to these coulisses of criminal biography!
That a taste already keen to search out the birds of prey that haunt the
fringe of decorous society, should be immersed, as it were, in a stream
of criminal records! Old songs of Denmark, the poems of Ab Gwilym
("worth half a dozen of Chaucer"!), the "romance in the German style,"
all were ruthlessly swept aside to give place to a catena of lives of
notorious evildoers!

The Lives and Trials appeared in March, 1825, with a preface by Sir
Richard; but without Borrow's name. The intellectual impressions which
this task, reaching 3,600 pages, produced on Borrow's mind were, said the
publisher, "mournful." The grisly and sordid stories of crime and
criminals he had to edit reduced him to a state of gloomy depression.

[Picture: Norwich Castle and Cattle Market in Borrow's Time. From a
Lithograph. Lent by Norwich Public Library]

His melancholy was abated by an unexpected visit from his soldier-artist
brother (April 29th, 1824), of whom, after an affectionate embrace, he
asked: "How is my mother, and how is the dog?" Old Mrs. Borrow, down in
Willow Lane, was getting past her fits of crying over the loss of her
husband, and frequently had the Prayer Book in her hand, but oftener the
Bible. John Borrow had been offered one hundred pounds by a Committee to
paint Robert Hawkes, Mayor of Norwich in 1822, a prominent draper, who
became extremely popular for "the nobly liberal spirit in which he
sustained the splendour of civic hospitality." Mr. T. O. Springfield,
commonly called "T.O.," was spokesman of the Committee--a little
watchmaker with a hump, Borrow called him. Dr. Knapp denies that he was
a watchmaker, but such he was in his early days, though he became very
wealthy through speculations in silk, and Mayor of Norwich 1829 and 1836.
Quite a character, his tombstone in the Rosary cemetery bears this
honourable record: "A merciful magistrate, a successful merchant, A
consistent politician, A benevolent benefactor, He devoted the energies
of a vigorous intellect, and the sympathies of a warm heart, to the
prosperity of his native city and the welfare of its inhabitants.
Beloved, honoured and regretted, He died April 24th, 1855." John did not
feel equal to painting little Mr. Hawkes "striding under the Norman arch
out of the cathedral," but said, "I can introduce you to a great master
of the heroic, fully competent to do justice to your mayor." "T.O."
thou