185. Miss Stisted's "True Life."
As might have been expected, Lady Burton's Life of her husband gave umbrage to the Stisted family—and principally for two reasons; first its attempt to throw a flood of Catholic colour on Sir Richard, and secondly because it contained statements which they held to be incorrect. So after Lady Burton's death, Miss Stisted wrote and published a small work entitled The True Life of Sir Richard Burton. It is written with some acerbity, for Lady Burton as a Catholic was not more militant than Miss Stisted as a Protestant. It throws additional and welcome light on Sir Richard's early days, but as we have elsewhere remarked, the principal charge that it made against Lady Burton, namely that she was the main cause of her husband's downfall at Damascus, is unsupported by sufficient evidence.