Note 88 — Chapter LXIII
Reading edition
Mr. William Bodham Donne, the examiner of plays 1857-74, was told by Borrow himself that this “Man who Touched” was drawn from the author of Vathek, William Beckford (1760-1844). There are difficulties in the way of accepting this statement, among them that Beckford had quitted Fonthill for Bath in 1822, three years before Borrow went a-gypsying. Still, I believe there is something in it.