was printed solely for private subscribers, and though issued at seven guineas cannot now be procured under twenty-five or thirty when a copy accidentally comes into the market. Payne was, however, not much more than an amateur Arabist, and his practical acquaintance with Arabs and the East was simply _nil_. Captain Burton, it is unnecessary to remind any one, is in a very different case. Thirty-three years ago he went in the disguise of an Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving the world the result of his experience has so minute, so exhaustive a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally. Hence the work now begun only a limited number of students can ever see, and it is simply priceless to any one who concerns himself as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation. "But what may possibly interest many almost as much as the stories and notes, is the almost sad preface in which the Editor tells the tale of his toils. In 1852 he began this translation at Aden. His friend Dr. Steinhaüser, to whose memory it is dedicated, was to undertake the prose, while Burton accepted the metrical portion of the book as his share of the task. But Steinhaüser died, 'and after the fashion of Anglo-Indians his valuable manuscripts left at Aden were dispersed,' and very little of his labour reached his colleague. But fitfully the work progressed amid a host of obstructions. In deadly Consulships in West Africa and Brazil, in livelier ones in Damascus and Trieste, the business went on, just as it had gone on less systematically in Somali-land and Central Africa. And, toilsome though the task unquestionably was, it was lightened by the pleasant memories it recalled. Many a time and oft, after the day's journey was over, he had gathered the Arabs around him, and read or recited these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks, and they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. 'Nor was it only in Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline; no one was deaf to the charm, and the two women cooks of my caravan on its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men "Shehrazade" and "Deenarzade."' Yet as his labour approached the period when it ought to appear in print, prudent friends hinted at the danger he ran of injuring his professional advancement. 'Literary labours, unpopular with the vulgar and half-educated, are not likely to help a man up the ladder of promotion. But common sense suggested to me that, professionally speaking, I was not a success, and at the same time that I had no cause to be ashamed of my failure. Philister can pardon anything but superiority. The prizes of competitive service are monopolized by certain "pets" of the _médiocratie_ and prime favourites of that jealous and potent majority, the mediocrities,