Born, at Barham House, Herts, 19 March 1821. Taken abroad soon afterwards. To school at Tours, 1827. To school at Richmond, 1830. Returned to France, 1831. Privately educated in France and Italy, 1831–40. To Trinity Coll., Oxford, Oct. 1840; rusticated, autumn of 1841. To Bombay with commission in H. E. I. C.’s service, Oct. 1842. Joined 18th Bombay Native Infantry at Baroda. Regimental Interpreter, 1843. Journey to Medina and Mecca, 1852. To Somaliland with Speke, 1854–55. In Constantinople, 1856. Left Zanzibar, with Speke, on expedition to Central Africa, June 1857. Returned to England, 1859; Gold Medal of Royal Geographical Soc. Visit to America, 1860. Married Isabel Arundell, 22 Jan. 1861. Consul at Fernando Po, Aug. 1861. Consul at São Paulo, Brazil, 1865; travelled widely in Brazil. Consul at Damascus, Oct. 1869; exploration in Syria. Returned to England, 1871. Visit to Iceland, 1872. Consul at Trieste, 1872–90. Travelled in Land of Midian, 1876, 1877–78; in interior of Gold Coast, 1882. K.C.M.G., 1886. Died, at Trieste, 20 Oct. 1890. Works: “Goa and the Blue Mountains,” 1851; “Scinde; or, the Unhappy Valley,” 1851; “Sindh, and the Races that inhabit the Valley of the Indus,” 1851; “Falconry in the Valley of the Indus,” 1852; “A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise,” 1853; “Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage” (3 vols.), 1855–56; “First Footsteps in East Africa,” 1856; “The Lake Region of Central Africa,” 1860; “The City of the Saints,” 1861; “Wanderings in West Africa” (under initials: F. R. G. S.), 1863; “Abeokuta,” 1863; “The Nile Basin” (from “Morning Advertiser”), 1864; “A Mission to Gelele” (2 vols.), 1864; “Stone Talk” (under pseud. of Frank Baker), 1865; “Wit and Wisdom from West Africa,” 1865; “Explorations of the Highlands of Brazil,” 1869; “Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay,” 1870; “Zanzibar,” 1872; “Unexplored Syria” (with C. F. T. Drake), 1872; “Ultima Thule,” 1875; “Two Trips to Gorilla Land,” 1876 [1875]; “A New System of Sword Exercise,” 1876; “Etruscan Bologna,” 1876; “Sind Revisited,” 1877; “The Gold Mines of Midian,” 1878; “The Land of Midian Revisited,” 1879; “A Glance at the ‘Passion-Play,’” 1881; “Lord Beaconsfield” [1882?]; “To the Gold Coast for Gold” (with V. L. Cameron), 1883 [1882]; “The Book of the Sword,” 1884. Posthumous: “The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû Al-Yazdi,” ed. by Lady Burton, 1894; translations of “Il Pantamerone,” 1893; and Catullus’ “Carmina,” 1894. He translated: “Vikram and the Vampire,” 1870; Lacerda’s “Lands of Cazembe,” 1873; Camoens’ Works, 1880–84; “Arabian Nights,” 1885–86; “Supplemental Nights,” 1886–88; Pereira da Silva’s “Manuel de Moraes” (with Lady Burton), 1886; and edited: Marcy’s “Prairie Traveller,” 1863; Stade’s “Captivity,” 1874; Leared’s “Morocco and the Moors,” 1891 [1890]. Collected Works: “Memorial Edn.,” ed. by Lady Burton and L. Smithers, 1893, etc. Life: by Lady Burton, 2 vols., 1893; by G. M. Stisted, 1896.

