really are, there are three classes and only three. First, there are those who have read the translation by Mr. John Payne, a book with many faults, but which has the merit of being the first complete translation in any language. Secondly, those who know the Alif Laila in its original text; whether that text be Macnaughten’s, Habicht’s, or the Boulak version. Thirdly, and best of all, those who know the translation by Sir Richard Burton, an immortal addition to English literature, and the most priceless contribution to Oriental knowledge that has been made for a century. To the serious student of the East and of all things Eastern, Sir Richard Burton’s translation is in itself a very 497Alexandrian library of rare, curious, unparalleled knowledge, the Knowledge, that can only be obtained and given again by a man of letters, who is also in the widest sense a man of the world. But Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights is a book for men and not for all men. It is the text-book and the treasure-house of scholars; but it is not for every-day readers; and above all things, and inevitably, it is not for woman-kind. No woman could read, was ever meant to read Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights.

Court Society, March 4th, 1886.

Not a little disgust has been excited by the vulgar sneer which a morning paper has indulged in at the expense of Sir Richard Burton. Long neglected by successive Governments, Captain Burton received, after 44 years, a tardy recognition of his services. Straightway, it was suggested that he is made a knight because he translated the Arabian Nights. It need scarcely be said that his translation has nothing to do with the distinction conferred upon him, but as it is the habit in a certain quarter to denounce the literal translation of the Nights, it cannot be too distinctly understood that Captain Burton never meant his work to fall into any hands save those of a thousand students.

Sporting Life, April 12th, 1886.

The first two of the five volumes of “Supplemental Nights to the Book or the Thousand Nights and a Night, with Notes Anthropological and Explanatory,” have been issued privately to subscribers, whereof there will be no more than a thousand. We have Sir Richard F. Burton’s pledge. The tales are peculiarly interesting, and are told in English of matchless flavour and force. Volume iii. is dedicated to Mr. Henry Irving in these words: “My dear Irving, To a consummate artist like yourself, I need hardly suggest that The Nights still offers many a virgin mine to the Playwright: and I ascribe this volume to you, not only in admiration of your genius, but in the hope of that you will find means of exploiting the hidden wealth which awaits only your ‘Open Sesame!’—Ever yours sincerely, Richard F. Burton.” This is a pregnant hint. As I have before observed, the vast majority of readers of the Englished lore of the East knew worse than nothing of that marvellous storehouse of romance, The Arabian Nights until Sir Richard Burton opened it for them. There are countless dramas embodied in the Nights, and one cannot wonder that Sir Richard Burton should desire to see some of them shaped for the stage at the instance of his friend Mr. Irving. I may mention here that the third volume of Lady Burton’s edition of the Nights is available. It is as dainty as its predecessors, as well done in point of literary workmanship, and as full of matter.

Whitehall Review, May 24th, 1886.

The sixth volume of Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights which has just been issued to subscribers, is one of the most interesting of the series to Anglo-Orientalists. For it contains that story—or set of stories—which is, perhaps, of all the tales of the Arabian Nights the dearest to legend-loving mankind, whether Oriental or Occidental—the story of the voyages of “Sindbad the Sailor,” or of “Sindbad the Seaman,” as Sir Richard Burton prefers to call him. Perhaps the only tale which at all competes in popularity with the wandering record of the “Eastern Odysseus” is the story of “Ali 498Baba,” and that, unfortunately, does not belong to the Arabian Nights at all, and can only, as far as we know, be traced to a modern Greek origin. Lovers of the story of “Sindbad the Sailor” will be pleased to learn that their old friend remains to all intents and purposes the same in Sir Richard’s literal Translation as he was in the fanciful adaptation of Galland, and the more accurate rendering of Lane. He does not “suffer a sea change,” but remains, what he has always been, the most wonderful wanderer in the whole range and region of romance. Sir Richard Burton’s sixth volume contains, besides, that story of the “Seven Viziers” which in so many forms is a favourite in all the languages of the East.

The Bat, July 7th, 1886.

As regards his translation, however, Captain Burton is certainly felicitous in the manner in which he has Englished the picturesque turns of the original. One great improvement in this version over that of Mr. Lane will be found in the fact that the verses so freely interspersed throughout the Nights are here rendered in metre, and that an attempt also has often been made to preserve the assonants and the monorhyme of the Arabic. Mr. Lane frankly stated that he omitted the greater part of the poetry as tedious, and, through the loss of measure and rhyme “generally intolerable to the reader,” as, in truth, the specimens inserted mostly proved to be on account of the bald literalism of the rendering. Captain Burton has naturally inserted the poetry with the rest; and has often shown much skill in doing into English verse the rippling couplets of the original. Take, as an instance, the verses which Mr. Lane renders:—

“Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety that anxiety will not last.

As happiness passeth away, so passeth away anxiety.”

Almost equally literal, and certainly more poetical, is Captain Burton, who gracefully turns this:—

“Tell whoso hath sorrow, Grief never shall last;

E’en as Joy hath no morrow, so woe shall go past.”

And since, in proverbs and epigrams, so much depends on the form, the spirit of the original is well observed, when, for instance, we read in a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al Sumam:—

“Hold fast thy secret, and to none unfold;

Lost is a secret when that secret’s told.

And fail thy breast thy secret to conceal,

How canst thou hope another’s breast shall hold?”

