e evidently wished it to be thought that his work was
well under weigh long before he had heard of Mr. Payne's undertaking,
for he says, "At length in the spring of 1879 the tedious process of
copying began and the book commenced to take finished form." Yet he told
Mr. Payne in 1881 that beyond notes and a syllabus of titles nothing had
been done; and in 1883 he says in a letter, "I find my translation is a
mere summary," that is to say, of the Boulac edition, which was the only
one familiar to him till he met Mr. Payne. He admits having made ample
use of the three principal versions that preceded his, namely, those of
Jonathan Scott, Lane and Payne, "the whole being blended by a callida
junctura into a homogeneous mass." But as a matter of fact his
obligations to Scott and Lane, both of whom left much of the Nights
untranslated, and whose versions of it were extremely clumsy and
incorrect, were infinitesimal; whereas, as we shall presently prove,
practically the whole of Burton is founded on the whole of Payne. We
trust, however, that it will continually be borne in mind that the warm
friendship which existed between Burton and Payne was never for a moment
interrupted. Each did the other services in different ways, and each for
different reasons respected and honoured the other. In a letter to Mr.
Payne of 12th August, 1884, Burton gave an idea of his plan. He says "I
am going in for notes where they did not suit your scheme and shall make
the book a perfect repertoire of Eastern knowledge in its most esoteric
form." A paper on these subjects which Burton offered to the British
Association was, we need scarcely say, courteously declined.

Writing to Payne on September 9th (1884) he says, "As you have been
chary of notes my version must by way of raison d'etre (amongst others)
abound in esoteric lore, such as female circumcision and excision, etc.
I answer all my friends that reading it will be a liberal education, and
assure them that with such a repertory of esotericism at their finger
ends they will know all the Scibile [380] requisite to salvation. My
conviction is that all the women in England will read it and half the
men will cut me."

112. The Battle over the Nights.

Although, as we have seen, Burton's service to Mr. Payne's translation
was almost too slight to be mentioned, Burton was to Mr. Payne in
another way a tower of strength. Professional spite, jealousy and other
causes had ranged against his