Personal

  Burton was a man whose mental capacity was extraordinary, and whose physical powers were far above the average, whilst he also possessed a phenomenal love and power of hard work. It may be asked why a man so exceptionally gifted did not achieve a phenomenal success and die a Peer and Knight of the Garter. The answer is not far to seek; he preferred a position where he was practically independent, and where he could say and do what he liked, to one which, however splendid, would involve certain restraints. He was not a man to endure the wearing of any fetters, not even if they were golden and bejeweled. His independence he valued before all else, and this love of freedom and his unflinching, outspoken honesty prevented his ever becoming a courtier. If he could have stooped ever so little no one can calculate the height (as judged by ordinary standards) to which he must have risen…. His scientific, apart from his linguistic and scholarly attainments, were most wonderful, and if he had cared to make them known to the world he would have ranked high as geologist, naturalist, anthropologist, botanist, or antiquarian; in fact, he was admirably equipped in all ways as a scientific explorer, and when you add to the above qualifications his marvellous aptitude for languages and his equally marvellous accuracy, it must be allowed that no traveller of present or past ages outrivals, even if any equals or comes near him…. Another point of superiority in Burton to most men was his power of instantly putting a stop to argument and dissension, and this whether the parties were white, black, or of both colors. Fortunately I have not seen him have cause to do this more than twice or thrice, but on each occasion his influence was magical. As he could control others so he could also control himself, and in my experience of him I have never seen him lose his temper; and the perfect submission with which during the last few years of his life he acquiesced in the regulations of his wife and his doctor, without one word of murmuring or symptom of dissatisfaction, was one of the most touching things I ever witnessed, and also a proof of how completely he had mastered what in his young days had been a fiery temper.

  His pilgrimage in disguise to Mecca, his discovery of Lake Tanganyike, and his translation of the “Thousand and One Nights” (which his wife never read unexpurgated, though it was copied by “a lady amanuensis”), are the three things for which he will chiefly be remembered. In spite of great achievements, his was a life of signal troubles and disappointments. He declared, “My career in India has been in my eyes a failure;” even the famous Mecca trip was but a part of what he had meant to do; the irregular Turkish force which he helped to organise during the Crimean war never saw service, and his various suggestions met with snubs; his expedition with Speke ended in a bitter quarrel between the two, and it was Speke who was chosen to go a second time and have the glory of discovering the sources of the Nile; his name was struck off the Army List without warning when he entered the consular service at perhaps the worst possible post, Fernando Po; when he did at last get a situation to his heart, the consulship at Damascus, after a while he was abruptly cashiered, though his conduct was subsequently approved and he was sent to Trieste where he was left from 1873 till his death in 1890…. This is a sad record for a man of such great and varied abilities, of such energy and industry, who knew twenty-nine languages, who understood the East as few Europeans ever have, who was one of the pioneers of modern African exploration, and who wrote, on widely different subjects, works that will always have value. In spite of Lady Burton’s protestations, we can see that, to a certain extent, he had himself to blame for his woes; but we will not undertake to say how much.

  Truly, the story of this good knight and “Isabel his wife” should be writ in other languages than our nineteenth century work-a-day tongue. It should be sung, as a “romaunt” of heroic emprise, of battle with savage foes, of wanderings through the magic lands and mysterious cities of the sun: of glory and mishap, and much persecution; above all, of true love that never failed or wavered, through life or in death. Such a story we might have received as a legend of early mediæval times, and treasured, like the acts of a St. George, or a knightly Quest originated at the “Round Table” of King Arthur. It is difficult to look upon it in the light of modern day, as a tale of marvels enacted concurrently with our own lives. The potent spell of it all lies in the man’s ill-rewarded courage and endurance for honour and country’s sake; in his lady’s love and loyal service at his side, “surpassing woman’s power.”

  His intellectual gifts, his power of assuming any character he pleased, his facility in acquiring languages, his love of adventure and contempt for danger—all singled him out as a remarkable man. He was very dark, of an almost gypsy aspect. In fact, although he had no known Oriental blood, Lady Burton always thought it strange that he had so many characteristics of the race. He possessed the same power to read the hand at a glance, the same restlessness and inability to stay long in one place, the same philosophic endurance of any evil, and the same horror of a corpse, that distinguish the highest gypsy races. While in the East he could disguise himself so well as to pass for a dervish in the mosques, or as a merchant in the bazars. He undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca, disguised as a pilgrim, and accomplished it in safety, his real identity and nationality never being suspected. It is a proof of the power of the man that he carried the assumed character through to the end—for one mistake or slip would have caused him to pay the forfeit with his life.

