It is a marvellous picture of Oriental life; its shiftings are those of the kaleidoscope.  Its alternation of pathos and bathos—­of the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) with the baldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day) and finally, its contrast of the highest and purest morality with the orgies of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter, take away the reader’s breath.  I determined to render every word with the literalism of Urquhart’s Rabelais, and to save the publisher trouble by printing my translation at Brussels.

“Not non omnia possumus.  Although a host of friends has been eager to subscribe, my work is still unfinished, nor could it be finished without a year’s hard labour.  I rejoice, therefore, to see that Mr. John Payne, under the Villon Society, has addressed himself to a realistic translation without ‘abridgments or suppressions.’  I have only to wish him success, and to express a hope that he is resolved verbum reddere verbo, without deference to any prejudice which would prevent his being perfectly truthful to the original.  I want to see that the book has fair play; and if it is not treated as it deserves, I shall still have to print my own version.[FN#343] ‘Villon,’ however, makes me hope for the best.”

In this letter Burton oddly enough speaks of his own work as “still unfinished.”  This was quite true, seeing that it was not even begun, unless two or three pages which he once showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton,[FN#344] and the pigeon-holing of notes be regarded as a commencement.  Still, the announcement of Mr. Payne’s edition—­ the first volume of which was actually in the press—­must have caused him a pang; and the sincere good wishes for his rival’s success testify to the nobility, unselfishness and magnanimity of his character.

Mr. Payne, supposing from his letter that Burton had made considerable progress with his translation, wrote on November 28th to Burton, and, using the words Tantus labor non sit cassus, suggested collaboration.  Thus commenced one of the most interesting friendships in the annals of literature.  Before relating the story, however, it will be helpful to set down some particulars of the career of Mr. Payne.  John Payne was born in 1842 of a Devonshire family, descended from that breezy old sea-dog, Sir John Hawkins.  Mr. Payne, indeed, resembles Hawkins in appearance.  He is an Elizabethan transferred bodily into the 19th and 20th centuries, his ruff lost in transit.  Yet he not infrequently has a ruff even—­ a live one, for it is no uncommon event to see his favourite Angora leap on to his shoulders and coil himself half round his master’s neck, looking not unlike a lady’s boa—­and its name, Parthenopaeus, is long enough even for that.  For years Mr. Payne followed the law, and with success, but his heart was with the Muses and the odorous East.  From a boy he had loved and studied the old English, Scotch and Welsh writers, with the result that all his productions have a mediaeval aroma.  The