alone. Two more interesting men it
would be impossible to meet. The remarkable thing was that
there was between them no sort of intellectual sympathy. In
style, in education, in experience, whatever Hake was, Borrow
was not. Borrow knew almost nothing of Hake's writings, either
in prose or in verse. His ideal poet was Pope, and when he
read, or rather looked into, Hake's _World's Epitaph_, he
thought he did Hake the greatest honour by saying, 'there are
lines here and there that are nigh as good as Pope'!

On the other hand, Hake's acquaintance with Borrow's works was
far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in
the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy,
angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with
a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was
polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not
without prejudice and bias, ready to shine generally in any
society.

So far as Hake was concerned the sole link between them was
that of reminiscence of earlier days and adventures in Borrow's
beloved East Anglia. Among many proofs I would adduce of this I
will give one. I am the possessor of the MS. of Borrow's
_Gypsies of Spain_, written partly in a Spanish notebook as he
moved about Spain in his colporteur days. It was my wish that
Hake would leave behind him some memorial of Borrow more worthy
of himself and his friend than those brief reminiscences
contained in _Memoirs of Eighty Years_. I took to Hake this
precious relic of _one of the most wonderful men of the
nineteenth century_, in order to discuss with him differences
between the MS. and the printed text. Hake was writing in his
invalid chair,--writing verses. 'What does it all matter?' he
said. 'I do not think you understand Lavengro,' I said. Hake
replied, 'And yet Lavengro had an advantage over me, for _he_
understood _nobody_. Every individuality with which he was
brought into contact had, as no one knows better than you, to
be tinged with colours of his own before he could see it at
all.' That, of course, was true enough; and Hake's asperities
when speaking of Borrow in _Memoirs of Eighty
Years_,--asperities which have vexed a good many
Borrovians,--simply arose from the fact that it was impossible