pportunity of his life, losing
the substance for the shadow. But whether there were ever a real Isopel
we shall never know. We do know that Borrow has presented his fictitious
one with infinite poetry and fine imaginative power. We do know,
moreover, that it is not right to describe Isopel Berners as a marvellous
episode in a narrative of other texture. _Lavengro_ is full of
marvellous episodes. Some one has ventured to comment upon Borrow's
style--to imply that it is not always on a high plane. What does that
matter? Style is not the quality that makes a book live, but the novelty
of the ideas. Stevenson was a splendid stylist, and his admirers have
deluded themselves into believing that he was, therefore, among the
immortals. But Stevenson had nothing new to tell the world, and he was
not, he is not, therefore of the immortals. Borrow is of the immortals,
not by virtue of a style, but by virtue of having something new to say.
He is with Dickens and with Carlyle as one of the three great British
prose writers of the age we call Victorian, who in quite different ways
have presented a new note for their own time and for long after. It is
the distinction of Borrow that he has invested the common life of the
road, of the highway, the path through the meadow, the gypsy encampment,
the country fair, the very apple stall and wayside inn with an air of
romance that can never leave those of us who have once come under the
magnificent spell of _Lavengro_ and the _Romany Rye_. Perhaps Borrow is
pre-eminently the writer for those who sit in armchairs and dream of
adventures they will never undertake. Perhaps he will never be the
favourite author of the really adventurous spirit, who wants the real
thing, the latest book of actual travel. But to be the favourite author
of those who sit in arm-chairs is no small thing, and, as I have said
already, Borrow stands with Carlyle and Dickens in _our_ century, by
which I mean the nineteenth century; with Defoe and Goldsmith in the
eighteenth century, as one of the really great and imperishable masters
of our tongue.

What then will Norwich do for George Borrow? I ask this question,
although it would, perhaps, be an impertinence to ask it were I not a
Norwich man. If you have read Dr. Knapp's _Life of Borrow_, you will
have seen more than one reference to Mrs. Borrow's landlord, "old King,"
"Tom King the carpenter," and so on, who owned the house in Willow Lane
in which Borr