187. Burton's Friends.

Most of Burton's friends have followed him to the tomb. Edward Rehatsek died at a ripe age at Worli on 11th December 1891, and was cremated in Hindu fashion. At the time of his death he was working at the translation of the third part of The Rauzat-us-Safa. 697 In his last letter to Mr. Arbuthnot, after referring to his declining health, he finished by saying, "Hope, however, never dies; and as work occupies the mind, and keeps off despair, I am determined to translate for you, though slowly, the third part of the Rauzat-us-Safa, so as to make the history of the Khalifahs complete." 698

Mr. Arbuthnot continued to take interest in Oriental matters and wrote prefaces for several translations by Rehatsek and Dr. Steingass, including the First Part of Rehatsek's Rauzat-us-Safa (1891) and Steingass's Assemblies of Al Haririr (1898). His Arabic Authors appeared in 1890, his Mysteries of Chronology in 1900. He died in May 1901, and was buried at Shamley Green, Guildford. He left money for the Oriental Translation Fund, of which, it will be remembered, he was the founder, and his memory will always be honoured by Orientalists. A memorial of him—the Arbuthnot Institute—was opened at Shamley Green on 31st May 1905.

Mr. Ashbee died in 1900, Dr. F. J. Steingass in January, 1903.

After Burton's death, Mr. Letchford went to Bohemia as the guest of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis. At Vienna his next resort, he painted many beautiful pictures, one of the best being founded on Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "Silence." Finally he went to Naples, where he produced the series of pictures that has given him immortality—the illustrations to The Arabian Nights. Then followed days of darkness and trouble, but he was always courageous. "He felt that what he had striven for so long was now within his reach; he had the presentiment that he was about to take those flights of art which are permitted to very few." His portrait of the son of Sir William Wollcock is a work of genius.

In July 1905, hearing that Mr. Letchford was ill, I wrote to his sister, Daisy, 699 who lived with him. The letter was received, and Mr. Letchford intended replying to it himself. "He was only waiting to feel a little stronger," wrote Miss Letchford, "he never thought the end was near. On Monday morning of the 24th of July he still kept making wonderful plans for the future. He had the room in which he spent his last hours crowded with flowers, and as he felt his powers failing him he recited Swinburne's beautiful poem, 'The Garden of Proserpine':

"Suddenly he lost consciousness, and he awoke from his comatose state only to repeat the identical words which were Sir Richard Burton's last—'I am dying—I am dead.' His beautiful soul had left this world for ever, for it was indeed a beautiful soul." 700

Major Edward Burton, Sir Richard's brother, died 31st October 1895—after his terrible silence of nearly forty years. He was never married. Miss Stisted died in 1904. So of Burton's parents there are now no descendants. Within fifteen years of his death, the family was extinct.

Of the friends and intimate acquaintances of Burton who still survive we must first mention Mr. A. C. Swinburne, Mr. Watts-Dunton and Mr. John Payne. Mr. Swinburne has, year after year, it is scarcely necessary to say, added to his fame, and all Englishmen are proud of his genius. The Definitive Edition of his works has delighted all his admirers; and just as we are going to press everyone is reading with intense interest his early novel Love's Cross Currents. Mr. Watts-Dunton is in excellent health, and his pen is as vigorous as ever. He enjoys the proud position of being our greatest living literary critic.

Mr. Payne, who is still hard at work, ahs published since Burton's death translations of The Novels of Matteo Bandello (six vols. 1890), the Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam (1898), and—Atlantean task—the Poems of Hafiz (3 vols. 1901). His Collected Poems (1862-1902) in two handsome volumes, appeared in 1902; and he has since issued Vigil and Vision (1903), Songs of Consolation, and Hamid the Luckless (1904). In the last he returns to his old love, The Arabian Nights, most of the poems being founded on tales in that work.

Mr. W. F. Kirby, Dr. Grenfell Baker, Mrs. E. J. Burton, Major St. George Burton, Mr. Frederick Burton, Mr. P. P. Cautley, Mr. A. G. Ellis, and Professor Blumhardt are also living. His excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha is still Minister of Instruction at Cairo; Mr. Tedder is still at the Athenaeum.

Our task is ended. Sir Richard Burton was inadequately regarded in his lifetime, and even now no suitable memorial of him exists in the capital of the Empire, which is so deeply indebted to him. Let us hope that this omission will soon be rectified. His aura, however, still haunts the saloons of his beloved Athenaeum, and there he may be seen any day, by those who have eyes latched 701 over, busily writing at the round table in the library—white suit, shabby beaver, angel forehead, demon jaw, facial scar, and all. He is as much an integral part of the building as the helmeted Minerva on the portico; and when tardy England erects a statue to him it ought to select a site in the immediate neighbourhood of his most cherished haunt.

Our task, we repeat, is ended. No revolution, so far as we are aware, has distracted modern England, and Sir Richard and Lady Burton still sleep in sepulchral pomp in their marmorean Arab Tent at Mortlake. More than fifteen years have now elapsed since, to employ a citation from The Arabian Nights, there came between them "the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies and glory be to Him who changeth not, neither ceaseth, and in whom all things have their term." 702