. Why Borrow
took so much pains to explain that his wife had copied _Lavengro_, as
the following document implies, I cannot think. I find in his
handwriting this scrap of paper signed by Mary Borrow, and witnessed by
her daughter:

_Janry. 30, 1869._

This is to certify that I transcribed _The Bible in Spain_,
_Lavengro_, and some other works of my husband George Borrow,
from the original manuscripts. A considerable portion of the
transcript of _Lavengro_ was lost at the printing-office where
the work was printed.

MARY BORROW.

Witness: Henrietta M., daughter of Mary Borrow.

It only remains here to state the melancholy fact once again that
_Lavengro_, great work of literature as it is now universally
acknowledged to be, was not 'the book of the year.' The three thousand
copies of the first issue took more than twenty years to sell, and it
was not until 1872 that Mr. Murray resolved to issue a cheaper edition.
The time was not ripe for the cult of the open road; the zest for 'the
wind on the heath' that our age shares so keenly.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] Knapp's _Life_, vol. ii p. 9.

[170] _Ibid._ p. 11.

[171] Knapp's _Life_, vol. ii. p. 19.

[172] Ford was right, however, if authors wrote only for posterity,
although 1851 was not a very important year among the great Victorian
writers. It produced Carlyle's _John Sterling_, Ruskin's _Stones of
Venice_, and Kingsley's _Yeast_.

[173] Mr. Murray published _Lavengro_ in an edition of 3000 copies in
1851, a second edition (incorrectly called the third) was not asked for
until 1872.

[174] Jenkins's _Life_, p. 387.

[175] _Some XVIII. Century Men of Letters: Biographical Essays_, by the
Rev. Whitwell Elwin, sometime Editor of _The Quarterly Review_, With a
Memoir by his son Warwick Elwin, 2 vols. John Murray, 1902.

[176] Whitwell Elwin was Rector of Booton, Norfolk--a family
living--from 1849 to his death, aged 83, on 1st January 1900. He
succeeded Lockhart as editor of _The Quarterly Review_ in 1853, and
resigned in 1860. He was born in 1816, and educated at Caius College,
Cambridge. Thackeray called him 'a grandson of the late Rev. Dr.
Primrose,' thereby recognising in Elwin many of the kindly qualities of
Goldsmith's admirable creation.

[177] Mr. James Hooper, of Norwich, whose kindness in placing this and
many other documents at my disposal I have already acknowledged