l quarters; but the letters
that gave him most pleasure were those from Mr. Ernest A. Floyer and Mr.
A. C. Swinburne, whose glowing sonnet:

"To Richard F. Burton
On his Translation of the Arabian Nights"

is well known. "Thanks to Burton's hand," exclaims the poet
magnificently:

"All that glorious Orient glows
Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land
Trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose,
Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows."

In his Poems and Ballads, 3rd Series, 1889, Mr. Swinburne pays
yet another tribute to the genius of his friend. Its dedication
runs:--"Inscribed to Richard F. Burton. In redemption of an old pledge
and in recognition of a friendship which I must always count among the
highest honours of my life."

If private persons accorded the work a hearty reception, a large section
of the press greeted it with no les cordiality. "No previous editor,"
said The Standard, "had a tithe of Captain Burton's acquaintance with
the manners and customs of the Moslem East. Apart from the language,
the general tone of the Nights is exceptionally high and pure. The
devotional fervour... often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism,
and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender, simple and
true.... In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This
work, illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation
an opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain
Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express." The St.
James's Gazette called it "One of the most important translations to
which a great English scholar has ever devoted himself."

Then rose a cry "Indecency, indecency! Filth, filth!" It was said, to
use an Arabian Nights expression, that he had hauled up all the dead
donkeys in the sea. The principal attack came from The Edinburgh Review
(July 1886). "Mr. Payne's translation," says the writer, "is not only
a fine piece of English, it is also, save where the exigencies of
rhyme compelled a degree of looseness, remarkably literal.... Mr. Payne
translates everything, and when a sentence is objectionable in Arabic,
he makes it equally objectionable in English, or, rather, more so, since
to the Arabs a rude freedom of speech is natural, while to us it is
not." Then the reviewer turns to Burton, only, however, to empty out
all the vials of his indignation--quite forgetting that the work was
intended only for "cur