bed-makers." Agnes Strickland was another victim. Being desirous of meeting him and, in spite of Borrow's unwillingness, achieving her object, she expressed in rapturous terms her admiration of his works, and concluded by asking permission to send him a copy of The Queens of England, to which he ungraciously replied, "For God's sake, don't, madam; I should not know where to put them or what to do with them." "What a damned fool that woman is!" he remarked to W. B. Donne, who was standing by. {383b}

There is a world of meaning in a paragraph from one of John Murray's (the Second) letters (21st June 1843) to Borrow in which he enquires, "Did you receive a note from Mme. Simpkinson which I forwarded ten days ago? I have not seen her since your abrupt departure from her house."

It is rather regrettable that the one side of Borrow's character has to be so emphasised. He could be just and gracious, even to the point of sternly rebuking one who represented his own religious convictions and supporting a dissenter. After a Bible Society's meeting at Mutford Bridge (the nearest village to Oulton Hall), the speakers repaired to the Hall to supper. One of the guests, an independent minister, became involved in a heated argument with a Church of England clergyman, who reproached him for holding Calvinistic views. The nonconformist replied that the clergy of the Established Church were equally liable to attack on the same ground, because the Articles of their Church were Calvinistic, and to these they had all sworn assent. The reply was that the words were not necessarily to be taken in their literal sense. At this Borrow interposed, attacking the clergyman in a most vigorous fashion for his sophistry, and finally reducing him to silence. The Independent minister afterwards confessed that he had never heard "one man give another such a dressing down as on that occasion." {384a}

Borrow was capable of very deep feeling, which is nowhere better shown than in his retort to Richard Latham whom he met at Dr Hake's table. Well warmed by the generous wine, Latham stated that he should never do anything so low as dine with his publisher. "You do not dine with John Murray, I presume?" he added. "Indeed I do," Borrow responded with deep emotion. "He is a most kind friend. When I have had sickness in the house he has been unfailing in his goodness towards me. There is no man I more value." {384b}

Borrow was a frequent visitor to the Hakes at Bury St Edmunds. W. B. Donne gives a glimpse to him in a letter to Bernard Barton (12th Sept. 1848).

"We have had a great man here--and I have been walking with him and aiding him to eat salmon and mutton and drink port--George Borrow-- and what is more we fell in with some gypsies and I heard his speech of Egypt, which sounded wondrously like a medley of broken Spanish and dog Latin. Borrow's face lighted by the red turf fire of the tent was worth looking at. He is ashy-white now--but twenty years ago, when his hair was like a raven's wing, he must have been hard to discriminate from a born Bohemian. Borrow is best on the tramp: if you can walk 4.5 miles per hour, as I can with ease and do by choice, and can walk 15 of them at a stretch--which I can compass also--then he will talk Iliads of adventures even better than his printed ones. He cannot abide those Amateur Pedestrians who saunter, and in his chair he is given to groan and be contradictory. But on Newmarket- heath, in Rougham Woods he is at home, and specially when he meets with a thorough vagabond like your present correspondent." {385a}

The present Mr John Murray recollects Borrow very clearly as

"tall, broad, muscular, with very heavy shoulders" and of course the white hair. "He was," continues Mr Murray, "a figure which no one who has seen it is likely to forget. I never remember to have seen him dressed in anything but black broad cloth, and white cotton socks were generally distinctly visible above his low shoes. I think that with Borrow the desire to attract attention to himself, to inspire a feeling of awe and mystery, must have been a ruling passion."

Borrow was frequently the guest of his publisher at Albemarle Street, in times well within the memory of Mr Murray, who relates how on one occasion

"Borrow was at a dinner-party in company with Whewell {385b} [who by the way it has been said was the original of the Flaming Tinman, although there is very little to support the statement except the fact that Dr Whewell was a proper man with his hands] both of them powerful men, and both of them, if report be true, having more than a superficial knowledge of the art of self-defence. A controversy began, and waxed so warm that Mrs Whewell, believing a personal encounter to be imminent, fainted, and had to be carried out of the room. Once when Borrow was dining with my father he disappeared into a small back room after dinner, and could not be found. At last he was discovered by a lady member of the family, stretched on a sofa and groaning. On being spoken to and asked to join the other guests, he suddenly said: Go away! go away! I am not fit company for respectable people. There was no apparent cause for this strange conduct, unless it were due to one of those unaccountable fits to which men of genius (and this description will be allowed him by many) are often subject.

