e, true; though now that I come to think of it, in
what is to me a new light, one remembers that it contains some odd
things. But was not Borrow the accredited agent of the British and
Foreign Bible Society? Did he not travel (and he had a free hand) at
their charges? Was he not befriended by our minister at Madrid, Mr.
Villiers, subsequently Earl of Clarendon in the peerage of England? It
must be true; and yet at this moment I would as lief read a chapter of
the _Bible in Spain_ as I would _Gil Blas_; nay, I positively would give
the preference to Don Jorge.

Nobody can sit down to read Borrow's books without as completely
forgetting himself as if he were a boy in the forest with Gurth and
Wamba.

Borrow is provoking, and has his full share of faults, and, though the
owner of a style, is capable of excruciating offences. His habitual use
of the odious word 'individual' as a noun-substantive (seven times in
three pages of _The Romany Rye_) elicits the frequent groan, and he is
certainly once guilty of calling fish the 'finny tribe.' He believed
himself to be animated by an intense hatred of the Church of Rome, and
disfigures many of his pages by Lawrence-Boythorn-like tirades against
that institution; but no Catholic of sense need on this account deny
himself the pleasure of reading Borrow, whose one dominating passion was
_camaraderie_, and who hob-a-nobbed in the friendliest spirit with priest
and gipsy in a fashion as far beyond praise as it is beyond description
by any pen other than his own. Hail to thee, George Borrow! Cervantes
himself, Gil Blas, do not more effectually carry their readers into the
land of the Cid than does this miraculous agent of the Bible Society, by
favour of whose pleasantness we can, any hour of the week, enter
Villafranca by night, or ride into Galicia on an Andalusian stallion
(which proved to be a foolish thing to do), without costing anybody a
_peseta_, and at no risk whatever to our necks--be they long or short.

Cooks, warriors, and authors must be judged by the effects they produce:
toothsome dishes, glorious victories, pleasant books--these are our
demands. We have nothing to do with ingredients, tactics, or methods. We
have no desire to be admitted into the kitchen, the council, or the
study. The cook may clean her saucepans how she pleases--the warrior
place his men as he likes--the author handle his material or weave his
plot as best he can--when the dish is served w