General

  His cast of mind was so original that not only did he never borrow from any one else, but he was disposed to resent another’s trespassing upon such subjects as he considered his own. But no man could be more cordial in his admiration of honest work done in bordering fields of learning. He was ever ready to assist, from the stores of his experience, young explorers and young scholars; but here, as in all else, he was intolerant of pretentiousness and sciolism. His virility stamped everything he said or wrote. His style was as characteristic as his hand-writing.

  No man of modern times lived a life so full of Romance as Burton. To find his parallel we must turn to the careers of the Elizabethan heroes, notably Sir Walter Raleigh. For Burton was something more than a “gentleman adventurer.” He was at once a poet—as the Kasidah, wisely quoted by Lady Burton in full, shows beyond cavil—historian, traveller, profound oriental scholar, and soldier. Even his faults, often virtues in uncongenial surroundings, were those of the Elizabethan age; and his failures were due almost entirely to the fact that he had to live, not under the personage of Gloriana, but in our nineteenth century…. That such a man as Burton should have been reduced to his last £15 is a burning scandal to the country whose interests he strove so gallantly to serve. His entire fitness for an Eastern post is demonstrated by the respect the natives of all classes and divisions felt for him, and the fear and love he awakened in his subordinates.

  Sir Richard Burton has left behind him an enormous mass of published and unpublished writings, consisting of accounts of countries which he visited, reports to the Royal Geographical Society, treatises on various subjects connected with his expeditions, a translation of Camoëns, and numerous grammars, vocabularies, and other linguistic works. As an Oriental scholar it is possible that his much-discussed edition of the “Arabian Nights” is his most valuable production; and it is therefore probable that the destruction of his manuscript “The Scented Garden,” was, at all events, a loss to Eastern scholarship. Generally speaking, his books, although graphic and vivacious, suffer from the want of a more complete digestion, and greater care in compilation, are too impetuous, and have the air of being written au courant de plume, without much arrangement or revision. Such volumes, however, as the famous “Pilgrimage to Mecca;” “Scinde; or, the Unhappy Valley;” or the Account of his Mission to the King of Dahomé, would alone be a sufficient monument even of an extraordinary man; but Sir Richard lets them fall by the way as chronicles of his amusements and records of the more picturesque episodes of his career.

  Whether or no Lady Burton was, all in all, justified in burning the “Scented Garden” is at least an open question; but the charge that in so doing she showed “the bigotry of a Torquemada and the vandalism of a John Knox” is overstrained. Miss Stisted’s characterization of the act as “theatrical” is unfair.

  Burton was attracted to Camoens as the mouthpiece of the romantic period of discovery in the Indian Ocean. The voyages, the misfortunes, the chivalry, the patriotism of the poet were to him those of a brother adventurer. In his spirited sketch of the life and character of Camoens it is not presumptuous to read between the lines allusions to his own career. This sympathy breathes through his translation of the Portuguese epic, which, though not a popular success, won the enthusiastic approval of the few competent critics…. Of Burton’s translations of “The Arabian Nights” it is difficult to speak freely. While the “Camoens” was only a succes d’estime, and “The Book of the Sword” little short of a failure, the private circulation of “The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night” (1885–6, 10 vols.), brought to the author a profit of about 10,000l which enabled him to spend his declining years in comparative luxury. This much at least may be said in justification of some of the baits that he held out to the purchasers. For it would be absurd to ignore the fact that the attraction lay not so much in the translation as in the notes and the terminal essay, where certain subjects of curiosity are discussed with naked freedom. Burton was but following the example of many classical scholars of high repute and indulging a taste which is more widespread than modern prudery will allow. In his case something more may be urged. The whole of his life was a protest against social conventions. Much of it was spent in the East, where the intercourse between men and women is more according to nature, and things are called by plain names. Add to this Burton’s insatiable curiosity, which had impelled him to investigate all that concerns humanity in four continents. Of the merits of Burton’s translation no two opinions have been expressed. The quaintness of expression that some have found fault with in the “Lusiads” are here not out of place, since they reproduce the topsy-turvy world of the original. If an eastern story-teller could have written in English he would write very much as Burton has done. A translator can expect no higher praise.