Footnotes:

Well try’d through many a varying year, See Levet to the grave descend, Officious, innocent, sincere, Of ev’ry friendless name the friend.

Two omens seem propitious to my fame, Your spouse embalms my verse, and you my name; A name, which, all self-flattery far apart Belongs to one who venerates in his heart The wise and good, and therefore of the few Known by these titles, sir, both yours and you.

They were written to please his cousin John Johnson who was to oblige Fenn by giving him an autograph of Cowper’s.

“. . . For my part I should leave George Borrow alone, to take his own part even as Isopel Berners learnt to take hers in the great house at Long Melford. He has an appealing voice which no sooner falls on the ear of the born Borrovian, than up the lucky fellow must get and follow his master to the end of the chapter.

“However, if you will insist upon going out into the highways and hedges and compelling the wayfaring man—though a fool—to come in and take a seat at the Lavengro feast, nobody can stop you.

“The great thing is to get people to read the Borrow books: there is nothing else to be done. If, after having read them, some enthusiasts go on to learn Romany and seek to trace authorities on Gypsies and Gypsy lore—why, let them. They may soon know more about Gypsies than Borrow ever did—but they will never write about them as he did.

“The essence of the matter is to enjoy Borrow’s books for themselves alone. As for Borrow’s biography, it appears to me either that he has already written it, or it is not worth writing. Anyhow, place the books in the forefront, reprint things as often as you dare without note or comment or even prefatory appreciation, and you cannot but earn the gratitude of every true Borrovian who in consequence of your efforts come upon the Borrow books for the first time.”

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.

Lissoy, near Ballymahon, Ireland, served to provide many concrete features of the picture, but that the author drew upon his experiences of Houghton is believed by his principal biographer, John Forster, by Professor Masson and others, and on no other assumption than that of an English village can the lines be explained:—

A time there was, ere England’s griefs began, When every rood of ground maintained its man.

“In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.”

But the collector of the hundred best books will do well to read the Arabian Nights in the translation by Edward William Lane, edited by Stanley Lane Poole, in 4 volumes, for George Bell & Sons.