stranged from "the
sub-committee," and the Bible Society suddenly found that "no sphere
remained open in which his services could be utilized." Fortunately, he
had provided for his future, not by obtaining a pension, but by marrying,
in April, 1840, an old ally of his, Mary Clarke, a widow with a good
jointure (over 400 pounds a year), a skilful hand at dumplings and
treacle posset, and "an excellent woman of business." He was now fifteen
years older than when he had "lost" Isopel. The motives which prompted
this scorner of matrimony to marry a woman seven or eight years his
senior were similar, it may be surmised, to those which actuated Disraeli
on his marriage. The compact was based upon convenience and mutual
esteem, and there is no reason to doubt that it conduced not only to
Borrow's comfort and security, but also to his happiness. There were no
children. The "daughter" whose accomplishments Borrow celebrated in the
exordium to "Wild Wales" was his stepdaughter, Henrietta Clarke. He
seemed now in an enviable position, with a small but agreeable freehold
on the banks of Oulton Broad, able to indulge in "idleness and the pride
of literature" to his heart's content. If he had had a "club" or a
Boswell about him, he might still have been tolerably happy. But he was
not a clubbable man, Borrow! Nevertheless it was during the years that
followed that, like Johnson, he achieved his best title to fame, the
wondrous five volumes of autobiography so capriciously planned and so
strangely entitled "Lavengro--Romany Rye." The stimulus in his case was
largely, we believe, if not mainly, pecuniary. "Money is our best
friend" he wrote to his wife in 1844. He wanted a purse of his own to
travel and give dinners with, for the edge of episcopal hospitality was
already wearing off. He desired too, no doubt, to put a coping stone to
his fame. Already in January, 1843, he wrote to his publisher that he
had begun upon a Robinson Borrow, and Murray, Ford, and other friends
threw up their caps. The publisher may have well seen a veritable gold
mine in prospect. One has only to imagine the fervent curiosity which
the personal element in "The Bible in Spain," so suggestive of mystery
and romance, must have exalted in the reading public of 1843, to perceive
that any such anticipation was fully warranted by the facts of the case.
Here was a book which bore upon its title-page its passport to Sunday
reading as a good, serious, m