"To
"The Prince of the Lyric Poets of his day,
"Algernon Charles Swinburne.
"My dear Swinburne,
"Accept the unequal exchange—my brass for your gold. Your 'Poems and Ballads' began to teach the Philister what might there is in the music of language, and what the marvel of lyric inspiration, far subtler and more ethereal than mere poetry, means to the mind of man.
"Without more ado, allow me to excuse this 'transaction' by a something which comes from the East—
"'A poor man, passing by one day when his King travelled, brought him a little water with both hands, saying, "Drink, my lord, for the heat is great." He accepted it gladly from him, not looking to the small quality of that service, but only to the good will with which it was offered.'
"Believe me ever,
"Your old friend and fellow-traveller,
"Richard F. Burton.
"Desterro, Trieste,
"September 25th, 1884."
"The Pines, Putney Hill, S.W.,
"November 7th, 1884.
"My dear Burton,
"Your dedication makes me very proud, and the kindness of its terms gives me still a heartier pleasure than that of mere pride in your friendship. Thanks to you both, and notably to Frances H——" [me] "for her letter, or rather your joint one of the 10th, which has now been followed by the arrival of the two volumes. They are yet more interesting (naturally) to me than their precursors....
"The learning and research of your work are in many points beyond all praise of mine, but not more notable than the strength and skill that wield them. I am hungrily anticipating the 'Arabian Nights.' You both know how we look forward to our next meeting with you, when you shall not run away so soon as you did last time.
"Both of yours always,
"A. C. Swinburne."
"The Pines, Putney Hill, S.W.,
"April 13th, 1881.
"My dear Mrs. Burton,
"I am horribly ashamed to find that my letter of thanks to you on the arrival of the 'Lusiads,' which I quite thought had been at once written and despatched (this is the real honest truth, and not a lying after-thought to excuse myself), never went or existed at all, but remained in the limbo of good intentions. I cannot tell how, for I distinctly remember the very words I meant to send, and thought I had sent, of congratulations to Burton on having in that translation, as I think, matched Byron on his own chosen ground as a translator, and beaten him at his own weapon. The version of Pulci's 'Morgante,' on which Byron prided himself so greatly as being, in his own words, the best translation that ever was or will be made, is an infinitely less important, and I should think less difficult attempt on exactly the same lines of work, and certainly, to say the least, not more successful, as far as one can judge, without knowledge of Camoens in the original language.
"With best remembrances to both of you.
"Ever faithfully yours,
"A. C. Swinburne."
I prefer the "Lusiads," but the Portuguese think that if Camoens had never written the "Lusiads," his sonnets would have immortalized him, and prefer his to Petrarch's.
Besides this, we used to fence a great deal during those years. We set up a tir au pistolet, and used to practise every morning after breakfast. When snow was deep we drove in a sledge. We attended the school feast annually, and sometimes we had village serenades. At Opçina, on the Eve of St. John's, the peasants light fires all over the country, and the superstition is that you must see eleven fires burning at the same time in order to have a lucky year. When we went up there, we lived absolutely alone, without any servants, and we used to take long walks and drives.
"GERALD MASSEY TO RICHARD F. BURTON.
"'Englished by Richard Burton.' And well done,
As it was well worth doing; for this is one
Of those old Poets, who are always new,
That share eternity with all that's true,
And of their own abounding spirit do give
Substance to Earth's dead Shadows; and make men live
Who in action merely did but flit and pass;
Now fixed for ever in thought's reflecting-glass.
This is the Poet of weary wanderers
In perilous lands; and wide-sea Voyagers,
And climbers fall'n and broken on the stairs.
A man of men; a master of affairs,
Whose own life-story is, in touching truth,
Poem more potent than all feignèd truth.
His Epic trails a story in the wake
Of Gama, Raleigh, Frobisher, and Drake.
The poem of Discovery! sacred to
Discoverers, and their deeds of derring-do,
Is fitly rendered in The Traveller's land,
By one of the foremost of the fearless band."
