n. And yet I don't know; didn't he write Childe
Harold and that ode? Yes, he wrote Childe Harold and that ode. Then a
time will scarcely come when he will be forgotten. Lords, squires, and
cockneys may pass away, but a time will scarcely come when Childe Harold
and that ode will be forgotten. He was a poet, after all--and he must
have known it; a real poet, equal to--to--what a destiny!"

It is said that in actual life Borrow refused to be introduced to a
Russian scholar "simply because he moved in the literary world." {206}

Yet again he made the glorious Gypsy say that he would rather be a book-
writer than a fighting-man, because the book-writers "have so much to say
for themselves even when dead and gone":

"'When they are laid in the churchyard, it is their own fault if people
a'n't talking of them. Who will know, after I am dead, or bitchadey
pawdel, that I was once the beauty of the world, or that you, Jasper,
were--'

"'The best man in England of my inches. That's true, Tawno--however,
here's our brother will perhaps let the world know something about us.'"

I should think, too, that Borrow was both questioner and answerer in the
conversation with the literary man who had the touching mania:

"'With respect to your present troubles and anxieties, would it not be
wise, seeing that authorship causes you so much trouble and anxiety, to
give it up altogether?'

"'Were you an author yourself,' replied my host, 'you would not talk in
this manner; once an author, ever an author--besides, what could I do?
return to my former state of vegetation? no, much as I endure, I do not
wish that; besides, every now and then my reason tells me that these
troubles and anxieties of mine are utterly without foundation; that
whatever I write is the legitimate growth of my own mind, and that it is
the height of folly to afflict myself at any chance resemblance between
my own thoughts and those of other writers, such resemblance being
inevitable from the fact of our common human origin. . . ."

Knapp gives at length a story showing what an author Borrow was, and how
little his travels had sweetened him. He had long promised to review
Ford's "Handbook for Spain," when it should appear. In 1845 he wrote an
article and sent it in to the "Quarterly" as a review of the Handbook. It
had nothing to do with the book and very little to do with the subject of
the book, and Lockhart, the "Quarterly" editor, suggested turning it in