effrontery to define as a talent for explaining the
self-evident, illustrating the obvious and expatiating on the
commonplace. 'By adopting the law,' says Borrow, 'I had not ceased to be
Lavengro.' He learnt Welsh when he should have been reading Blackstone.
He studied German under the direction of the once famous William Taylor
of Norwich, who in 1821 wrote to Southey: 'A Norwich young man is
construing with me Schiller's _William Tell_, with a view of translating
it for the press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he has learnt
German with extraordinary rapidity. Indeed, he has the gift of tongues,
and though not yet eighteen, understands twelve languages--English,
Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish, French, Italian,
Spanish, and Portuguese. He would like to get into the office for
Foreign Affairs, but does not know how.'

It only takes five years to make an attorney, and Borrow ought therefore,
had he served out his time, to have become a gentleman by Act of
Parliament in 1824 or 1825. He did not do so, though he appears to have
remained in Norwich until after 1826. In that year appeared his
_Romantic Ballads from the Danish_, printed by Simon Wilkins of Norwich
by subscription. Dr. Jessopp opines that the _Romantic Ballads_ must
have brought their translator 'a very respectable sum after paying all
the expenses of publication.' I hope it was so, but, as Dr. Johnson once
said about the immortality of the soul, I should like more evidence of
it. When Borrow left Norwich for London, it is hard to say. It was
after the death of his father, and was not likely to have been later than
1828. His only introduction appears to have been one from William Taylor
to Sir Richard Phillips, 'the publisher' known to all readers of
_Lavengro_. Sir Richard was one of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex,
and in addition to sundry treatises on the duties of juries, was the
author of two lucubrations, respectively entitled _The Phaenomena called
by the name of Gravitation proved to be Proximate Effects of the
Orbicular and Rotary Motions of the Earth and On the New Theory of the
System of the Universe_. In Watt's _Bibliotheca Britannica_, 1824, Sir
Richard is thus contemptuously referred to: 'This personage is the editor
of _The Monthly Magazine_, in which many of his effusions may be found
with the signature of "Common Sense."' It is not too much to say that
but for Borrow this nefarious man would be utt