oes to St. Petersburg, "the finest city in the world," and obtains the
Russian imprimatur for a Manchu version of that suspicious novelty, the
Bible. He carried this scheme into execution to the general
satisfaction, and he returns to London in 1837; then to the south of
Europe, whence he reappears, larger than life and twice as natural, in
his masterly autobiographical romance of _The Bible in Spain_, the work
which made his name, which was sold by thousands, which was eagerly
acclaimed as an invaluable addition to "Sunday" literature, and pirated
in a generous spirit of emulation by American publishers.

We are now come to the circumstance of the composition of _Lavengro_.
_The Bible in Spain_, when it appeared in 1843, implied a wonderful
background to the Author's experience, a career diversified by all kinds
of wild adventures, "sorcery, Jews, Gentiles, rambles," gipsies,
prisons,--what you will. {12}

The personal element in the book--so suggestive of mystery and
romance--excited the strongest curiosity. Apart from this, however, the
reading public of 1843 were not unnaturally startled by a book which
seemed to profess to be a good, serious, missionary work, but for which
it was manifest that _Gil Blas_ and not Bishop Heber had been taken as a
model. Not that any single comparison of the kind can convey the least
idea of the complex idiosyncrasy of such a work. There is a substratum
of _Guide Book_ and _Gil Blas_, no doubt, but there are unmistakable
streaks of Defoe, of Dumas, and of Dickens, with all his native
prejudices and insular predilections strong upon him. A narrative so
wide awake amidst a vagrant population of questionable morals and alien
race suggests an affinity with _Hajji Baba_ (a close kinsman, we
conceive, of the Borrovian picaro). But, above all, as one follows the
author through the mazes of his book, one is conscious of two strangely
assorted figures, never far from the itinerant's side, and always ready
to improve the occasion if a shadow of an opportunity be afforded. One,
who is prolific of philological chippings, might be compared to a
semblance of Max Muller; while the other, alternately denouncing the
wickedness and deriding the toothlessness of a grim Giant Pope, may be
likened, at a distance, to John Bunyan. About the whole--to conclude--is
an atmosphere, not too pronounced, of the _Newgate Calendar_, and a few
patches of sawdust from the Prize Ring. May not people well have