149. Mr. A. G. Ellis and Professor Blumhardt. 5th June 1886-5th April 1887.

On June 5th the Burtons and their "Magpie Trunk" again left Trieste and travelled via Innsbruck, Zurich, Bale and Boulogne to England. After a short stay at Folkestone with Lady Stisted and her daughter, they went on to London, whence Burton memorialized the vice-chancellor and the curators of the Bodleian Library for the loan of the Wortley Montagu manuscripts of the Arabian Nights. Not a private loan, but a temporary transference to the India Office under the charge of Dr. R. Rost. On November 1st came a refusal, and Burton, at great inconvenience to himself, had to go to Oxford. "The Bodleian," he says, "is the model of what a reading library should not be, and the contrast of its treasures with their mean and miserable surroundings is a scandal." He did not know in which he suffered most, the Bodleian, the Radcliffe or the Rotunda. Finally, however, the difficulty was got over by having the required pages photographed.

He now wrote to the Government and begged to be allowed, at the age of sixty-six, to retire on full pension. His great services to the country and to learning were set down, but though fifty persons of importance in the political and literary world supported the application, it was refused. It is, however, only just to the Government to say that henceforward Burton was allowed "leave" whenever he wanted it. An easier post than that at Trieste it would have been impossible to imagine, still, he was in a measure tied, and the Government missed an opportunity of doing a graceful act to one of its most distinguished servants, and to one of the most brilliant of Englishmen.

Then followed a holiday in Scotland, where the Burtons were the guests of Mr. (now Sir) Alexander Baird of Urie. Back in London, they lunched at different times with F. F. Arbuthnot, G. A. Sala, A. C. Swinburne, and "dear old Larkin"—now 85—in whose house at Alexandria, Burton had stayed just before his Mecca journey. It was apparently during this visit that Burton gave to his cousin St. George Burton a seal showing on one side the Burton crest, on another the Burton Arms, and on the third a man's face and a hand with thumb to the nose and fingers spread out. "Use it," said Burton, "when you write to a d——-d snob." And he conveyed the belief that it would be used pretty often.

On 16th September 1886, writing to Mr. Kirby 542 from "United Service Club," Pall Mall, Burton says, "We here have been enjoying splendid weather, and a really fine day in England (I have seen only two since May) is worth a week anywhere else.... You will find your volumes 543 sent to you regularly. No. 1 caused big sensation. A wonderful leader about it in Standard (Mrs. Gamp, of all people!) followed by abuse in Pall Mall. I have come upon a young woman friend greedily reading it in open drawing-room, and when I warned another against it, she answered: 'Very well, Billy [her husband] has a copy, and I shall read it at once.'"

Later Burton's curiosity was aroused by the news that Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the British Museum, had shown Mr. Kirby an edition of Alaeddin in Malay. 544 "Let me know," he says, "when you go to see Mr. Ellis. I especially want to accompany you, and must get that Malay version of Alaeddin. Lord Stanley of Alderley could translate it."

It was about this time that Burton decided to make a new and lavishly annotated translation of The Scented Garden. To the Kama Shastra edition of 1886 we have already referred, and we shall deal fully with the whole subject in a later chapter.

On October 6th the Burtons heard Mr. Heron Allen lecture on palmistry at Hampstead. For some weeks Burton was prostrated again by his old enemy, the gout, but Lord Stanley of Alderley, F. F. Arbuthnot, and other friends went and sat with him, so the illness had its compensations. A visit to Mr. John Payne, made, as usual, at tea time, is next recorded, and there was to have been another visit, but Burton, who was anxious to get to Folkestone to see his sister, had to omit it.

On January 10th 1887, he writes to Mr. Payne as follows:

"That last cup of tea came to grief, I ran away from London abruptly, feeling a hippishness gradually creep over my brain; longing to see a sight of the sun and so forth. We shall cross over next Thursday (if the weather prove decent) and rush up to Paris, where I shall have some few days' work in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Thence to Cannes, the Riviera, &c. At the end of my 5th Vol. (Supplemental) I shall walk in to Edin[burgh] Review. 545 ... I hope you like Vol. x. and its notices of your work. I always speak of it in the same terms, always with the same appreciation and admiration."

On January 13th 1887, the Burtons reached Paris, where Sir Richard had the pleasure of meeting Herr Zotenberg, discoverer of the Arabic originals of Alaeddin and Zayn al Asnam; and thence they proceeded to Cannes, where the state of Burton's health gave his wife great uneasiness. She says, "I saw him dripping his pen anywhere except into the ink. When he tried to say something he did not find his words." An awful fit of "epileptiform convulsions," the result of suppressed gout, followed, and the local doctors who were called in came to the conclusion that Burton could not recover. They thought it better, however, that their opinion should be conveyed to him by a perfect stranger, so they deputed Dr. Grenfell Baker, a young man who was then staying at Cannes, to perform the painful duty.

Dr. Baker entered the sick room and broke the news to Burton as best he could.

"Then you suppose I am going to die?" said Burton.

"The medical men who have been holding a consultation are of that opinion."

Shrugging his shoulders, Burton said, "Ah, well!—sit down," and then he told Dr. Baker a story out of The Arabian Nights. Dr. Baker remained a fortnight, and then Sir Richard, who decided to have a travelling medical attendant, sent to England for Dr. Ralph Leslie, who a little later joined him at Trieste.

To his circle of friends Burton now added Mr. A. G. Ellis, already referred to, Professor James F. Blumhardt, of the British Museum, and Professor Cecil Bendall, of University College, London. 546 His first communication with Mr. Ellis seems to have been a post-card dated Trieste, 8th May 1887. He says "The Perfumed Garden is not yet out nor will it be for six months. My old version is to be had at —-'s, Coventry Street, Haymarket. The Supplemental Nights you can procure from the agent, ——-, Farleigh Road, Stoke Newington."

As we have seen, Burton's first and second supplemental volumes of the Nights correspond with Mr. Payne's three volumes of Tales from the Arabic. He also wished to include the eight famous Galland Tales:—"Zayn Al-Asnam," "Alaeddin," "Khudadad and his Brothers," "The Kaliph's Night Adventure," "Ali Baba," "Ali Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad," "Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu," and "The Two Sisters who Envied their Cadette;" but the only Oriental text he could find was a Hindustani version of Galland's tales "Orientalised and divested of their inordinate Gallicism." As Burton was at this time prostrated by illness, Professor Blumhardt kindly undertook "to English the Hindustani for him. While the volume was going forward, however, M. Zotenberg, of Paris, discovered a MS. copy of The Nights containing the Arabic originals of 'Zayn Al-Asnam' and 'Alaeddin,' and Burton, thanks to the courtesy of Zotenberg, was able to make use of it."