Doubtless, too—and in this not following Mr. Lane—Captain Burton is right in retaining the original division into Nights: for, as he justly observes, “Without the Nights, no Arabian Nights!” And, besides this being a prime feature of the original, a grateful pause is thereby introduced into these intricate and interminable stories. In the translation Captain Burton’s English is generally picturesque and always fluent. As it is frankly stated, too, has “never hesitated to coin a word when wanted.” Captain Burton, who has passed the greater portion of his life in Arab-speaking countries, mixing freely in Moslem society, and often passing—as during his pilgrimage—himself for a True Believer, is naturally well qualified to translate this “Great Eastern Saga-Book.” Also, since the scene of the stories is laid successively in every country of Islam, from Tangier to India, and beyond, the translator’s intimate acquaintance, made during his wanderings, with all these people and places, stands him in good stead in elucidating peculiar manners and customs, and in this gives him the advantage over Mr. Lane, who had only seen Islam as domiciled in Egypt.

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The Sporting Life, July 17th, 1886.

There has been such a delay between the issue of the sixth and that of the seventh volume of “Alf Laylah wa Laylah,” or “The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,” “the private subscribers only” to that marvellous work were beginning to wonder whether anything had happened to Sir Richard F. Burton to put a stop to his undertaking. At any rate, one private subscriber wondered, the more especially as many threats had been breathed by self-imposed keepers of the public conscience (journalists, of course), with regard to putting an end to the publication. To make up for the delay, the eighth, as well as the seventh, volume has been issued. One of the dedications is peculiar. It is encased in a mourning border, and runs thus:—“A Message to Frederick Hankey, formerly of No. 2, Rue Lafitte, Paris.—My dear Fred,—If there is such a thing as ‘continuation,’ you will see these lines in the far spirit-land, and you will find that your old friend has not forgotten you and Annie.” It is evident from this that the great African and Asian traveller has leanings towards a belief in spiritualism.

The more I see of this splendid translation, the more do I feel that we are indebted to the translator (after Mr. Payne) for the first real idea, in English, of the immortal original, and to him alone for a complete reflection of the Arabian Nights. The lustre and vigour of the English compel one’s admiration at every step. In justification whereof I cite a couple of brief passages from the first few pages in the seventh volume:—“The first to open the door of war was Kurajan, who cried out, saying, ‘Let no coward come out to me this day, nor craven!’ Whereupon Jamrkan and Sa’adan stood by the colours, but there ran at him a captain of the Banu Amir, and the two drave at each other awhile like two rams butting. Presently Kurajan seized the Moslem by the jerkin under his hauberk, and dragging him from his saddle, dashed him to the ground, where he left him, upon which the Kafirs laid hands on him and bound him and bore him off to their tents, whilst Kurajan wheeled about and careered and offered battle till another captain came out, whom also he took prisoner, nor did he leave to do thus till he had made prize of seven captains before midday.”

Again: “He cried out to his folk, ‘At him all at once and assault him with one assault.’ Accordingly they waved the awe-striking banners, and host was heaped on host; Gharib rushed on with his men, and Jamrkan did the same, and the two sides met like two seas together clashing. The Yamani sword and spear wrought havoc, and breasts and bellies were rent, whilst both armies saw the Angel of Death face to face, and the dust of the battle rose to the skirts of the sky. Ears went deaf and tongues went dumb, and doom from every side came on, whilst valiant stood fast and faint heart fled; and they ceased not from fight and fray till ended the day, when the drums beat the retreat and the two hosts drew apart and returned, each to its tents.” Is not that spirited? It is palpable enough that, until Sir Richard Burton’s wonderful work saw the light, we had no “Arabian Nights.”

Nottingham Journal, August 30th, 1886.

The sales of Sir Richard Burton’s most realistic version of the Arabian Nights (a very valuable book in its way, but distinctly a top-shelf one) appear to have gone off with uncommon briskness; with so much briskness, in fact, that Sir Richard has taken in hand to prepare for publication a series of additional tales from the same source. Five new volumes called Supplemental Nights are in preparation, and I understand 500that the first two are completed. It is no disparagement to the scholarly labours of the editor to suggest that one may have too much Arabian Nights Entertainment. The translation of the original work, a unique performance, will always be valued by students and collectors (I am told that it is already worth double the price it was issued at), but a second series might possibly pall.

Whitehall Gazette, August 5th, 1886.

The current number of the Edinburgh Review contains an article of a somewhat foolish kind upon the Arabian Nights. That great collection of Eastern stories is receiving a great deal of very deserved attention just now, and any literary contribution to the question is of interest. But the Edinburgh Reviewer does not add much of value to the matter in hand. A considerable part of his paper is devoted to a very acrid, unjust, and ill-mannered attack upon Sir Richard Burton’s famous translation. Quite apart from the question of tastes which the paper raises—though whether the Edinburgh Review is necessarily an impeccable authority as to taste is at least open to question—the attack on Sir Richard Burton’s rendering is animated by an obvious spirit of small antagonism which puts it out of court at once as a critical essay. To jump upon some small inaccuracy and trumpet over it like the foolish cock in the fable will scarcely detract from the admiration which all Orientalists feel for Sir Richard Burton, nor in any way lessen his fame as one of the profoundest and the most remarkable Oriental students of his time. The Edinburgh Reviewer is also pleased to be sarcastic over a reference to D’Herbelot. Does the reviewer really think that D’Herbelot is altogether out of date because he happened not to have been published in the latter part of the nineteenth century and under the patronage of the Edinburgh Review? However, Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights will endure as a standard contribution to Oriental literature, in spite of the disapproval of its latest critic.

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