helf his
learned books, Zohar and Mishna, Toldoth Jesu and Abarbenel.

'I am fond of these studies,' said he, 'which, perhaps, is not
to be wondered at, seeing that our people have been compared to
the Jews. In one respect I confess we are similar to them: we
are fond of getting money. I do not like this last author, this
Abarbenel, the worse for having been a money-changer. I am a
banker myself, as thou knowest.'

And would there were many like him, amidst the money-changers
of princes! The hall of many an earl lacks the bounty, the
palace of many a prelate the piety and learning, which adorn
the quiet Quaker's home!

It is doubtful if Borrow met Joseph John Gurney more than on the one
further occasion to which he refers above. At the commencement of his
engagement with the Bible Society he writes to its secretary, Mr. Jowett
(March 18, 1833), to say that he must procure from Mr. Cunningham 'a
letter of introduction from him to John Gurney,' and this second and
last interview must have taken place at Earlham before his departure for
Russia.

But if Borrow was to come very little under the influence of Joseph John
Gurney, his destiny was to be considerably moulded by the action of
Gurney's brother-in-law, Cunningham, who first put him in touch with the
Bible Society. Joseph John Gurney and his sisters were the very life of
the Bible Society in those years.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] See _The Gurneys of Earlham_ by Augustus J. C. Hare, 2 vols., 1895;
_Memoirs of Joseph Gurney; with Selections from his Journal and
Correspondence_, edited by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, 2 vols., 1834.

CHAPTER VI

GEORGE BORROW'S NORWICH--THE TAYLORS

With the famous 'Taylors of Norwich' Borrow seems to have had no
acquaintance, although he went to school with a connection of that
family, James Martineau. These socially important Taylors were in no way
related to William Taylor of that city, who knew German literature, and
scandalised the more virtuous citizens by that, and perhaps more by his
fondness for wine and also for good English beer--a drink over which his
friend Borrow was to become lyrical. When people speak of the Norwich
Taylors they refer to the family of Dr. John Taylor, who in 1783 was
elected to the charge of the Presbyterian congregation in Norwich. His
eldest son, Richard, married Margaret, the daughter of a mayor of
Norwich of the name of Meadows; and Sarah,