intended simply to
elucidate the text. Though succinct, they are sufficient for the general
reader. Here and there, however, we come upon a more elaborate note,
such as that upon the tuning of the lute (Vol. viii., 179), where Mr.
Payne's musical knowledge enables him to elucidate an obscure technical
point. He also identified (giving proper chapter and verse references),
collated, and where needful corrected all the Koranic citations with
which the text swarms, a task which demanded great labour and an
intimate knowledge of the Koran. The appropriate general information
bearing on the work he gave in a succinct and artistic form in his
elaborate Terminal Essay--a masterpiece of English--in which he
condensed the result of erudition and research such as might have
furnished forth several folio volumes.

138. The Terminal Essay.

Finally there is the Terminal Essay, in which Burton deals at great
length not only with the origin and history of the Nights and matters
erotic, but also with unnatural practices. This essay, with the
exception of the pornographic portions, will be found, by those who take
the trouble to make comparisons, to be under large obligations to Mr.
Payne's Terminal Essay, the general lines and scheme of which it follows
closely. Even Mr. Payne's special phrases such as "sectaries of the
god Wunsch," [490] are freely used, and without acknowledgement. The
portions on sexual matters, however, are entirely original. Burton
argues that the "naive indecencies of the text of The Arabian Nights are
rather gaudisserie than prurience." "It is," he says, "a coarseness of
language, not of idea.... Such throughout the East is the language
of every man, woman and child, from prince to peasant." "But," he
continues, "there is another element in the Nights, and that is one of
absolute obscenity, utterly repugnant to English readers, even the least
prudish." Still, upon this subject he offers details, because it does
not enter into his plan "to ignore any theme which is interesting to
the Orientalist and the Anthropologist. To assert that such lore is
unnecessary is to state, as every traveller knows, an absurdum."

That these notes and the Terminal Essay were written in the interests of
Oriental and Anthropological students may be granted, but that they were
written solely in the interests of these students no one would for
a moment contend. Burton simply revelled in all studies of the kind.
Whatever was