Part 39 (1/2)

Copies of the Kama Shastra edition of The Scented Garden issued in 1886 [662] are not scarce The edition of 1904, to which we have several times referred, is founded chiefly on the Arabic Manuscript in the Library at Algiers, which a few years ago was collated by Professor Max Seligsohn with the texts referred to by Burton as existing in the Libraries of Paris, Gotha and Copenhagen

175 The Fate of the Catullus

The fate of the Catullus was even ic than that of The Scented Garden This work, like The Scented Garden, was left unfinished Burton had covered his Latin copy and hislike cobwebs, and on one page ritten ”Never show half finished work to women or fools” The treatment meted to his manuscript would, if Burton had been a poet of the first order, have drawn tears from a milestone But it must be borne in mind that Lady Burton did consider him a poet of the first order, for she ranked his Camoens and his Kasidah with the work of Shakespere And this is how she treated a hich she considered a world-ated it, and finally she either typed it herself, [663]

or, what is more likely, put it into the hands of a typist who must have been extremely illiterate or abo to correct the copy, she sent the manuscript of the Catullus up the chimney after that of The Scented Garden The typewritten copy was forwarded to the unhappy and puzzled Mr Leonard C Sh, that he would ”edit it” and bring it out Just as a child who has been jus them to his father to be mended

”To me,” observes Mr S Sir Richard's share in this volu with copyist's errors [664] Lady Burton has without any reason constantly refused lance at his MS” The book, such as it was, appeared in 1894 If Burton had not been embalmed he would have turned in his coffin Wethe MS of The Scented Garden, but it is impossible not to pass upon her at any rate atreated in that way a translation of Catullus after it had been expurgated to her own taste Whether Burton would have considerably improved the poetry of his version we cannot say; but as it stands no single poem is superior to the work of his predecessors One need only co of the lines ”To the Peninsula of Sire Laeh Hunt's

”O, best of all the scattered spots that lie,”

to see what a fall was there, and yet neither Lamb's version nor Hunt's is satisfactory His ”Atys” pales before Cranstoun's, and his ”Epithalamium,” is almost unreadable; while the lines ”On the death of Lesbia's Sparrow” naturally compel comparison with Byron's version

Nor will readers of the translations by Sir Theodore Martin or Robinson Ellis gain anything by turning to Burton

On the other hand, we can well believe that his work, considered as a commentary on Catullus--for nearly all his loose notes have perished--would have been as valuable to us as, viewed in the saht, is his edition of Camoens He had explored all the Catullus country Verona, the poet's birthplace, ”Sweet Sir narrow peninsula that cleaves Garda's ”limpid lake,” Brescia, ”below the Cycnaean peak,” [666] the ”di waters” of heavenly Como, and the estate of Caecilius; [667] all were familiar to hie in the open pinnance [668] fro the Cyclades, by ”purple Zante,” up the Adriatic, and thence by river and canal to 'Home, sweet home' He was deep in every departiven his nights and days to the work The notes at the end of the printed volume are a mere drop compared with the ocean he left However, the manuscript with its pencilled cobwebs, the voluood and bad--went up the chih over the loss of The Scented Garden, and we should not have minded one straw if Lady Burton had burnt also her typewritten travesty of the Catullus; but her destruction of Sir Richard's private journals and diaries was a deed that one finds it very hard to forgive Just as Sir Richard's conversation was better than his books, so, we are told, his diaries were better than his conversation Says Mr W H Wilkins, [669] referring to Sir Richard, ”He kept his diaries and journals, not as s left out, but faithfully and fully,” and again, ”the private journals and diaries which were full of the secret thoughts and apologia of this rare genius have been committed to the flaht of portions of these diaries, tells me that Sir Richard used to put in them not only an epitome of every important letter written or received by him, and of every conversation he had with persons of consequence; but also any remarks that struck him, uttered by no matter whom [670]

176 Lisa Departs, November 1890

Like Chico, like Khah injudicious treath unendurable While Burton was alive she still had some dim notion of her place, but after his death she broke the traces, and Lady Burton had, with deep regret, to part with her They separated very good friends, however, for Lady Burton was generosity itself By this time she had been pretty well cured of lady's maid and servant pets, at any rate we hear of no other

Lady Burton was also distressed by an attack make in The Times upon the memory of her husband by Colonel Grant, who declared that Burton had treated both Speke and their native folloith inhu the facts iven them in Chapter ix Grant died 10th February 1892

Chapter xxxIX January 1891 to July 1891, Lady Burton in England

Bibliography (Posthumous works):

81 Morocco and the Moors, by Henry Leared, edited by Burton 1891 82

Il Pentamerone, published 1893 83 The Kasidah (100 copies only) 1894

[Note--In 1900 an edition of 250 copies appeared]

177 Lady Burton in England