ell of
_Aylwin_ and the Rhona Boswell of _The Coming of Love_.
Although Borrow belonged to a different generation from mine, I
enjoyed his intimate friendship in his later years--during the time
when he lived in Hereford Square; and since his death I have written
a good deal about him--both in prose and in verse--in the Athenaeum,
in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in other places. When, some seven
or eight years ago, I brought out an edition of _Lavengro_ (in
Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co.'s Minerva Library), I prefaced that
delightful book by a few desultory remarks upon Sorrow's Gypsy
characters. On that occasion I gave a slight sketch of the most
remarkable 'Romany Chi' that had ever been met with in the part of
East Anglia known to Borrow and myself--Sinfi Lovell. I described
her playing on the crwth. I discussed her exploits as a boxer, and I
contrasted her in many ways with the glorious Anglo-Saxon road-girl
Isopel Berners. Since the publication of _Aylwin_ and _The
Coming of Love_ I have received very many letters from English and
American readers inquiring whether 'the Gypsy girl described in the
introduction to _Lavenyro_ is the same as the Sinfi Lovell of
_Aylwin_,' and also whether 'the Rhona Boswell that figures in
the prose story is the same as the Rhona of _The Coming of
Love_?' The evidence of the reality of Rhona so impressed itself
upon the reader that on the appearance of Rhona's first letter in the
_Athenaeum_, where the poem was printed in fragments, I got among
other letters one from the sweet poet and adorable woman Jean
Ingelow, who was then very ill,--near her death indeed,--urging me to
tell her whether Rhona's love-letter was not a versification of a
real letter from a real Gypsy to her lover. As it was obviously
impossible for me to answer the queries individually, I take this
opportunity of saying that the Sinfi of _Aylwin_ and the Sinfi
described in my introduction to _Lavengro_ are one and the same
character--except that the story of the child Sinfi's weeping for the
'poor dead Gorgios' in the churchyard, given in the Introduction, is
really told by the Gypsies, not of Sinfi, but of Rhona Boswell. Sinfi
is the character alluded to in the now famous sonnet describing 'the
walking lord of Gypsy lore,' Borrow, by his most intimate friend Dr.
Gordon Hake.

'And he, the walking lord of Gypsy lore!
How often 'mid the deer that grazed the Park,
Or in the fields and heath and windy