"Captain Burton began his work on this extraordinary monument of Oriental literature in 1852, at Aden, with some help from his friend Dr. Steinhaeuser, of the Bombay Army. He has gone on with it as opportunity offered, and as other literary and official labours and his many journeys in savage lands permitted. The text and the subject offer many difficulties, and it is to these difficulties that he has devoted especial attention. His object is to reproduce the book in a form as entirely Arabian as possible, preserving the strict division of the nights, and keeping (a more questionable matter) to the long unbroken sentences in which the composer indulged, imitating also the rhythmic prose which is a characteristic of the Arabic. The effect in English remains to be seen, but of the value of Captain Burton's method as an experiment in literature there can be no doubt, or of its great interest to everybody who cares for Oriental habits of thought and language. He will not shirk any of the passages which do not suit the taste of the day, but these, Captain Burton thinks, will not commonly be found more objectionable than some which are in Shakespeare and in Shakespeare's contemporaries. At the same time it will be understood that the book is intended for men only and for the study;--not for women or children, nor for the drawing-room table or dentist's waiting-room. It will be printed by subscription and not published. "Few are the Oriental scholars in England who could do justice to this picture of the mediaeval Arab. Captain Burton is perhaps the only one who joins to the necessary linguistic knowledge that varied practical experience of Eastern life which alone in many cases can supply the true meaning of a troublesome passage or an accurate comment upon it. His aim is to make the book in its English dress not only absolutely literal in text but Oriental in tone and colour. He knows the tales almost by heart, and used to keep the Bedouin tribes in roars of laughter in camp during the long summer nights by reciting them. Sheiks to whom a preternatural solemnity of demeanour is usual were to be seen rolling on the ground in paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth. It was also Burckhardt's custom to read the stories aloud, but the Arabs would snatch the book from his hand because his pronunciation was so bad. Captain Burton is said to have an Arab accent not easily distinguishable from the native. When he contents himself with the English tongue here in England, he is one of the most picturesque talkers to be met with. I can remember a certain dinner-party, now many years ago, where the great traveller kept us all listening till long past day-break; narrating, as he did, the most singular adventures with the most vivid fidelity to facts. That, however, is a digression. I have only to add that Captain Burton has the names of many subscribers and will doubtless be glad to receive others which may, I suppose, be sent to him at Trieste.