148.  New Projects.

We left the Burtons, it will be remembered, at Gibraltar.  After a short stay there, they crossed over to Morocco in a cattle tug.  Neither of them liked Tangiers, still, if the Consulate had been conferred upon Sir Richard, it would have given them great happiness.  They were, however, doomed to disappointment.  Lord Salisbury’s short-lived administration of 1886 had been succeeded by a Liberal Government with Lord Rosebery as Premier; and Tangiers was given to Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Kirby Green.[FN#537] The Burtons were back in Trieste at the end of March.

The success of The Arabian Nights, which was owing entirely to its anthropological and pornographic notes, was for Sir Richard Burton both good and bad.  It was good because it removed for the remainder of his life all pecuniary anxieties; it was bad because it led him to devote himself exclusively to subjects which certainly should not occupy exclusively the attention of any man.  Henceforth every translation was to be annotated from a certain point of view.[FN#538] One can but regret this perversity, for the old Roman and other authors have unpleasantnesses enough without accentuating them.  Thus in reading some sweet poem of Catullus, spoilt by perhaps a single objectionable line, we do not want our attention drawn particularly to the blemish.  Unfortunately, Sir Richard now made this kind of work his speciality, and it would be idle—­ or rather it would be untrue—­to deny that he now chose certain books for translation, not on account of their beautiful poetry and noble thoughts, but because they lent themselves to pungent annotation.  Indeed, his passion for this sort of literature had become a monomania.[FN#539] He insisted, however, and he certainly believed, that he was advancing the interests of science; nor could any argument turn him.  We wish we could say that it was chiefly for their beauties that he now set himself to translate Catullus, Ausonius,[FN#540] and Apuleius.  He did appreciate their beauties; the poets and the classic prose writers were to him as the milk of paradise; and some of his annotations would have illuminated the best passages, but the majority of them were avowedly to be consecrate to the worst.  Having in The Arabian Nights given the world the fruits of his enquiries in Eastern lands, and said his say, he might with advantage have let the subject rest.  He had certainly nothing new to tell us about the manners and customs of the Romans.  Then again, for the translating of so delicate, so musical and so gracious a poet as Catullus he was absolutely and entirely unqualified.  However, to Catullus he now turned.  Sirmio and Rome succeeded to Baghdad and Damascus; jinni and ghoul fled before hoofed satyrs and old Silenus shaking his green stick of lilies.  As we shall see, however, he did not begin the translation in earnest till January 1890.[FN#541]

149.  Mr. A. G. Ellis and Professor Blumhardt. 5th June 1886-5th April 1887.