the police to
follow him, and after a long run led them to the edge of the Thames, "and
there they thought they had him." But he plunged boldly into the water
and swam in his clothes to the opposite shore, and so escaped.

"For he fled o'er to t'other side,
And so they could not find him;
He swam across the flowing tide,
And never looked behind him."

About this time (1826?) George Borrow published a small book of poems
which is now extremely rare. I have a copy of it. In it there is a
lyric in which, with his usual effrontery, he describes a very clever,
tall, handsome, accomplished man, who knows many languages and who can
drink a pint of rum, ending with the remark that he himself was this
admirable person. As Heine was in England at this time, it is not
improbable that he met with this poem; but in any case, there is a
resemblance between it and one of his own in the _Buch der Lieder_, which
runs thus:--

"Brave man, he got me the food I ate,
His kindness and care I can never forget,
Yet I cannot kiss him, though other folk can,
For I myself am this excellent man!"

It came to pass that after a while I wrote my book on "The English
Gypsies and their Language," and sent a note to Mr. Borrow in which I
asked permission to dedicate it to him. I sent it to the care of Mr.
Murray, who subsequently assured me that Mr. Borrow had actually received
it. Now Mr. Borrow had written thirty years before some sketches and
fragments on the same subject, which would, I am very certain, have
remained unpublished to this day but for me. He received my note on
Saturday--never answered it--and on Monday morning advertised in all the
journals his own forthcoming work on the same subject.

Now, what is sincere truth is, that when I learned this I laughed. I
thought very little of my own work, and if Mr. Borrow had only told me
that it was in the way of his I would have withdrawn it at once, and that
with right goodwill, for I had so great a respect for the Nestor of
gypsyism that I would have been very glad to have gratified him with such
a small sacrifice. But it was not in him to suspect or imagine so much
common decency in any human heart, and so he craftily, and to my great
delight and satisfaction, "got ahead" of me. For, to tell the truth of
truth, I was pleased to my soul that I had caused him to make and publish
the work.

I have said too hastily that it was written thirty years be