solely on documents is crippled in his
undertaking. Moreover, such a biographer is always liable to be in a
manner superseded or at least supplemented by the appearance of still
more documents. However, Mr. Jenkins's excellent biography has the
advantage of many new documents from Mr. John Murray's archives and from
the Record Office Manuscripts. His work was the first to make use of the
letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society, which the Rev. T. H.
Darlow has published as a book under that title, a book to which I owe
him an acknowledgment for such use of it as I have made, as also for
permission to reproduce the title-page of Borrow's Basque version of St.
Luke's gospel. There only remains for me to say a word in praise of Mr.
Edward Thomas's fine critical study of Borrow which was published under
the title of _George Borrow: The Man and his Books_. Mr. Thomas makes no
claim to the possession of new documents. This brings me to such excuse
as I can make for perpetrating a fifth biography. When Mrs. MacOubrey,
Borrow's stepdaughter, the 'Hen.' of _Wild Wales_ and the affectionate
companion of his later years, sold her father's books and
manuscripts--and she always to her dying day declared that she had no
intention of parting with the manuscripts, which were, she said, taken
away under a misapprehension--she did not, of course, part with any of
his more private documents. All the more intimate letters of Borrow were
retained. At her death these passed to her executors, from whom I have
purchased all legal rights in the publication of Borrow's hitherto
unpublished manuscripts and letters. I trust that even to those who may
disapprove of the discursive method with which--solely for my own
pleasure--I have written this book, will at least find a certain
biographical value in the many new letters by and to George Borrow that
are to be found in its pages. The book has taken me ten years to write,
and has been a labour of love.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] As for example, _Garrick and his Circle_; _Johnson and his Circle_;
_Reynolds and his Circle_; and even _The Empress Eugenie and her
Circle_.

[2] William Ireland Knapp died in Paris in June 1908, aged seventy-four.
He was an American, and had held for many years the Chair of Modern
Languages at Vassar College. After eleven years in Spain he returned to
occupy the Chair of Modern Languages at Yale, and later held a
Professorship at Chicago. After his _Life of Borrow_ was publi