ge lad was not very
adaptable when, as a free scholar, he came under the rule of the Rev.
Edward Valpy at Norwich Grammar School.

_Section II_.
NORWICH (1816-24)--SCHOOL, LAW, AND LANGUAGES.

The criss-cross experiences of his boyhood, together with his mixed
Cornish and Gallic heredity, were elements that very largely helped to
create the whimsical character of George Borrow. We have now come to the
time when the old soldier, with his pension of eight shillings a day, and
his excellent and devoted wife, settled with their two sons at the little
house in Willow Lane, Norwich.

[Picture: Borrow's House, Willow Lane]

For a short time in 1814, when his parents lodged in St. Stephen's, young
George was sent to the Grammar School; but now, in 1816, settled
comfortably in Norwich, he was again sent to the Grammar School, under
the Rev. Edward Valpy, called by Dr. Knapp "a severe master," by Mr.
Walling "a martinet," whose "principal claims to fame," says Mr. Jenkins,
"are his severity, his having flogged the conqueror of the 'Flaming
Tinman,' and his destruction of the School Records of Admission, which
dated back to the sixteenth century." Against this chorus of
denunciation, I will quote from a letter the late Dr. Martineau wrote me
about Borrow: "It is true that I had to _hoist_ (not 'horse') Borrow for
his flogging; but not that there was anything exceptional, or capable of
leaving permanent scars in the infliction: Mr. Valpy was not given to
excess of that kind." It is a pity that the earliest biographers did not
get the opinion of some of Borrow's surviving schoolfellows as to their
old master. Dr. Knapp, in 1899, stated that Dr. Martineau (died January
11th, 1900), and Dr. W. E. Image, D.L., J.P., of Herringswell House,
Suffolk (died September 26th, 1903), were the only survivors of Borrow's
schoolmates. Amongst these was Thomas Borrow Burcham, the London Police
Magistrate, who, there is good reason to believe, was a cousin of
George's, as his father married a Mary Perfrement, and T. B. Burcham was
christened at East Dereham Church.

[Picture: The Winding River, near Norwich. Lent by Mrs. E. Peake]

[Picture: The Yare at Earlham, near Norwich. By Mr. E. Peake]

It is quite noteworthy that Borrow makes no mention of his term at the
Grammar School in "Lavengro," but, after his Irish experiences, opens a
chapter with the following eloquent description of Norwich:--