e Middle Ages. (See his article in the _British Critic_
for April 1839, and _Apologia_, chap. iii.). As for Wordsworth, Borrow
(with characteristic wrong-headedness) conceived him as an impostor. Had
_he_ made Nature his tent and the hard earth his bed with the stars for a
canopy? No; he walked out to sing of moorland, and fell from a "highly
eligible" cottage in the Lakes, where women-folk, at his beck and call,
bore the brunt of the "plain living."

{27a} The "splendid old corsair," E. J. T., is best known perhaps as the
grim and grizzled pilot in Millais' great picture (now in the Tate) of
the North-west Passage. Trelawny and Borrow are linked together as men
whose mental powers were strong but whose bodily powers were still
stronger in the _Memoirs_ of Gordon Hake (who knew both of them well).
Another rival of Borrow in respect to the _Mens sana in corpore sano_ was
the famous Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity. Mr. Murray tells a story of
his concern at a dinner-party upon a prospect of an altercation between
Borrow and Whewell. With both omniscience was a foible. Both were
powerful men; and both of them, if report were true, had more than a
superficial knowledge of the art of self-defence.

{27b} As a matter of fact there was nothing in the least degree squalid
about Borrow's subjects or treatment. His tramps and vagabonds have
nothing about them that is repulsive. Borrow, it is true, was ready
enough to condone the offences of those who sought dupes among the well-
to-do public; but he preferred the honester members of the vagrant class;
and it is plain that they reciprocated the preference, for they regarded
the Romany Rye with an almost superstitious reverence on account of his
truth, honour bright and fair speech. Borrow had a passion for depicting
the class that Hurtado de Mendoza had first caught for literature in his
_Lazarillo_ (1553)--that, namely, of the old tricksters of the highway
who still retained many traits, noble and ignoble, from the primeval
savage. For the characteristically mean and squalid one must go up
higher in the scale of civilisation.

{30} Of all the reviews of _Lavengro_, extraordinary as many now appear,
it was left for the month of July in the year of grace 1900 to produce
the most delightfully amazing. We subjoin it verbatim from the _Catholic
Times_ of July 27th, 1900.

"LAVENGRO: THE SCHOLAR, THE GYPSY, THE PRIEST. By George Burrow. With
an introduction by Theod