), the first obituary notice of him in the _Athenaeum_ was
not by me, but by W. Elwin. This appeared on the 6th August 1881. At
this time the general public had so forgotten that Borrow was alive that
I remember once, at one of old Mrs. Procter's receptions, it had been
discussed, as Lowell and Browning afterwards told me, as to whether I
was or was not "an archer of the long bow" because I said that on the
previous Sunday I had walked with Borrow in Richmond Park, and was
frequently seeing him, and that on the Sunday before I had walked in the
same beautiful park with Dr. Gordon Latham, another celebrity of the
past "known to be dead." The fact is, Borrow's really great books were
_Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_, and the latter had fallen almost dead
from the press, smothered by Victorian respectability and philistinism.
He was thoroughly soured and angry, and no wonder! He fought shy of
literary society. He quite resented being introduced to strangers.

'Elwin's article was considered very unsatisfactory. Knowing that the
most competent man in England to write about Borrow was my old friend,
Dr. Gordon Hake, I suggested that MacColl should ask the doctor (one of
the few men whom Borrow really loved) to furnish the _Athenaeum_ with
another article. This was agreed to, and another article was written,
either by Dr. Hake himself, or by one of his sons--I don't quite
remember at this distance of time. It appeared in the _Athenaeum_ of the
13th August 1881. But even this article did not seem to MacColl to
vitalise one of the most remarkable personalities of the 19th century;
and as I was then a leading writer in the literary department of the
_Athenaeum_, MacColl asked me to give him an article upon Borrow whom I
had known so well. I did so, and the article "caught on," as MacColl
said, more than had any _Athenaeum_ article for a long time. This
appeared 3rd September 1881. When MacColl read the article he was so
much pleased with it that he urged me to follow it up with an article on
Borrow in connection with the Children of the Open Air--a subject upon
which I had previously written a good deal in the _Athenaeum_. This
appeared on the 10th September 1881, and became still more popular, and
the _Athenaeum_ containing it had quite an exceptional sale.

'The Hake whom you inquire about, Egmont Hake, has drifted out of my
ken. He at one time lived in Paris, and wrote a book called _Paris
Originals_. I know that he did, at on