ofessor Cowell in January
1857:

I was with Borrow a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth
three months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray.
He read me a long translation he had made from the Turkish:
which I could not admire, and his taste becomes stranger than
ever.[207]

But Borrow's genius if not his taste was always admired by FitzGerald,
as the following letter among my Borrow Papers clearly indicates. Borrow
had published _The Romany Rye_ at the beginning of May:

[Illustration: OULTON COTTAGE FROM THE BROAD

Showing the summer house on the left from a sketch by Henrietta
MacOubrey. The house which has replaced it has another aspect.]

[Illustration: THE SUMMER HOUSE OULTON, AS IT IS TO DAY

Which when compared with Miss MacOubrey's sketch shows that it has been
reroofed and probably rebuilt altogether.]

To George Borrow, Esq., Oulton Hall.

GOLDINGTON HALL, BEDFORD, _May 24/57_[208]

MY DEAR SIR,--Your Book was put into my hands a week ago just
as I was leaving London; so I e'en carried it down here, and
have been reading it under the best Circumstances:--at such a
Season--in the Fields as they now are--and in company with a
Friend I love best in the world--who scarce ever reads a Book,
but knows better than I do what they are made of from a hint.

Well, lying in a Paddock of his, I have been travelling along
with you to Horncastle, etc.,--in a very delightful way for the
most part; something as I have travelled, and love to travel,
with Fielding, Cervantes, and Robinson Crusoe--and a smack of
all these there seems to me, with something beside, in your
book. But, as will happen in Travel, there were some spots I
didn't like so well--didn't like _at all_: and sometimes wished
to myself that I, a poor 'Man of Taste,' had been at your Elbow
(who are a Man of much more than Taste) to divert you, or get
you by some means to pass lightlier over some places. But you
wouldn't have heeded me, and won't heed me, and _must_ go your
own way, I think--And in the parts I least like, I am yet
thankful for honest, daring, and original Thought and Speech
such as one hardly gets in these mealy-mouthed days. It was
very kind of you to send me your book.

My Wife is already established at a House called 'Albert's
Villa,' or some such name, at Gor