"On another occasion, when dining with my father at Wimbledon, he was regaled with a 'haggis,' a dish which was new to him, and of which he partook to an extent which would have astonished many a hardy Scotsman. One summers day, several years later, he again came to dinner, and having come on foot, entered the house by a garden door, his first words--without any previous greetings--were: 'Is there a haggis to-day?'" {386a}

CHAPTER XXIV: LAVENGRO--1843-1851

During all these years Lavengro had been making progress towards completion, irregular and spasmodic it would appear; but still each year brought it nearer to the printer. "I cannot get out of my old habits," Borrow wrote to Dawson Turner (15th January 1844), "I find I am writing the work . . . in precisely the same manner as The Bible in Spain, viz., on blank sheets of old account books, backs of letters, etc. In slovenliness of manuscript I almost rival Mahomet, who, it is said, wrote his Coran on mutton spade bones." "His [Borrow's] biography will be passing strange if he tells the WHOLE truth," Ford writes to a friend (27th February 1843). "He is now writing it by my advice. I go on . . . scribbling away, though with a palpitating heart," Borrow informs John Murray (5th February 1844), "and have already plenty of scenes and dialogues connected with my life, quite equal to anything in The Bible in Spain. The great difficulty, however, is to blend them all into a symmetrical whole." On 17th September 1846 he writes again to his publisher:

"I have of late been very lazy, and am become more addicted to sleep than usual, am seriously afraid of apoplexy. To rouse myself, I rode a little time ago to Newmarket. I felt all the better for it for a few days. I have at present a first rate trotting horse who affords me plenty of exercise. On my return from Newmarket, I rode him nineteen miles before breakfast."

Another cause of delay was the "shadows" that were constantly descending upon him. His determination to give only the best of which he was capable, is almost tragic in the light of later events. To his wife, he wrote from London (February 1847): "Saw M[urray] who is in a hurry for me to begin [the printing]. I will not be hurried though for anyone."

In the Quarterly Review, July 1848, under the heading of Mr Murray's List of New Works in Preparation, there appeared the first announcement of Lavengro, an Autobiography, by George Borrow, Author of The Bible in Spain, etc., 4 vols. post 8vo. This was repeated in October. During the next two months the book was advertised as Life; A Drama, in The Athenaeum and The Quarterly Review, and the first title-page (1849) was so printed. On 7th October John Murray wrote asking Borrow to send the manuscript to the printer. This was accordingly done, and about two-thirds of it composed. Then Borrow appears to have fallen ill. On 5th January 1849 John Murray wrote to Mrs Borrow:

"I trust Mr Borrow is now restored to health and tranquillity of mind, and that he will soon be able to resume his pen. I desire this on his own account and for the sake of poor Woodfall [the printer], who is of course inconvenienced by having his press arrested after the commencement of the printing."

Writing on 27th November 1849, John Murray refers to the work having been "first sent to press--now nearly eighteen months." This is clearly a mistake, as on 7th October 1848, thirteen and a half months previously, he asks Borrow to send the manuscript to the printer that he may begin the composition. John Murray was getting anxious and urges Borrow to complete the work, which a year ago had been offered to the booksellers at the annual trade-dinner.

"I know that you are fastidious, and that you desire to produce a work of distinguished excellence. I see the result of this labour in the sheets as they come from the press, and I think when it does appear it will make a sensation," wrote the tactful publisher. "Think not, my dear friend," replied Borrow, "that I am idle. I am finishing up the concluding part. I should be sorry to hurry the work towards the last. I dare say it will be ready by the middle of February." The correspondence grew more and more tense. Mrs Borrow wrote to the printer urging him to send to her husband, who has been overworked to the point of complaint, "one of your kind encouraging notes." Later Borrow went to Yarmouth, where sea-bathing produced a good effect upon his health; but still the manuscript was not sent to the despairing printer. "I do not, God knows! wish you to overtask yourself," wrote the unhappy Woodfall; "but after what you last said, I thought I might fully calculate on your taking up, without further delay, the fragmentary portions of your 1st and 2nd volumes and let us get them out of hand."

Letters continued to pass to and fro, but the balance of manuscript was not forthcoming until November 1850, when Mrs Borrow herself took it to London. Another trade-dinner was at hand, and John Murray had written to Mrs Borrow, "If I cannot show the book then--I must throw it up." To Mrs Borrow this meant tragedy. The poor woman was distracted, and from time to time she begs for encouraging letters. In response to one of these appeals, John Murray wrote with rare insight into Borrow's character, and knowledge of what is most likely