of his sons, leaving those who knew
his worth and deeply lament his loss." "It will be a shocking thing for
George and John," wrote Allday Kerrison to his brother Roger.

Borrow's articles with Simpson & Rackham expired on March 30th, 1824, and
a new epoch, packed with extraordinary vicissitudes, was to follow.

_Section III_.
(1824-35)--LONDON--EARLY WRITINGS--A NORWICH MAYOR--GYPSYING--"VEILED
PERIOD"--BIBLE SOCIETY.

Borrow describes his father's death in the following memorable passage in
"Lavengro": "Clasping his hands he uttered another name clearly. It was
the name of Christ. With that name upon his lips the brave old soldier
sank back upon my bosom, and with his hands still clasped yielded up his
soul." This concluded Volume I. of the original edition of the work.

He begins the first chapter of the second volume abruptly, thus:
"One-and-ninepence, sir, or the things which you have brought with you
will be taken from you!"

Such was Borrow's first greeting in London when, on the morning of April
2nd, 1824, he alighted from the Norwich coach in the yard of the Swan
with Two Necks, in a lane now swallowed up by Gresham Street. He
proceeded to the lodgings of his friend Roger Kerrison, at 16, Millman
Street, Bedford Row; but in May he had developed such alarming, even
suicidal, symptoms that Kerrison, fearing he might be involved in a
tragedy, hastily moved off to Soho. Borrow was now to begin the real
battle of life, and he had to put in practice, as best he might, his
motto, "Fear God, and take your own part." He had left behind in Norwich
the mother he loved so well, she who ever defended him when his odd
speeches and unconventional proceedings called forth criticism or
censure. His friend William Taylor had given him introductions in
London, and "honest six-foot-three," conscious of possessing unusual
powers, mental and physical, set forth to seek literary work. So, with
some papers from a little green box, he looked up Sir Richard Phillips,
in Tavistock Square, presented him a letter from Mr. So-and-So (W.
Taylor), and was promptly assured "literature is a drug." The following
Sunday, however, he dined with the old publisher, who was soon to retire
to Brighton, and was commissioned to compile six volumes of "Celebrated
Trials," etc., "from the earliest records to the year 1825." What a
caprice of Fate that the young aspirant should, on the very threshold of
his adult career, be thrown in