the days of old, for there some old
Kemp, some Sigurd, or Thorkild, roaming in quest of a hearthstead,
settled down in the gray old time, when Thor and Freya were yet gods,
and Odin was a portentous name. Yon old hall is still called the
Earl's Home."

It was while fishing in "a sweet rivulet" in the grounds of the old hall
one summer's day that "a voice, clear and sonorous as a bell," asked,
"Canst thou answer to thy conscience for pulling all those fish out of
the water, and leaving them to gasp in the sun?" The speaker was none
other than the learned Friend, Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847), who as a
young man read nearly all the Old Testament in Hebrew in the early
morning. It was natural, therefore, that he should ask the young angler
if he knew Hebrew, having confessed, according to "Lavengro," that he
himself could not read Dante. This is clearly wrong, for writing to
Thomas Fowell Buxton, in 1808, he mentions that he is reading Sophocles,
some Italian, Livy, etc., and in the following year he informs his
sister, Hannah Buxton, that he is engaged, _inter alia_, on Apollonius
Rhodius, the Greek Testament, and Ariosto.

[Picture: The Strangers' Hall, Norwich. From Painting by Ventnor. Lent
by Mr. E. Peake]

Borrow had good reason to respect and admire the Quakers, as is evidenced
in "Wild Wales" (Chap. CVI.), for when a Methodist called them "a bad
lot," and said he at first thought Borrow was a Methodist minister (!),
and hoped to hear from him something "conducive to salvation," Borrow's
severe answer was: "So you shall. Never speak ill of people of whom you
know nothing. If that isn't a saying conducive to salvation, I know not
what is." It is not very creditable, in my opinion, that the late Mr. J.
B. Braithwaite, in his "Memoirs of J. J. Gurney" (two volumes, 1854),
never once mentions Borrow by name. I have no doubt, however, that the
following passage refers to him: "'Wilt thou execute a little commission
for me at Arch's?' said Joseph John Gurney, addressing another of his
young friends, whom he had kindly taken one day to dine at his lodgings
during the interval between the sittings of the Yearly Meeting. His
young friend, of course, readily assented. J. J. Gurney wrote a few
lines on a slip of paper which he handed to his young friend, enclosed to
his bookseller's; but without giving to his young companion any
intimation of its contents. The note