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