to think of himself, or that Borrow might have made a concession to their friendship. Happy Ford! The unfortunate episode estranged Borrow from Ford. Letters between them became less and less frequent and finally ceased altogether, although Borrow did not forget to send to his old friend a copy of Lavengro when it appeared.

Worries seemed to rain down upon Borrow's head about this time. Samuel Morton Peto (afterwards Sir Samuel) had decided to enrich Lowestoft by improving the harbour and building a railway to Reedham, about half-way between Yarmouth and Norwich. He was authorised by Parliament and duly constructed his line, which not even Borrow's anger could prevent from passing through the Oulton Estate, between the Hall and the Cottage. Borrow could not fight an Act of Parliament, which forced him to cross a railway bridge on his way to church; but he never forgave the man who had contrived it, or his millions. His first thought had been to fly before the invader. All quiet would be gone from the place. "Sell and be off," advised Ford; "I hope you will make the railway pay dear for its whistle," quietly observed John Murray. At first Borrow was inclined to take Ford's advice and settle abroad; but subsequently relinquished the idea.

He was not, however, the man quietly to sit down before what he conceived to be an unjustifiable outrage to his right to be quiet. He never forgave railways, although forced sometimes to make use of them. Samuel Morton Peto became to him the embodiment of evil, and as "Mr Flamson flaming in his coach with a million" he is immortalised in The Romany Rye.

It is said that Sir Samuel boasted that he had made more than the price he had paid for Borrow's land out of the gravel he had taken from off it. On one occasion, after he had bought Somerleyton Hall, happening to meet Borrow, he remarked that he never called upon him, and Borrow remembering the boast replied, "I call on you! Do you think I don't read my Shakespeare? Do you think I don't know all about those highwaymen Bardolph and Peto?" {372a}

The neighbourhood of Oulton appears to have been infested with thieves, and poachers found admirable "cover" in the surrounding plantations, or small woods. On several occasions Borrow himself had been attacked at night on the highway between Lowestoft and Oulton. Once he had even been shot at and nearly overpowered. John Murray (the Second) on hearing of one of these assaults had written (1841) artfully enquiring, "Were your wood thieves Gypsies, and have the Cales got notice of your publication [The Zincali]?"

Borrow had written to John Murray, Junr. (10th May 1842):-

"I have been dreadfully unwell since I last heard from you--a regular nervous attack. At present I have a bad cough, caught by getting up at night in pursuit of poachers and thieves. A horrible neighbourhood this--not a magistrate dares do his duty." On 18th September 1843 he again wrote to John Murray: "One of the Magistrates in this district is just dead. Present my compliments to Mr Gladstone and tell him that the The Bible in Spain would have no objection to become 'a great unpaid!'"

Gladstone is said greatly to have admired The Bible in Spain, even to the extent of writing to John Murray counselling him to have amended a passage that he considered ill-advised. Gladstone's letter was sent on to Borrow, and he acknowledges its receipt (6th November 1843) in the following terms:-

"Many thanks for the perusal of Mr Gladstone's letter. I esteem it a high honour that so distinguished a man should take sufficient interest in a work of mine as to suggest any thing in emendation. I can have no possible objection to modify the passage alluded to. It contains some strong language, particularly the sentence about the scarlet Lady, which it would be perhaps as well to omit."

The offending passage was that in which Borrow says, when describing the interior of the Mosque at Tangier: "I looked around for the abominable thing, and found it not; no scarlet strumpet with a crown of false gold sat nursing an ugly changeling in a niche." In later editions the words "no scarlet strumpet," etc., were changed to "the besetting sin of the pseudo-Christian Church did not stare me in the face in every corner."

The amendment was little likely to please a Churchman of Gladstone's calibre, or procure for the writer the magistracy he coveted, even if it had been made less grudgingly. "We must not make any further alterations here," Borrow wrote to Murray a few days later, "otherwise the whole soliloquy, which is full of vigor and poetry, and moreover of TRUTH, would be entirely spoiled. As it is, I cannot help feeling that [it] is considerably damaged." There seems very little doubt that this passage was referred to in the letter that John Murray encloses in his of 10th July 18431 with this reference: "(The writer of the enclosed note is a worthy canon of St Paul's, and has evidently seen only the 1st edition)." Borrow replied:-

"Pray present my best respects to the Canon of St Paul's and tell him from me that he is a burro, which meaneth Jackass, and that I wish he would mind his own business, which he might easily do by attending a little more to the accommodation of the public in his ugly Cathedral."

