"A friend lately asked Captain Burton why he was bringing out his translation so soon after another and a most scholarly one. He answered, 'Orientalists are anxious to have the real Eastern work. I had received sundry letters saying--Let us know what the mediæval Arab was. If he was exalted and good, let us see it. If he was witty, let us hear it. If he was uncultivated and coarse, still let us have him to the very letter. We want once for all the real thing. We want a mediæval Arab, telling the tales and legends of his own country, and showing the world what he has remained whilst the West has progressed in culture and delicacy.--Now, I will do this by notes and a running commentary, enabling the student to read between the lines, and perfectly to understand much of what he would otherwise pass over without understanding. I am determined subscribers shall learn from my work what they cannot find in any other, and to make it a repertory of Eastern knowledge, by no means intended for the many-headed, but for the few who are not too wise to learn, or too omniscient to acquire knowledge. I regret more than I can say the coarseness of the Arabic, but I consider it not less my duty to translate it word for word. My Oriental renderings will make it quite different from all the other translations, and I shall leave nothing for any other man in the future to do.'" R. F. B. "PANTAGRUELISM OR PORNOGRAPHY? "To the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. "Sir,--Your correspondent 'Sigma' has forgotten the considerable number of 'students' who will buy Captain Burton's translation as the only literal one, needing it to help them in what has become necessary to many--a masterly knowledge of Egyptian Arabic. The so-called 'Arabian Nights' are about the only written halfway house between the literary Arabic and the colloquial Arabic, both of which they need, and need introductions too. I venture to say that its largest use will be as a grown-up school-book, and that it is not coarser than the classics in which we soak all our boys' minds at school. The Arabic classics are not in Egyptian-Arabic, which varies much from Syrian and other branches of the language, and a thorough knowledge of the daily customs and family life of Egypt is a knowledge, however repulsive, to be conscientiously sought by all who are either administrators or philanthropists in Egypt. "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, "ANGLO-EGYPTIAN. "September 14th." _Glasgow Times_, 24th November, 1888. (Anent the Bodleian refusal and the biography of his book.)