End of volume XIV.

Appendix A.

Ineptiae Bodleianae.

The reader will not understand this allusion (Foreword, p. ix.) without some connaissance de cause.  I would apologise for deforming the beautiful serenity and restfulness of The Nights by personal matter of a tone so jarring and so discordant a sound, the chatter and squabble of European correspondence and contention; but the only course assigned to me perforce is that of perfect publicity.  The first part of the following papers appeared by the editor’s kindness in “The Academy” of November 13, 1886.  How strange the contrast of “doings” with “sayings,” if we compare the speech reported to have been delivered by Mr. Librarian Nicholson at the opening of the Birmingham Free Public Central Lending and Reference Libraries, on June 1, 1882:—­

“As for the Bodleian, I claim your sympathies, not merely because we are trying to do as much for our readers as you are for yours, but because, if the building which you have opened to-day is the newest free public library in the world, the building which I left earlier in the morning is the oldest free public library in the world. (No!) I call it a free public library because any Birmingham artizan who came to us with a trustworthy recommendation might ask to have the rarest gem in our collection placed before him, and need have no fear of asking in vain; and because, if a trusty Birmingham worker wanted the loan of a Ms. for three months, it would be lent to the Central Free Library for his use.”  See Twentieth and Twenty-first Annual Reports of the Free Libraries Committee (Borough of Birmingham), 1883.

And now to my story.  The play opens with the following letter:—­

No.  I.

23, Dorset street, Portman square, Sept. 13, 1886.

“Sir,

“I have the honour to solicit your assistance in the following matter:—­

“Our friend Dr. Steingass has kindly consented to collaborate with me in re-translating from the Wortley Montague Ms. of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the tales originally translated in vol. vi. of Dr. Jonathan Scott’s ‘Arabian Nights.’  Dr. Steingass cannot leave town, and I should find it very inconvenient to live at Oxford during the work, both of us having engagements in London.  It would be a boon to us if the Curators of the Bodleian would allow the Ms. to be transferred, volume by volume, to the India Office, and remain under the custody of the Chief Librarian—­yourself.  The whole consists of seven volumes, as we would begin with vols. iii. and iv.  I may note that the translated tales (as may be seen by Scott’s version) contain nothing indelicate or immoral; in fact the whole Ms. is exceptionally pure.  Moreover, the Ms., as far as I can learn, is never used at Oxford.  I am the more anxious about this matter as the November fogs will presently drive me from England, and I want to end the extracts ere winter sets in, which can be done only by the co-operation of Dr. Steingass.