cut. And then, what matters it how
soon the end? His braveries have been hawked in the street; his prowess
has sold a Special Edition; he is the first of his race, until a luckier
rival eclipses him. Thus, also, his dandyism is inevitable: it is not
enough for him to cover his nakedness--he must dress; and though his
taste is sometimes unbridled, it is never insignificant. Indeed, his
biographers have recorded the expression of his fancy in coats and
small-clothes as patiently and enthusiastically as they have applauded
his courage. And truly the love of magnificence, which he shares with
all artists, is sincere and characteristic. When an accomplice of
Jonathan Wild's robbed Lady M----n at Windsor, his equipage cost him
forty pounds; and Nan Hereford was arrested for shoplifting at the very
moment that four footmen awaited her return with an elegant sedan-chair.

His vanity makes him but a prudish lover, who desires to woo less than
to be wooed; and at all times and through all moods he remains the
primeval sentimentalist. He will detach his life entirely from the
catchwords which pretend to govern his actions; he will sit and croon
the most heartrending ditties in celebration of home-life and a mother's
love, and then set forth incontinently upon a well-planned errand of
plunder. For all his artistry, he lacks balance as flagrantly as a
popular politician or an advanced journalist. Therefore it is the more
remarkable that in one point he displays a certain caution: he boggles
at a superfluous murder. For all his contempt of property, he still
preserves a respect for life, and the least suspicion of unnecessary
brutality sets not only the law but his own fellows against him. Like
all men whose god is Opportunity, he is a reckless gambler; and, like
all gamblers, he is monstrously extravagant. In brief, he is a tangle of
picturesque qualities, which, until our own generation, was incapable of
nothing save dulness.

The Bible and the Newgate Calendar--these twain were George Borrow's
favourite reading, and all save the psychologist and the pedant will
applaud the preference. For the annals of the 'family' are distinguished
by an epic severity, a fearless directness of speech, which you will
hardly match outside the Iliad or the Chronicles of the Kings. But the
Newgate Calendar did not spring ready-made into being: it is the result
of a curious and gradual development. The chap-books came first, with
their bold type, the