when they heard a noise heard the roar of thunderings of thunder rending the that would rend a mountains and shaking mount and shake the the earth, and fear gat earth, whereat the Queen hold upon the queen, the Mother was seized with mother of Zein ul Asnam, mighty fear and affright.  Yea and sore trembling; But presently appeared but, after a little, the the King of the Jinn, King of the Jinn who said to her, “O my appeared and said to her, lady, fear not!  Tis I, the “O Lady, fear not, it is protector of thy son, whom I who am thy son’s I fondly affect for the protector and I love him affection borne to me by with an exceeding love his sire.  I also am he who for the love his father manifested myself to him bore me.  Nay, I am he in his sleep, and my object who appeared to him in therein was to make trial his sleep and in this I of his valiance and to learn purposed to try his an he could do violence to fortitude, whether or not his passions for the sake he might avail to subdue of his promise, or whether himself for loyalty’s the beauty of this lady sake.” would so tempt and allure him that he could not keep his promise to me with due regard.”

Here, again, Payne is concise and literal, Burton diffuse and gratuitously paraphrastic as appears above and everywhere, and the other remarks which we made when dealing with the Nights proper also apply, except, of course, that in this instance Burton had not Payne’s version to refer to, with the consequence that in these two tales ("Alaeddin” and “Zayn Al Asnam”) there are over five hundred places in which the two translators differ as to the rendering, although they worked from the same Ms. copy, that of M. Houdas, lent by him to Burton and afterwards to Payne.  Arabists tell us that in practically every instance Payne is right, Burton wrong.  The truth is that, while in colloquial Arabic Burton was perfect, in literary Arabic he was far to seek,[FN#568] whereas Mr. Payne had studied the subject carefully and deeply for years.  But Burton’s weakness here is not surprising.  A Frenchman might speak excellent English, and yet find some difficulty in translating into French a play of Shakespeare or an essay of Macaulay.  Burton made the mistake of studying too many things.  He attempted too much.

But in the Supplemental Nights, as in the Nights proper, his great feature is the annotating.  Again we have a work within a work, and the value of these notes is recognised on all sides.  Yet they are even less necessary for elucidating the text than those in the Nights proper.  Take for example the tremendous note in Vol. i. on the word “eunuchs.”  As everybody knows what a eunuch is, the text is perfectly clear.  Yet what a mass of curious knowledge he presents to us!  If it be urged that the bulk of Burton’s notes, both to the Nights proper and the Supplemental Nights, are out of place in a work of this kind—­all we can say is “There they are.”  We must remember, too, that he had absolutely no other means of publishing them.