arke arrived at Seville, and their
_menage_ there with Borrow was certainly curious; but on April 3rd, 1840,
the whole party, including Hayim Ben Attar, his body servant, and Sidi
Habismilk, his Arab steed, boarded the "Royal Adelaide," bound for
London, where she berthed on April 16th. The Borrow party at once
proceeded to the Spread Eagle Inn, Gracechurch Street, and on April 23rd,
George Henry Borrow, "gentleman, of the City of Norwich," was married at
St. Peter's, Cornhill, in the City of London to Mary Clarke, "widow,
daughter of Edmund Skepper, Esquire." One of the witnesses was Mr. John
Pilgrim, a Norwich solicitor. About May 5th the little family left
London for Oulton, long to be the home of Lav-engro, and of his faithful
and most helpful wife, who had an assured income of 450 pounds, with
something over from the estate.

[Picture: George Borrow. From a Photograph by Mr. Pulley, taken in 1848.
Lent by Mr. Simms Reeve]

[Picture: George Borrow. Painted by John T. Borrow, a pupil of Old
Crome]

_Section IV_.
(1840-81)--OULTON--AUTHORSHIP--BORROW'S APPEARANCE AND LEADING
CHARACTERISTICS--TWILIGHT, AND THE END.

Our Ulysses had now found a haven of refuge, and a permanent Calypso who
worthily held his heart to the end.

Oulton Cottage, with its banded firs and solemn solitary lake, alive with
wild fowl, was an ideal place for Borrow. He had, in his early days,
loved Norwich well, and might have settled here but for what Harriet
Martineau styles the shout of laughter from all who remembered the old
Norwich days, when he appeared "as a devout agent of the Bible Society."
It is unquestionable that the jog-trot "daily-round-and-common-task"
citizens of Norwich looked askance at him as a sort of _lusus naturae_,
what naturalists call a "sport"--not in the slangy sense. Mr. Egmont
Hake ("Macmillan's Magazine," 1882, Vol. XLV.) went so far as to say that
Borrow was "perhaps the handsomest man of his day." On the other hand,
Caroline Fox, the Quakeress, who called on Borrow in October, 1843,
described him as "a tall, ungainly man, with great physical strength,
quick, penetrating eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable tone and
pronunciation." It was on April 11th, 1843, that Sir Robert Peel
pronounced his striking eulogy on "The Bible in Spain."

Any appreciation of Borrow's works is out of the question in this outline
survey. He profe