in common with the eighteenth-
century man, who liked the country, but would probably agree that one
green field was like another. He writes like the man who desired a
gentle wife, an Arabic book, the haunch of a buck, and Madeira old. He
reminds us of an even older or simpler type when he apostrophises the
retired pugilist:

"'Tis a treat to see thee, Tom of Bedford, in thy 'public' in Holborn
way, whither thou hast retired with thy well-earned bays. 'Tis Friday
night, and nine by Holborn clock. There sits the yeoman at the end of
his long room, surrounded by his friends: glasses are filled, and a song
is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to the place; it finds an echo
in every heart--fists are clenched, arms are waved, and the portraits of
the mightly fighting men of yore, Broughton, and Slack, and Ben, which
adorn the walls, appear to smile grim approbation, whilst many a manly
voice joins in the bold chorus:

'Here's a health to old honest John Bull,
When he's gone we shan't find such another,
And with hearts and with glasses brim full,
We will drink to old England, his mother.'"

There is little doubt of the immortality of this good old style, and it
testifies to the full heart and perhaps the full glass also of George
Borrow; but it was not this passage in particular that made Whitwell
Elwin call his writing "almost affectedly simple."

{picture: Ned Turner, Tom Cribb: page253.jpg}

CHAPTER XXVII--BORROW AND LOW LIFE

"Lavengro" in 1851 and "The Romany Rye" in 1857 failed to impress the
critics or the public. Men were disappointed because "Lavengro" was "not
an autobiography." They said that the adventures did not bear "the
impress of truth." They suggested that the anti-Papistry was "added and
interpolated to suit the occasion of the recent Papal aggression." They
laughed at its mystery-making. They said that it gave "a false dream in
the place of reality." Ford regretted that Borrow had "told so little
about himself." Two friends praised it and foretold long life for it.
Whitwell Elwin in 1857 said that "the truth and vividness of the
descriptions both of scenes and persons, coupled with the purity, force
and simplicity of the language, should confer immortality upon many of
its pages." "The Saturday Review" found that he had humour and romance,
and that his writing left "a general impression of the scenery and
persons introduced so strongly vivid and life-like," tha