r
believing that as an author he was as little known as on the day when he
abandoned the quiet little house in Willow Lane for a wider field of
life. Yet, painful, and even heartbreaking, as his experiences had been,
he was infinitely the gainer by the hard fate that sent him out a
wanderer upon the face of the earth, and we who read his books to-day may
be thankful for the tears and toilings that brought about so rich and
abundant a harvest.

An introduction from Joseph John Gurney to the British and Foreign Bible
Society resulted in Borrow's leaving England in 1830 for the Continent,
where he went on another _wanderjahre_ not unlike that he had taken in
his native land.

After visiting France, Austria and Italy, we eventually find him in St.
Petersburg, where he undertook the translation of the Bible into the
Mandschu-Tartar language, and issued in 1835, through Schulz and Beneze,
his "Targum; or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and
Dialects." While in Russia, he made many friends amongst the nobility
there, who frequently invited him to their country homes. In the same
year that saw the publication of "Targum," he returned home. His stay in
England, however, was a very short one. The British and Foreign Bible
Society was so satisfied with his work in Russia that they pressed him to
continue to serve them, and undertake a journey into Spain for the
purpose of circulating the Scriptures in that country. His travels in
Spain occupied over four years. While there he met Mrs. Mary Clarke, who
afterwards became his wife. This lady, who was the widow of a naval
officer, was connected with a Suffolk family which had been associated
with the village of Oulton for several generations. Their name was
Skeppar, and it was in their old Suffolk home by the side of Oulton Broad
that Borrow went to live on his return to England.

* * * * *

Borrow, who was now in his thirty-eighth year, set to work at Oulton upon
his "Bible in Spain," which was published by Mr. John Murray, three years
later, in 1843. Of his method, or lack of method, in working, something
may be gathered from the preface to the second edition of "The Zincali,"
which was written about the time of the issue of the former book. Mr.
Murray had advised him to try his hand at something different from his
"sorry trash" {41} about gipsies, and write a work that would really be
of credit to the great firm in Albemarle