Wales," after expressing his relief that a boy and dog had not seen a
weazel that ran across his path:

"I hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose my
appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by
greyhounds, and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the squeals
of a rat in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the sporting tribe once
told me were the sweetest sounds in 'natur.'"

CHAPTER XXIV--"LAVENGRO" AND "THE ROMANY RYE"

Instead of travelling over the world Borrow wrote his autobiography and
spent so many years on it that his contempt for the pen had some excuse.
I have already said almost all there is to say about these labours. {212}
Knapp has shown that they were protracted to include matters relating to
Bowring and long posterior to the period covered by the autobiography,
and that the magnitude of these additions compelled him to divide the
book in two. The first part was "Lavengro," published in 1851, with an
ending that is now, and perhaps was then, obviously due to the knife. The
sceptical and hostile criticism of "Lavengro" delayed the appearance of
the remainder of the autobiography, "The Romany Rye."

Borrow had to reply to his critics and explain himself. This he did in
the Appendix, and thus changed, the book was finished in 1853 or 1854.
Something in Murray's attitude while they were discussing publication
mounted Borrow on the high horse, and yet again he fumed because Murray
had expressed a private opinion and had revealed his feeling that the
book was not likely to make money for anyone.

{picture: Cancelled title-page of "Lavengro". (Photographed from the
Author's corrected proof copy, by kind permission of Mr. Kyllmann and Mr.
Thos. Seccombe.) Photo: W. J. Roberts: page212.jpg}

"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" describe the author's early adventures
and, at the same time, his later opinions and mature character. In some
places he turns openly aside to express his feeling or opinion at the
time of writing, as, for example, in his praise of the Orangemen, or, on
the very first page, where he claims to spring from a family of
gentlemen, though "not very wealthy," that the reader may see at once he
is "not altogether of low and plebeian origin." But by far more
important is the indirect self-revelation when he is recalling that other
distant self, the child of three or of ten, the youth of twenty.

Ford had asked Borrow for a book of hi