It is hard to quote a line which he deigned textually to translate. He not only commits felony on the original by abstracting whole sentences and pages ad libitum, but he also thrusts false goods into his author's pocket and patronises the unfortunate Eastern story-teller by foisting upon him whatever he, the "translator and traitor," deems needful. On this point no more need be said: the curious reader has but to compare any one of Scott's "translations" with the original or, for that matter, with the present version. I determined to do that for Scott which Lane had done partly and imperfectly, and Payne had successfully and satisfactorily done for Galland. But my first difficulty was about the text. It was impossible to face without affright the prospect of working for months amid the discomforts and the sanitary dangers of Oxford's learned atmosphere and in her obsolete edifices the Bodleian and the Radcliffe. Having ascertained, however, that in the so-called "University" not a scholar could be found to read the text, I was induced to apply for a loan?not to myself personally for I should have shunned the responsibility?but in the shape of a temporary transfer of the seven-volumed text, tome by tome, to the charge of Dr. Rost, the excellent Librarian of the India Office. My hopes, however, were fated to be deferred. Learned bodies, Curators and so forth, are ponderous to move and powerless to change for The trail of the slow-worm is over them all. My official application was made on September 13th, 1886. The tardiest steps were taken as if unwillingly and, when they could no longer decently be deferred, they resulted in the curtest and most categorical but not most courteous of refusals, under circumstances of peculiar disfavour, on November 1st of the same year. Here I shall say no more: the correspondence has been relegated to Appendix A. My subscribers, however, will have no reason to complain of these "Ineptiæ Bodleianæ." I had pledged myself in case of a loan "not to translate Tales that might be deemed offensive to propriety:" the Curators have kindly set me free from that troublesome condition and I thank them therefor. Meanwhile I had not been idle. Three visits to Oxford in September and October had enabled me to reach the DIVth Night. But the laborious days and inclement evenings, combined with the unsanitary state of town and libraries?the Bodleian and the Rotunda?brought on a serious attack of "lithiasis" as it is now called, and prostrated me for two months, until it was time to leave England en route for my post.