Abbey_, _Maid Marian_, _The Misfortunes
of Elphin_, and _Crotchet Castle_--at no great intervals until 1830,
after which, having in the meantime been appointed to a valuable and
important office under the East India Company, he published no other
book for thirty years. Then in 1860 he put forth _Gryll Grange_, and
some five years later died, a very old man, in 1866. Peacock at all
times was a writer of verse, and the songs which diversify his novels
are among their most delightful features; but his more ambitious
poetical efforts, which date from his earlier years, _The Genius of the
Thames_ and _Rhododaphne_, are not of much mark. The novels themselves,
however, have a singular relish, and are written in a style always
piquant and attractive and latterly quite admirable. They may all be
described as belonging to the fantastic-satirical order of which the
French tale-tellers (instigated, however, by an Englishman, Anthony
Hamilton) had set the example during the previous century. Social,
political, economic, and other fads and crazes are all touched in them;
but this satire is combined with a strictly realistic presentation of
character, and, except in the romances of _Maid Marian_ and _Elphin_,
with actual modern manners. Peacock's satire is always very sharp, and
in his earlier books a little rough as well; but as he went on he
acquired urbanity without losing point, and became one of the most
consummate practitioners of Lucianic humour adjusted to the English
scheme and taste. More than thirty years after date _Gryll Grange_ is
not obsolete even as a picture of manners; while _Crotchet Castle_,
obsolete in a few externals, is as fresh as ever in substance, owing to
its close grasp of essential humanity. In verse Peacock was the last,
and one of the best, of the masters of the English drinking-song; and
some of his examples are unmatched for their mixture of joviality,
taste, sense, and wit.

George Borrow, who was eighteen years Peacock's junior, and outlived him
by fifteen, was a curious counterpart-analogue to him. Like Peacock, he
was irregularly educated, and yet a wide and deep student; but, unlike
Peacock, he devoted himself not so much to the ancient as to the more
out-of-the-way modern tongues, and became a proficient not merely in
Welsh, the Scandinavian tongues, Russian, Spanish, and other literary
languages, but in Romany or Gipsy, having associated much with the "folk
of Egypt" during his youth. After so