r in Spain. It would have been
easy for him to have been quite otherwise. Borrow's Bible mission
synchronised with a very delicate diplomatic mission of his own, and in
a measure clashed with it. The government of Spain was at the time
fighting the ultra-clericals. Physical and moral strife were rife in the
land. Neither Royalists nor Carlists could be expected to sympathise
with Borrow's schemes, which were fundamentally to attack their church.
But Villiers was at all times friendly, and, as far as he could be,
helpful. Borrow seems to have had ready access to him, and he answered
his many letters. He gave Borrow an opportunity of an interview with the
formidable Prime Minister Mendizabal, and he interviewed another
minister and persuaded him to permit Borrow to print and circulate his
Bibles. He intervened successfully to release Borrow from his Madrid
prison. But Villiers could not have had any sympathy with Borrow other
than as a British subject to be protected on the Roman citizen
principle. We do not suppose that when _The Bible in Spain_ appeared he
was one of those who were captivated by its extraordinary qualities.
When Borrow crossed his path in later life he received no special
consideration, such as would be given very promptly in our day by a
Cabinet minister to a man of letters of like distinction. We find him on
one occasion writing to the ex-minister, now Lord Clarendon, asking his
help for a consulship. Clarendon replied kindly enough, but sheltered
himself behind the statement that the Prime Minister was overwhelmed
with applications for patronage. Yet Clarendon, who held many high
offices in the following years, might have helped if he had cared to do
so. Some years later--in 1847--there was further correspondence when
Borrow desired to become a Magistrate of Suffolk. Here again Clarendon
wrote three courteous letters, and appears to have done his best in an
unenthusiastic way. But nothing came of it all.

FOOTNOTES:

[125] The accounts in _The Bible in Spain_, _The Gypsies of Spain_, and
the _Letters to the Bible Society_.

[126] The only 'Samuel Brandram' in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_ is a reciter who died in 1892; he certainly had less claim to
the distinction than his namesake.

[127] See 'Footprints of George Borrow' by A. G. Jayne in _The Bible in
the World_ for July 1908.

[128] _Excursions along the Shores of the Mediterranean_, by
Lieut.-Colonel E. Napier, vol. ii (Henry C