sor Blumhardt. 5th June 1886-5th April
1887.

On June 5th the Burtons and their "Magpie Trunk" again left Trieste and
travelled via Innsbruck, Zurich, Bale and Boulogne to England. After a
short stay at Folkestone with Lady Stisted and her daughter, they went
on to London, whence Burton memorialized the vice-chancellor and the
curators of the Bodleian Library for the loan of the Wortley Montagu
manuscripts of the Arabian Nights. Not a private loan, but a temporary
transference to the India Office under the charge of Dr. R. Rost. On
November 1st came a refusal, and Burton, at great inconvenience to
himself, had to go to Oxford. "The Bodleian," he says, "is the model of
what a reading library should not be, and the contrast of its treasures
with their mean and miserable surroundings is a scandal." He did not
know in which he suffered most, the Bodleian, the Radcliffe or the
Rotunda. Finally, however, the difficulty was got over by having the
required pages photographed.

He now wrote to the Government and begged to be allowed, at the age of
sixty-six, to retire on full pension. His great services to the country
and to learning were set down, but though fifty persons of importance
in the political and literary world supported the application, it
was refused. It is, however, only just to the Government to say that
henceforward Burton was allowed "leave" whenever he wanted it. An easier
post than that at Trieste it would have been impossible to imagine,
still, he was in a measure tied, and the Government missed an
opportunity of doing a graceful act to one of its most distinguished
servants, and to one of the most brilliant of Englishmen.

Then followed a holiday in Scotland, where the Burtons were the guests
of Mr. (now Sir) Alexander Baird of Urie. Back in London, they lunched
at different times with F. F. Arbuthnot, G. A. Sala, A. C. Swinburne,
and "dear old Larkin"--now 85--in whose house at Alexandria, Burton
had stayed just before his Mecca journey. It was apparently during this
visit that Burton gave to his cousin St. George Burton a seal showing on
one side the Burton crest, on another the Burton Arms, and on the third
a man's face and a hand with thumb to the nose and fingers spread
out. "Use it," said Burton, "when you write to a d-----d snob." And he
conveyed the belief that it would be used pretty often.

On 16th September 1886, writing to Mr. Kirby [542] from "United Service
Club," Pall Mall, Burton says, "W