t he was ready to
sit for him, but that he was 'going to the south of France in a little
better than a fortnight.'[81] We know also that he was in Norwich in
1827, because it was then, and not in 1818 as described in _Lavengro_,
that he 'doffed his hat' to the famous trotting stallion Marshland
Shales, when that famous old horse was exhibited at Tombland Fair on the
Castle Hill. We meet him next as the friend of Dr. Bowring. The letters
to Bowring we must leave to another chapter, but they commence in 1829
and continue through 1830 and 1831. Through them all Borrow shows
himself alive to the necessity of obtaining an appointment of some kind,
and meanwhile he is hard at work upon his translations from various
languages, which, in conjunction with Dr. Bowring, he is to issue as
_Songs of Scandinavia_. Dr. Knapp thinks that in 1829 he made the
translation of the _Memoirs of Vidocq_, which appeared in that year with
a short preface by the translator.[82] But these little volumes bear no
internal evidence of Borrow's style, and there is no external evidence
to support the assumption that he had a hand in their publication. His
occasional references to Vidocq are probably due to the fact that he had
read this little book.

I have before me one very lengthy manuscript of Borrow's of this period.
It is dated December 1829, and is addressed, 'To the Committee of the
Honourable and Praiseworthy Association, known by the name of the
Highland Society.'[83] It is a proposal that they should publish in two
thick octavo volumes a series of translations of the best and most
approved poetry of the ancient and modern Scots-Gaelic bards. Borrow was
willing to give two years to the project, for which he pleads 'with no
sordid motive.' It is a dignified letter, which will be found in one of
Dr. Knapp's appendices--so presumably Borrow made two copies of it. The
offer was in any case declined, and so Borrow passed from disappointment
to disappointment during these eight years, which no wonder he desired,
in the coming years of fame and prosperity, to veil as much as possible.
The lean years in the lives of any of us are not those upon which we
delight to dwell, or upon which we most cheerfully look back.[84]

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Only thus can we explain Borrow's later declaration that he had
_four_ times been in prison.

[81] I quote this letter in another chapter. Mr. Herbert Jenkins thinks
(_Life_, ch. v. p. 88) that Borrow was in Pari