MY DEAR SIR,--I received your book some days ago, but would not
write to you before I was able to read it, at least once, since
it is needless, I hope, for me to assure you that I am truly
gratified by the gift.

Time to read it I could not find for some days after it was
sent hither, for what with winding up my affairs here, the
election of my successor, preparations for flitting, etc.,
etc., I have been incessantly occupied with matters needful to
be done, but far less agreeable to do than reading _The Romany
Rye_. All I have said of _Lavengro_ to yourself personally, or
to others publicly or privately, I say again of _The Romany
Rye_. Everywhere in it the hand of the master is stamped boldly
and deeply. You join the chisel of Dante with the pencil of
Defoe.

I am rejoiced to see so many works announced of yours, for you
have more that is worth knowing to tell than any one I am
acquainted with. For your coming progeny's sake I am disposed
to wish you had worried the literary-craft less. Brand and
score them never so much, they will not turn and repent, but
only spit the more froth and venom. I am reckoning of my
emancipation with an eagerness hardly proper at my years, but I
cannot help it, so thoroughly do I hate London, and so much do
I love the country. I have taken a house, or rather a cottage,
at Walton on Thames, just on the skirts of Weybridge, and there
I hope to see you before I come into Norfolk, for I am afraid
my face will not be turned eastward for many weeks if not
months.

Remember me kindly to Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke, and believe
me, my dear Sir, very truly and thankfully yours.

WM. B. DONNE.

And perhaps a letter from the then Town Clerk of Oxford is worth
reproducing here:

To George Borrow, Esq.

TOWN CLERK'S OFFICE, OXFORD, _19th August 1857._

SIR,--We have, attached to our Corporation, an ancient jocular
court composed of 13 of the poor old freemen who attend the
elections and have a king who sits attired in scarlet with a
crown and sentences interlopers (non-freeman) to be
cold-burned, _i.e._ a bucket or so of water introduced to the
offender's sleeve by means of the city pump; but this
infliction is of course generally commuted by a small pecuniary
compensation.