effort, he went to London
in 1824, but left a year later, and for some time afterwards
his movements were obscure. For a period of about five years,
beginning 1835, he acted as the Bible Society's agent, selling
and distributing Bibles in Spain, and in 1842 he published
"The Bible in Spain." which appears in another volume of THE
WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS. (See TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE.)
"Lavengro," written in 1851, enhanced the fame which Borrow
had already secured by his earlier works. The book teems with
character sketches drawn from real life in quarters which few
could penetrate, and although they are often extremely
eccentric, they are never grotesque, and never strike the mind
with a sense of merely invented unreality. Here and there
occur illuminating outbursts of reflection in philosophic
accent which reveal in startling style the working of Borrow's
mind. The linguistic lore is phenomenal, as in all his books.
But though the wild, passionate scenes make the whole
narrative an indescribable phantasmagoria, the diction is
always free from turgidity, and from involved periods. Borrow
died at Oulton, Suffolk, on July 26, 1881. A mighty athlete,
an inveterate wanderer, a philological enthusiast, and a man
of large-hearted simplicity mingled with violent prejudices,
he was one of the most original and engaging personalities of
nineteenth century English literature.

_I.--The Scholar, the Gipsy, the Priest_

On an evening of July, in the year 18--, at East D------, a beautiful
little town in East Anglia, I first saw the light. My father, a
Cornishman, after serving many years in the Line, at last entered as
captain in a militia regiment. My mother, a strikingly handsome woman,
was of the Huguenot race. I was not the only child of my parents, for I
had a brother three years older than myself. He was a beautiful boy with
much greater mental ability than I possessed, and he, with the greatest
affection, indulged me in every possible way. Alas, his was an early and
a foreign grave!

I have been a wanderer the greater part of my life, being the son of a
soldier, who, unable to afford the support of two homes, was accompanied
by his family wherever he went. A lover of books and of retired corners,
I was as a child in the habit of fleeing from society. The first book
that fascinated me was one of Defoe's. But