Borrow appears to have set his mind on becoming a magistrate. He had written to Lockhart (November 1843) enquiring how he had best proceed to obtain such an appointment. Lockhart was not able to give him any very definite information, his knowledge of such things, as he confessed, "being Scotch." For the time being the matter was allowed to drop, to be revived in 1847 by a direct application from Borrow to Lord Clarendon to support his application with the Lord Chancellor. His claims were based upon (1) his being a large landed-proprietor in the district (Mrs Borrow had become the owner of the Oulton Hall Estate during the previous year); (2) the fact that the neighbourhood was over-run with thieves and undesirable characters; (3) that there was no magistrate residing in the district. Lord Clarendon promised his good offices, but suggested that as all such appointments were made through the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, the Earl of Stradbroke had better be acquainted with what was taking place. This was done through the Hon. Wm. Rufus Rous, Lord Stradbroke's brother, whose interest was obtained by some of Borrow's friends.

After a delay of two months, Lord Stradbroke wrote to Lord Clarendon that he was quite satisfied with "the number and efficiency of the Magistrates" and also with the way in which the Petty Sessions were attended. He could hear of no complaint, and when the time came to increase the number of J.P.'s, he would be pleased to add Borrow's name to the list, provided he were advised to do so by "those gentlemen residing in the neighbourhood, who, living on terms of intimacy with them [the Magistrates], will be able to maintain that union of good feeling which . . . exists in all our benches of Petty Sessions."

Borrow would have made a good magistrate, provided the offender were not a gypsy. He would have caused the wrong-doer more fear the instrument of the law rather than the law itself, and some of his sentences might possibly have been as summary as those of Judge Lynch.

"It was a fine thing," writes a contemporary, "to see the great man tackle a tramp. Then he scented the battle from afar, bearing down on the enemy with a quivering nostril. If the nomad happened to be a gypsy he was courteously addressed. But were he a mere native tatterdemalion, inclined to be truculent, Borrow's coat was off in a moment, and the challenge to decide there and then who was the better man flung forth. I have never seen such challenges accepted, for Borrow was robust and towering." {375a}

It is not strange that Borrow's application failed; for he never refused leave to the gypsies to camp upon his land, and would sometimes join them beside their campfires. Once he took a guest with him after dinner to where the gypsies were encamped. They received Borrow with every mark of respect. Presently he "began to intone to them a song, written by him in Romany, which recounted all their tricks and evil deeds. The gypsies soon became excited; then they began to kick their property about, such as barrels and tin cans; then the men began to fight and the women to part them; an uproar of shouts and recriminations set in, and the quarrel became so serious that it was thought prudent to quit the scene." {376a} "In nothing can the character of a people be read with greater certainty and exactness than in its songs," {376b} Borrow had written. {376c}

These disappointments tended to embitter Borrow, who saw in them only a conspiracy against him. There is little doubt that Lord Stradbroke's enquiries had revealed some curious gossip concerning the Master of Oulton Hall, possibly the dispute with his rector over the inability of their respective dogs to live in harmony; perhaps even the would-be magistrate's predilection for the society of gypsies, and his profound admiration for "the Fancy" had reached the Lord-Lieutenant's ears.

The unfortunate and somewhat mysterious dispute with Dr Bowring was another anxiety that Borrow had to face. He had once remarked, "It's very odd, Bowring, that you and I have never had a quarrel." {376d} In the summer of 1842 he and Bowring seem to have been on excellent terms. Borrow wrote asking for the return of the papers and manuscripts that had remained in Bowring's hands since 1829, when the Songs of Scandinavia was projected, as Borrow hoped to bring out during the ensuing year a volume entitled Songs of Denmark. The cordiality of the letter may best be judged by the fact that in it he announces his intention of having a copy of the forthcoming Bible in Spain sent "to my oldest, I may say my ONLY friend."

In 1847 Bowring wrote to Borrow enquiring as to the Russian route through Kiakhta, and asking if he could put him in the way of obtaining the information for the use of a Parliamentary Committee then enquiring into England's commercial relations with China. Borrow's reply is apparently no longer in existence; but it drew from Bowring another letter raising a question as to whether "'two hundred merchants are allowed to visit Pekin every three years.' Are you certain this is in practice now? Have you ever been to Kiakhta?" It would appear from Bowring's "if summoned, your expenses must be paid by the public," that Borrow had suggested giving evidence before the Committee, hence Bowring's question as to whether Borrow could speak from personal knowledge of Kiakhta.

Borrow's claim against Bowring is that after promising to use all his influence to get him appointed Consul at Canton, he obtained the post for himself, passing off as his own the Manchu-Tartar New Testament that Borrow had edited in St Petersburg. There is absolutely no other evidence than that contained in Borrow's Appendix to The Romany