e-seeker, Benedict Mol; the priest at Cordova, with his
revelations about the Holy Office; the Gibraltar Jew; are only a few
figures out of the abundant gallery of _The Bible in Spain_. _Lavengro_,
besides the capital and full-length portraits above referred to, is
crowded with others hardly inferior, among which only one failure, the
disguised priest with the mysterious name, is to be found. Not that even
he has not good strokes and plenty of them, but that Borrow's prejudices
prevented his hand from being free. But Jasper Petulengro, and Mrs.
Hearne, and the girl Leonora, and Isopel, that vigorous and slighted
maid, and dozens of minor figures, of whom more presently, atone for
him. _The Romany Rye_ adds only minor figures to the gallery, because
the major figures have appeared before; while the plan and subject of
_Wild Wales_ also exclude anything more than vignettes. But what
admirable vignettes they are, and how constantly bitten in with satiric
spirit, all lovers of Borrow know.

It is, however, perhaps time to give some more exact account of the
books thus familiarly and curiously referred to; for Borrow most
assuredly is not a popular writer. Not long before his death _Lavengro_,
_The Romany Rye_, and _Wild Wales_ were only in their third edition,
though the first was nearly thirty, and the last nearly twenty, years
old. _The Bible in Spain_ had, at any rate in its earlier days, a wider
sale, but I do not think that even that is very generally known. I
should doubt whether the total number sold, during some fifty years, of
volumes surpassed in interest of incident, style, character and
description by few books of the century, has equalled the sale, within
any one of the last few years, of a fairly popular book by any fairly
popular novelist of to-day. And there is not the obstacle to Borrow's
popularity that there is to that of some other writers, notably the
already-mentioned author of _Crotchet Castle_. No extensive literary
cultivation is necessary to read him. A good deal even of his peculiar
charm may be missed by a prosaic or inattentive reader, and yet enough
will remain. But he has probably paid the penalty of originality, which
allows itself to be mastered by quaintness, and which refuses to meet
public taste at least half-way. It is certainly difficult at times to
know what to make of Borrow. And the general public, perhaps excusably,
is apt not to like things or persons when it does not know what to m