and so he was enabled to add
one language to another and to make his translations from such books as
he could obtain, with varied success. I believe that nearly all the
books that he handled came from the Norwich library, and when Mrs.
Borrow wrote to her elder son to say that George was working hard, as we
may fairly assume, from the reply quoted, that she did, she was
recalling this laborious work at translation that must have gone on for
years. We have seen the first fruit in the translation from the
German--or possibly from the French--of Klinger's _Faustus_; we have
seen it in _Romantic Ballads_ from the Danish, the Irish, and the
Swedish. Now there really seemed a chance of a more prosperous
utilisation of his gift, for Borrow had found a zealous friend who was
prepared to go forward with him in this work of giving to the English
public translations from the literatures of the northern nations. This
friend was Dr. John Bowring, who made a very substantial reputation in
his day.

Bowring has told his own story in a volume of _Autobiographical
Recollections_,[85] a singularly dull book for a man whose career was at
once so varied and so full of interest. He was born at Exeter in 1792 of
an old Devonshire family, and entered a merchant's office in his native
city on leaving school. He early acquired a taste for the study of
languages, and learnt French from a refugee priest precisely in the way
in which Borrow had done. He also acquired Italian, Spanish, German and
Dutch, continuing with a great variety of other languages. Indeed, only
the very year after Borrow had published _Faustus_, he published his
_Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain_, and the year after Borrow's
_Romantic Ballads_ came Bowring's _Servian Popular Poetry_. With such
interest in common it was natural that the two men should be brought
together, but Bowring had the qualities which enabled him to make a
career for himself and Borrow had not. In 1811, as a clerk in a London
mercantile house, he was sent to Spain, and after this his travels were
varied. He was in Russia in 1820, and in 1822 was arrested at Calais and
thrown into prison, being suspected by the Bourbon Government of
abetting the French Liberals. Canning as Foreign Minister took up his
cause, and he was speedily released. He assisted Jeremy Bentham in
founding _The Westminster Review_ in 1824. Meanwhile he was seeking
official employment, and in conjunction with Mr. Villiers, afterwar