benefit of it," and I have done so.

In dealing with the fight[FN#9] over The Arabian Nights I have
endeavoured to write in such a way as to give offence to nobody,
and for that reason have made a liberal use of asterisks. I am the
more desirous of saying this because no one is better aware than
myself of the services that some of Burton's most bitter opponents--
those ten or twelve men whom he contemptuously termed Laneites--
have rendered to literature and knowledge. In short, I regard the
battle as fought and won. I am merely writing history. No man at
the present day would dream of mentioning Lane in the same breath
with Payne and Burton. In restoring to Mr. Payne his own, I have
had no desire to detract from Burton. Indeed, it is impossible to
take from a man that which he never possessed. Burton was a very
great man, Mr. Payne is a very great man, but they differ as two
stars differ in glory. Burton is the magnificent man of action and
the anthropologist, Mr. Payne the brilliant poet and prose writer.
Mr. Payne did not go to Mecca or Tanganyika, Burton did not
translate The Arabian Nights,[FN#10] or write The Rime of
Redemption and Vigil and Vision. He did, however, produce the
annotations of The Arabian Nights, and a remarkable enough and
distinct work they form.

I recall with great pleasure an evening spent with Mr. Watts-Dunton
at The Pines, Putney. The conversation ran chiefly on the Gipsies,
[FN#11] upon whom Mr. Watts-Dunton is one of our best authorities,
and the various translations of The Arabian Nights. Both he and
Mr. A. C. Swinburne have testified to Burton's personal charm and
his marvellous powers. "He was a much valued and loved friend,"
wrote Mr. Swinburne to me[FN#12], "and I have of him none but the