s during the revolution of
1830, because of a picturesque reference to the war correspondents there
in _The Bible in Spain_. But Borrow never hesitated to weave little
touches of romance from extraneous writers into his narratives, and may
have done so here. I have visited most of the principal capitals of the
world, he says in _The Bible in Spain_. This we would call a palpable
lie were not so much of _The Bible in Spain_ sheer invention.

[82] _Memoirs of Vidocq, Principal Agent of the French Police until
1827, and now proprietor of the paper manufactory at St. Mande_. Written
by himself. Translated from the French. In Four Volumes. London:
Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot, Ave Maria Lane, 1829.

[83] This with other documents I am about to present to the Borrow
Museum, Norwich.

[84] In 1830 Borrow had another disappointment. He translated _The
Sleeping Bard_ from the Welsh. This also failed to find a publisher. It
was issued in 1860, under which date we discuss it.

CHAPTER XIV

SIR JOHN BOWRING

'Poor George.... I wish he were making money. He works hard and remains
poor'--thus wrote John Borrow to his mother in 1830 from Mexico, and it
disposes in a measure of any suggestion of mystery with regard to five
of those years that he wished to veil. They were not spent, it is clear,
in rambling in the East, as he tried to persuade Colonel Napier many
years later. They were spent for the most part in diligent attempt at
the capture of words, in reading the poetry and the prose of many lands,
and in making translations of unequal merit from these diverse tongues.
This is indisputably brought home to me by the manuscripts in my
possession, supplemented by those that fell to Dr. Knapp. These
manuscripts represent years of work. Borrow has been counted a
considerable linguist, and he had assuredly a reading and speaking
acquaintance with a great many languages. But this knowledge was
acquired, as all knowledge is, with infinite trouble and patience. I
have before me hundreds of small sheets of paper upon which are written
English words and their equivalents in some twenty or thirty languages.
These serve to show that Borrow learnt a language as a small boy in an
old-fashioned system of education learns his Latin or French--by writing
down simple words--'father,' 'mother,' 'horse,' 'dog,' and so on with
the same word in Latin or French in front of them. Of course Borrow had
a superb memory and abundant enthusiasm,