e for an Academician. He did not think much
of episcopal food, wine, or cigars. He was careful of his hero and
disliked hearing him abused or treated indifferently. If he had many
letters, he answered but few. He had made nothing yet out of literature
because the getting about to receive homage, etc., had been so expensive:
he did not care, for he hated to speak of money matters, yet he could not
but mention the fact. When the money began to arrive he did not resent
it by any means, as he was to buy a blood horse with it--no less. His
letters have a jolly, bullying, but offhand and jerky tone, and they are
very short. He gives Murray advice on publishing and is willing to
advise the Government how to manage the Irish--"the blackguards."

He was now, by virtue of his wife, a "landed proprietor," and filled the
part with unction, though but little satisfaction. For he was not a
magistrate, and he had to get up in the middle of the night to look after
"poachers and thieves," as he says in giving a reason for an illness. In
the summer-house at Oulton hung his father's coat and sword, but it is to
be noticed that to the end of his life an old friend held it "doubtful
whether his father commenced his military career with a commission."
Borrow probably realised the importance of belonging to the ruling
classes and having a long steady pedigree. "If report be true," says the
same friend, {201} "his mother was of French origin, and in early life an
actress." The foreignness as an asset overcame his objection to the
French, and "an actress" also sounded unconventional. The friend
continues: "But the subject of his family was one on which Borrow never
touched. He would allude to Borrowdale as the country whence they came,
and then would make mysterious allusions to his father's pugilistic
triumphs. But this is certain, that he has not left a single relation
behind him." Yet he had many relatives in Cornwall and did not scorn to
visit their houses. He would only talk of his works to intimate friends,
and "when he went into company it was as a gentleman, not because he was
an author."

Lady Eastlake, in March, 1844, calls him "a fine man, but a most
disagreeable one; a kind of character that would be most dangerous in
rebellious times--one that would suffer or persecute to the utmost. His
face is expressive of wrong-headed determination."

A little earlier than this, in October, 1843, Caroline Fox saw him
"sitting