t he was back in
Norwich in September 1825, after, we may assume, three months' wandering
among gypsies and tinkers. It is written from Willow Lane, and is
apparently to the publishers of _Faustus_:

As your bill will become payable in a few days, I am willing to
take thirty copies of _Faustus_ instead of the money. The book
has been _burnt_ in both the libraries here, and, as it has
been talked about, I may perhaps be able to dispose of some in
the course of a year or so.

This letter clearly demonstrates that the guileless Simpkin and the
equally guileless Marshall had paid Borrow for the right to publish
_Faustus_, and even though part of the payment was met by a bill, I
think we may safely find in the transaction whatever verity there may be
in the Joseph Sell episode. 'Let me know how you sold your manuscript,'
writes Borrow's brother to him so late as the year 1829. And this was
doubtless _Faustus_. The action of the Norwich libraries in burning the
book would clearly have had the sympathy of one of its few reviewers had
he been informed of the circumstance. It is thus that the _Literary
Gazette_ for 16th July 1825 refers to Borrow's little book:

This is another work to which no respectable publisher ought to
have allowed his name to be put. The political allusions and
metaphysics, which may have made it popular among a low class
in Germany, do not sufficiently season its lewd scenes and
coarse descriptions for British palates. We have occasionally
publications for the fireside--these are only fit for the fire.

Borrow returned then to Norwich in the autumn of 1825 a disappointed man
so far as concerned the giving of his poetical translations to the
world, from which he had hoped so much. No 'spirited publisher' had been
forthcoming, although Dr. Knapp's researches have unearthed a 'note' in
_The Monthly Magazine_, which, after the fashion of the anticipatory
literary gossip of our day, announced that Olaus Borrow was about to
issue _Legends and Popular Superstitions of the North_, 'in two elegant
volumes.' But this never appeared. Quite a number of Borrow's
translations from divers languages had appeared from time to time,
beginning with a version of Schiller's 'Diver' in _The New Monthly
Magazine_ for 1823, continuing with Stolberg's 'Ode to a Mountain
Torrent' in _The Monthly Magazine_, and including the 'Deceived Merman.'
These he collected into book