ed for Llandovery. Presently I came to a lodge
on the left-hand beside an ornamental gate at the bottom of an avenue
leading seemingly to a gentleman's seat. On inquiring of a woman who sat
at the door of the lodge to whom the grounds belonged, she said to Mr.
Johnes, and that if I pleased I was welcome to see them. I went in and
advanced along the avenue, which consisted of very noble oaks; on the
right was a vale in which a beautiful brook was running north and south.
Beyond the vale to the east were fine wooded hills. I thought I had
never seen a more pleasing locality, though I saw it to great
disadvantage, the day being dull, and the season the latter fall.
Presently, on the avenue making a slight turn, I saw the house, a plain
but comfortable gentleman's seat with wings. It looked to the south down
the dale. 'With what satisfaction I could live in that house,' said I to
myself, 'if backed by a couple of thousands a-year. With what gravity
could I sign a warrant in its library, and with what dreamy comfort
translate an ode of Lewis Glyn Cothi, my tankard of rich ale beside me. I
wonder whether the proprietor is fond of the old bard and keeps good ale.
Were I an Irishman instead of a Norfolk man I would go in and ask him.'"

To the merit of this the whole book, perhaps the whole of Borrow's work,
contributes. Simple-looking tranquil successes of this kind are the
privilege of a master, and when they occur they proclaim the master with
a voice which, though gentle, will find but few confessing to be deaf to
it. They are not frequent in "Wild Wales." Borrow had set himself too
difficult a task to succeed altogether with his methods and at his age.
Wales was not unknown land; De Quincey, Shelley, and Peacock, had been
there in his own time; and Borrow had not sufficient impulse or
opportunity to transfigure it as he had done Spain; nor had he the time
behind him, if he had the power still, to treat it as he had done the
country of his youth in "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye."

CHAPTER XXXII--"ROMANO LAVO-LIL"

Ambition, with a little revenge, helped to impel Borrow to write
"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." Some of this ambition was left over for
"Wild Wales," which he began and finished before the publication of "The
Romany Rye." There was little of any impulse left for the writing of
books after "Wild Wales." In 1862 and 1863 he published in "Once a Week"
some translations in prose and verse, fr