th: she was, says Mr.
Watts-Dunton, "really an East Anglian road girl" (not a Gypsy) "of the
finest type, known to the Boswells and remembered not many years ago."
And speaking of Isopel--there is a story still to be heard at Long
Melford of a girl "who lived on the green and ran away with the Gypsy,"
in about the year 1825. With this may possibly be connected another
story: of a young painter of dogs and horses who was living at Melford in
1805 and seduced either one or two sisters of the warden of the hospital
or almshouse, and had two illegitimate children, one at any rate a girl.
The Great House was one used, but not built, for a workhouse: it stood
near the vicarage at Melford, but has now disappeared, and apparently its
records with it.

Borrow did not invent, says Knapp, which is absurd. Some of his
reappearances, recognitions and coincidences must be inventions. The
postillion's tale must be largely invention. But it is not fair or
necessary to retort as Hindes Groome did: "Is the Man in Black then also
a reality, and the Reverend Mr. Platitude? In other words, did
Tractarianism exist in 1825, eight years before it was engendered by
Keble's sermon?" For Borrow was unscrupulous or careless about time and
place. But it is fair and necessary to say, as Hindes Groome did, that
some of the unverities in "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" are "probably
due to forgetfulness," the rest to "love of posing, but much more to an
honest desire to produce an amusing and interesting book." {93a} Borrow
was a great admirer of the "Memoirs" {93b} of Vidocq," principal agent of
the French police till 1827--now proprietor of the paper manufactory at
St. Maude," and formerly showman, soldier, galley slave, and highwayman.
Of this book the editor says:

"It is not our province or intention to enter into a discussion of the
veracity of Vidocq's "Memoirs": be they true or false, were they purely
fiction from the first chapter to the last, they would, from fertility of
invention, knowledge of human nature, and easy style, rank only second to
the novels of Le Sage."

It was certainly with books such as this in his mind that Borrow composed
his autobiography, but it goes so much deeper that it is at every point a
revelation, usually of actual events and emotions, always of thought and
taste. In these "Memoirs" of Vidocq there is a man named Christian, or
Caron, with a reputation for removing charms cast on animals, and he
takes