Major Edward Burton, Sir Richard’s brother, died 31st October 1895—­after his terrible silence of nearly forty years.  He was never married.  Miss Stisted died in 1904.  So of Burton’s parents there are now no descendants.  Within fifteen years of his death, the family was extinct.

Of the friends and intimate acquaintances of Burton who still survive we must first mention Mr. A. C. Swinburne, Mr. Watts-Dunton and Mr. John Payne.  Mr. Swinburne has, year after year, it is scarcely necessary to say, added to his fame, and all Englishmen are proud of his genius.  The Definitive Edition of his works has delighted all his admirers; and just as we are going to press everyone is reading with intense interest his early novel Love’s Cross Currents.  Mr. Watts-Dunton is in excellent health, and his pen is as vigorous as ever.  He enjoys the proud position of being our greatest living literary critic.

Mr. Payne, who is still hard at work, ahs published since Burton’s death translations of The Novels of Matteo Bandello (six vols. 1890), the Quatrains of Omar Kheyyam (1898), and—­Atlantean task—­ the Poems of Hafiz (3 vols. 1901).  His Collected Poems (1862-1902) in two handsome volumes, appeared in 1902; and he has since issued Vigil and Vision (1903), Songs of Consolation, and Hamid the Luckless (1904).  In the last he returns to his old love, The Arabian Nights, most of the poems being founded on tales in that work.

Mr. W. F. Kirby, Dr. Grenfell Baker, Mrs. E. J. Burton, Major St. George Burton, Mr. Frederick Burton, Mr. P. P. Cautley, Mr. A. G. Ellis, and Professor Blumhardt are also living.  His excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha is still Minister of Instruction at Cairo; Mr. Tedder is still at the Athenaeum.

Our task is ended.  Sir Richard Burton was inadequately regarded in his lifetime, and even now no suitable memorial of him exists in the capital of the Empire, which is so deeply indebted to him.  Let us hope that this omission will soon be rectified.  His aura, however, still haunts the saloons of his beloved Athenaeum, and there he may be seen any day, by those who have eyes latched[FN#701] over, busily writing at the round table in the library—­white suit, shabby beaver, angel forehead, demon jaw, facial scar, and all.  He is as much an integral part of the building as the helmeted Minerva on the portico; and when tardy England erects a statue to him it ought to select a site in the immediate neighbourhood of his most cherished haunt.

Our task, we repeat, is ended.  No revolution, so far as we are aware, has distracted modern England, and Sir Richard and Lady Burton still sleep in sepulchral pomp in their marmorean Arab Tent at Mortlake.  More than fifteen years have now elapsed since, to employ a citation from The Arabian Nights, there came between them “the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Companies and glory be to Him who changeth not, neither ceaseth, and in whom all things have their term."[FN#702]