——Gerald Massey.
"Burton's Camoens.
(A cutting from the Press.)
"In his wanderings afar from the world's highway, he made Camoens his companion, and discovered a peculiar sympathy of mind between himself and the noble Portuguese—an affinity which Mrs. Burton seems inclined to trace even in the fortunes of the two men (absit omen!)."
The Daily Telegraph, February 21, 1881.
"'Camoens,' he says, 'is the perfection of a traveller's study. A wayfarer and a voyager from his youth; a soldier, somewhat turbulent withal, wounded and blamed for his wounds; a doughty sword and yet doughtier pen; a type of the chivalrous age; a patriot of the purest water, so jealous of his country's good fame, that nothing would satisfy him but to see the world bow before her perfections; a genius, the first and foremost of his day, who died in the direst poverty and distress.' These are good titles to admiration in any case, and we cannot wonder that a great English traveller, himself too a poet, should have been captivated all these long years by the charms of that beautiful Portuguese tongue, and those noble and stirring sentiments which stand enshrined in Camoens' deathless pages. If it be true that Chapman's 'Iliad' is a great work because of the intense love and admiration which its author had for the blind old bard of Greece, then certainly Captain Burton's labour, which has taken up twenty years of a much-occupied life, ought, for the same reason, to be able to stand the test of time, inasmuch as it is the fruit of genuine and heartfelt devotion on the part of the translator to the author and his poetic masterpiece."
The Daily Telegraph, February 21, 1881.
"'My master, Camoens,' Captain Burton calls him, and goes on to pay his tribute of gratitude for the real solace which the much-loved volume has been to him in many wanderings. 'On board raft and canoe, sailing vessel and steamer, on the camel and the mule, under the tent and the jungle tree, on the fire-peak and the snow-peak,' writes the accomplished 'Hadji,' 'Camoens has been my companion, my consoler, my friend;' and we may remark that a study of Camoens, who is an ideal patriot, as well as a constant lover, whose fair one was snatched away by death at the age of twenty, would be useful in the present day as an antidote to schools of thought which banish both patriotism and romance, as far as they can, into the region of forbidden sentiments. Indeed, so intensely patriotic is the bard, that in the opening of his epic he bids Achilles, Alexander, and all other ancient warriors and travellers, cease to 'vaunt long voyages made in bygone day,' as if the 'better bravery' of the Lusitanian explorers fairly threw into the shade all attempts in the same line which had been made before. This may be going a little too far, but, at all events, it is a fault in the right direction, which deserved better treatment than King Ferdinand's annual dole of five golden sovereigns."
A Little Anecdote about a Capuchin.
One day, as we sat at our twelve o'clock breakfast at Opçina, on a very hot day, a poor barefooted Capuchin came in, looking hot, jaded, dusty, and travel-stained. He sat down in another part of the restaurant at a table, and humbly asked for a glass of water. We were waiting for our breakfast, and I slipped out of the room and said to the landlord, "Every time you bring us up a dish, put a third portion, with bread and vegetables, and in due course sweets and cheese, before the poor Capuchin who has just come in, and a bottle of the same wine you give us, and tell him to pray for the donors." I slipped back into my place, and I saw Richard kept staring at him, when he was not looking, with an amused smile, and finally he turned round to me and whispered, "There, just look! You say that those fellows starve, and I declare to you that he has eaten, mouthful for mouthful, everything we have eaten, and a good bottle of wine like ours." So I laughed and I said, "Yes; but with your money!" "Oh, you blackguard! am I paying for his dinner?" "Yes," I said, "you are; and he is going to pray for us." He was far from being vexed; he was too kind, and he enjoyed the joke very much. I said to him, "That man has been catering all over Istria for provisions for the convent, and the rule at table is that they eat whatever you put on their plates, but they must not ask. Seeing the state he is in, you would not like to have seen him go away with a glass of water." "No," he said, "that I should not; I am glad you did it."