most delightful recollections." Mr. Swinburne has kindly allowed me
to give in full his magnificent poem on "The Death of Richard
Burton." Dr. Grenfell Baker, whom I interviewed in London, had much
to tell me respecting Sir Richard's last three years; and he has
since very kindly helped me by letter.

The great object of this book is to tell the story of Burton's life,
to delineate as vividly as possible his remarkable character--
his magnetic personality, and to defend him alike from enemy and
friend. In writing it my difficulties have been two. First, Burton
himself was woefully inaccurate as an autobiographer, and we must
also add regretfully that we have occasionally found him colouring
history in order to suit his own ends.[FN#13] He would have put
his life to the touch rather than misrepresent if he thought any man
would suffer thereby; but he seems to have assumed that it did not
matter about keeping strictly to the truth if nobody was likely to
be injured. Secondly, Lady Burton, with haughty indifference to the
opinions of everyone else, always exhibited occurrences in the light
in which she herself desired to see them. This fact and the extreme
haste with which her book was written are sufficient to account for
most of its shortcomings. She relied entirely upon her own
imperfect recollections. Church registers and all such documents
were ignored. She begins with the misstatement that Burton was born
at Elstree, she makes scarcely any reference to his most intimate
friends and even spells their names wrongly.[FN#14] Her remarks on
the Kasidah are stultified by the most cursory glance at that poem;
while the whole of her account of the translating of The Arabian
Nights is at variance with Burton's own letters and conversations.
I am assured by several who knew Burton intimately that the
untrustworthiness of the latter part of Lady Burton's "Life" of her