Sir Richard Burton died at Trieste on Monday, at the
age of sixty-nine. He was one of the earliest and greatest of modern African explorers—he discovered Lake Tanganyika —a profound Arabic scholar, who really understood Arab thought as well as Arabic words; and a man of extraordinarily varied accomplishments. His translation of " The Arabian Nights " was a monumental work, though readable by Euro- peans only in his wife's expurgated edition. He might have done much, greater things, but he had the temperament Tre- lawny painted in " The Adventures of a Younger Son," loathed average people, thought most superiors tyrants or fools, and contrived to excite in many of them deep distrust at once of his objects and himself. If his lot had been cast in Asia or South America, his personal daring, which was something quite beyond ordinary courage, and his unscrupulous ability might have given him the headship of a State; but the restrictions of Europe galled him, and he wasted half his force in defying conventions most of which are sound. Latterly he had ideas of finding gold-mines in Midian or on the Gold Coast, and hard-headed speculators who follow in his track will probably reap the harvest which he failed to obtain.
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