very citadel. That _Monthly Magazine_
is read by all the Dissenters--I call it the Dissenters'
Obituary--and here are you eternally mining, mining, under the
shallow faith of their half-learned, half-witted, half-paid,
half-starved pastors.

But the correspondence went on apace, indeed it occupies the larger part
of Robberds's two substantial volumes. It is in the very last letter
from Taylor to Southey that we find an oft-quoted reference to Borrow.
The letter is dated 12th March 1821:

A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller's _Wilhelm
Tell_ with the view of translating it for the Press. His name
is George Henry Borrow, and he has learnt German with
extraordinary rapidity; indeed, he has the gift of tongues,
and, though not yet eighteen, understands twelve
languages--English, Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German,
Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; he would like
to get into the Office for Foreign Affairs, but does not know
how.

Although this was the last letter to Southey that is published in the
memoir, Taylor visited Southey at Keswick in 1826. Taylor's three
volumes of the _Historic Survey of German Poetry_ appeared in 1828,
1829, and 1830. Sir Walter Scott, in the last year of his life, wrote
from Abbotsford on 23rd April 1832 to Taylor to protest against an
allusion to 'William Scott of Edinburgh' being the author of a
translation of _Goetz von Berlichingen_. Scott explained that he (Walter
Scott) was that author, and also made allusion to the fact that he had
borrowed with acknowledgment two lines from Taylor's _Lenore_ for his
own--

Tramp, tramp along the land,
Splash, splash across the sea.

adding that his recollection of the obligation was infinitely stronger
than of the mistake. It would seem, however, that the name 'William' was
actually on the title-page of the London edition of 1799 of _Goetz von
Berlichingen_. When Southey heard of the death of Taylor in 1836 he
wrote:

I was not aware of my old friend's illness, or I should
certainly have written to him, to express that unabated regard
which I have felt for him eight-and-thirty years, and that hope
which I shall ever feel, that we may meet in the higher state
of existence. I have known very few who equalled him in
talents--none who had a kinder heart; and there never lived a
more dutiful son, or a sincer