of Mortlake, and I was gratified to find that, owing to the
watchfulness of the Arundell family, it is kept in perfect repair.
[FN#5]

Let me first speak of the unpublished letters. These were lent me
by Mr. John Payne (40 letters), Mr. W. F. Kirby (50 letters),
Major St. George Burton, Mrs. E. J. Burton, Mrs. Agg, Mr. Mostyn
Pryce, Dr. Tuckey, Mr. D. MacRitchie, and Mr. A. G. Ellis. Many of
the letters reveal Burton in quite a new light. His patriotism and
his courage were known of all men, but the womanly tenderness of his
nature and his intense love for his friends will come to many as a
surprise. His distress, for example, on hearing of the death
of Drake,[FN#6] is particularly affecting.

Of the friends of Sir Richard Burton who have been interviewed
I must mention first of all Mr. John Payne. But for Mr. Payne's
generous assistance, this work I must frankly admit, could not have
been written. He, and he alone, held the keys to whole chambers of
mystery. Mr. Payne was at first extremely reluctant to give me the
material required. Indeed, in his first letter of reply to my
request for information (7th August 1904) he declined positively
either to enter the lists against Burton, with whom, he said, he had
been on terms of intimate friendship, or to discuss the matter at
all. "As for what," he said, "it pleases the public to think
(save the mark!) of the relative merits of my own and Burton's
translations, I have long ceased to care a straw." But this led me
to write even more pressingly. I assured Mr. Payne that the public
had been unjust to him simply because nobody had hitherto set
himself the great task of comparing the two translations,
and because the true history of the case had never been laid before