New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-08-13
HIS LITERARY CAREER.

It has been remarked that some Of Burton's
oxn,orations wore failures so far rs his ostensihlc
object WAS concerned But they were all sue
cossful in a literary sense. Books and articles
flowed from his pen after each one. Ills observa-
tions in India in Africa in North and South
America in Europe are all matters Of record.
He wrote grammars, collected proverbs ana mad
TRANSACTIONS He WIS an cXHcrt in certain heilS oil
anthroroloqy and archaeology. IL" tricd lalcohrA
in India and wrote a book on the supP"c. '''
work on bayonet exercise was adoPcd ny "''
British ARMY and Lady Burton records with som"
bitterness that he was awarded one shilling, when
he duly collected and gave TO besgar' HIS h"oN
Of the Sword" mere fragment, bnt fragment
Of respectable size, is well known. Inc pi'll'
o,.n,;c,l list given by Lady Burton comprises
forty-seven titles, without the array oil ar''''
written for magay:rc, and the lectures and pam
phlets on a wide y 70" of subjects OF all th'-e
the books which are likely TO he long famous are
tho translation and commentary the poems OF
Camoens and the Arabian Nights The work
on Camocns thonch il extends to six volumes, was
intended 10 he completed in ten, and Sir Richard
loft somc materials for the unfinished voiuh's.
uut the Arabian Nights" stands ~ compete"
work The discussion over the unc )hpi"i"Si"1
way in which the translator did his work. GIVING
this vast body Of Oriental hctlon 10 H'
Western world with all its grossneS- a wen a. i's
beauty has hardly yet died away II l. ilN"N 10
lie revived with every future att"mr' ~ h"hS-
lation. The dispute is one between two lTf''oh-
cilable opinions. and it can never be settled 'N-
cent IN the way Sir Richard and Lady burton
.donted that Of publishing the work in two forms
ona with tie questionable pecularitieS, the othrr
without them.
The whole affair tool, a new turn year VI -
ago when il became known that Lazy h"'on
had burned one of her husbands unpublished
works, THE Scented Gar len For SON" III"
accountable reason she took the world into her
confidence She confesses in TINS Volnm' 'Ia'
she had no occasion to make her act public. N"'
,h;nLs that she was under some dcluson, that
che was responsible TO or owed some explanation
,o the would-be buyers Of that book She also
confesscs that she was wholly wrong in describing
il nc her husbands magnum opus. For th" re-
lief Of those anxious souls who fear that great
literary treasure has been lost, she gives TINS
bref account of the manuscript: " III" hrs'
two cbaptars were n raw translation OF part OF
the works of Numa Numantius. without any
annotations at all or comments Of any kind on
Richards part and twenty chapters OF translation
OF Shsyk 81 Nafzawli from Arabic. In fact II
was all translation, excepting the anho'atlohs
on the Arabic work. Thus il will he seen t'at
Az long as the original Of the works III question
remains, the world has really lost only Burtons
notes. As hc was fclicitous in thc species OF
work il may be counted az something OF dep
riyation to have missed these specimens FOR
the rest Lady Burton certainly acted well WITHIN
her rights respecting material which had Dceh
beaucathed 20 her uncondtionalIy. She says
that she lost six thousand guincas by burning the
book. That was certainly an adequate penalty
Late ,,bi Slta an
plains OF having received in the last twenty
two months. some of which "wcre far coarser
than The Scented Garden and which would have
shocked Whitcchapcl.'
1t must have been rude surprise TO her to
lind that conduct which she might well have
felt as really %f-sacrilcing on her part should
meet with so much condemnation. But she
gives her critics as good as they send by exclaim-
ing: 1t makes me sick to hear all this anxiety
OF the press and the literary world lest they
should miss word he ever wrote When lie
came back i'm $780, after being sent TO look after
Palmer, he had good deal Of information to
give and he could not get a magazine or paper
10 take his most valuable article till il was quite
stale We used to boil over with rage when his
books or articles were rejected. Only the other
day | sent most valuable letter of his, written
in 1886. to q Liberal and a Conservative paper
because few chapters, which of par
ticular value to the world have been burnt, the
whole country's literary minds are full of bitter
plants because anything has persisted which
came from the translator Of the arabian Nights
Such are the waves and whims of such people
They are privately, Of course) selling down at
Soho a Scented Garden, translated by the book
seller himself from a miserable lttl" French copy
which they pretend il Sir Richard Burton's
Scented Garden. quilting people who ought to
t,o,y b.tter-but not scholars and who deserve
"a lose their money, paying for trash that my
husband never saw. | hope the seller charges
them enormous sums, and hope that some Of
the purchasers will have the common sensc to
bring an action against him for obtaining money
under false pretences. OF the other writings
of Burton still unpublished the almost complete
translation OF Catullus is probably the most
valuable, though Lady Burton mentions also