ork.

[Illustration: A PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF BORROW'S _SONGS OF
SCANDINAVIA_--AN UNPUBLISHED WORK]

Say nothing of me, for I would not be thought to offend so
excellent and so able a man. He may be content with his
literary fame, and can do without poetic praise.

Your answer is short. The play might have passed very well had
it been published when written, and when the writer was yet
young and little known, but it will be hazardous now, as the
world is cross-grained, and will not see your master in the
grave and learned author of so many valuable works; but judge
him from his present attainments. But this, as Mrs. Quickly
says, 'is alligant terms,' and it may do.--Ever yours,

WM. GIFFORD.

_P.S._--I see the preface is already written, and do what you
will, the play will be published.

One other phase of this more limited aspect of Borrow's work may be
dealt with here--his mastery of languages. I have before me scores of
pages which reveal the way that Borrow became a lav-engro--a
word-master. He drew up tables of every language in turn, the English
word following the German, or Welsh, or whatever the tongue might be,
and he learnt these off with amazing celerity. His wonderful memory was
his greatest asset in this particular. He was not a philologist if we
accept the dictionary definition of that word as 'a person versed in the
science of language.' But his interest in languages is refreshing and
interesting--never pedantic, and he takes rank among those disinterested
lovers of learning who pursue their researches without any regard to the
honours or emoluments that they may bring, loving learning for
learning's sake, undaunted by the discouragements that come from the
indifference of a world to which they have made their appeal in vain.

FOOTNOTES:

[245] _The Athenaeum_, September 3, 1881.

[246] In the _Monthly Magazine_ for March 1830 under the head of
'Miscellaneous Intelligence' we find the following announcement:--

'Dr. Bowring and Mr. George Borrow are about to publish _The Songs of
Scandinavia_, containing a selection of the most interesting of the
Historical and Romantic Ballads of North-Western Europe, with specimens
of the Danish and Norwegian Poets down to the present day.'

[247] Dr. Knapp's Borrow manuscripts are now in the Hispanic Society's
Archives in New York.

[248] I contemplate at a later date an edi