concerned nothing could be more harmonious and delightful; but the public naturally ask, What do we want with two forbidden versions?” And I again inquire, What can be done by me to satisfy this atrabilious and ill-conditioned Aristarchus?  Had I not mentioned Mr. Payne, my silence would have been construed into envy, hatred and malice:  if I am proud to acknowledge my friend’s noble work the proceeding engenders a spiteful sneer.  As regards the “want,” public demand is easily proved.  It is universally known (except to the Reviewer who will not know) that Mr. Payne, who printed only 500 copies, was compelled to refuse as many hundreds of would be subscribers; and, when my design was made public by the Press, these and others at once applied to me.  “To issue a thousand still more objectionable copies by another and not a better hand” (notice the quip cursive!) may “seem preposterous” (p. 180), but only to a writer so “preposterous” as this.

“A careful (again!) examination of Captain Burton’s translation shows that he has not, as he pretends(!), corrected it to agree with the Calcutta text, but has made a hotch-potch of various texts, choosing one or another—­Cairo, Breslau, Macnaghten or first Calcutta—­according as it presented most of the ‘characteristic’ detail (note the dig in the side vicious), in which Captain Burton’s version is peculiarly strong” (p. 180).  So in return for the severe labour of collating the four printed texts and of supplying the palpable omissions, which by turns disfigure each and every of the quartette, thus producing a complete copy of the Recueil, I gain nothing but blame.  My French friend writes to me:  Lorsqu’il s’agit d’etablir un texte d’apres differents manuscrits, il est certain qu’il faut prendre pour base une-seule redaction.  Mais il n’est pas de meme d’une traduction.  Il est conforme aux regles de la saine critique litteraire, de suivre tous les textes.  Lane, I repeat, contented himself with the imperfect Bulak text while Payne and I preferred the Macnaghten Edition which, says the Reviewer, with a futile falsehood all his own, is “really only a revised form of the Cairo text” [FN#452] (ibid.).  He concludes, making me his rival in ignorance, that I am unacquainted with the history of the Ms. from which the four- volume Calcutta Edition was printed (ibid.).  I should indeed be thankful to him if he could inform me of its ultimate fate:  it has been traced by me to the Messieurs Allen and I have vainly consulted Mr. Johnston who carries on the business under the name of that now defunct house.  The Ms. has clean disappeared.

“On the other hand he (Captain Burton) sometimes omits passages which he considers(!) tautological and thereby deprives his version of the merit of completeness (e.g. vol. v. p. 327).  It is needless to remark that this uncertainty about the text destroys the scholarly value of the translation” (p. 180).  The scribe characteristically forgets to add that I have invariably noted these excised passages which are always the merest repetitions, damnable iterations of a twice-, and sometimes a thrice-told tale, and that I so act upon the great principle—­in translating a work of imagination and “inducing” an Oriental tale, the writer’s first duty to his readers is making his pages readable.