ossed no gutters in those flint-
paved streets, we could forgive anything that had shocked or disgusted us
at the dinner table. But matters grew worse in his old age, when his
habits of intemperance kept him out of the sight of the ladies, and he
got round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they
could set the world right by their destructive tendencies. One of his
chief favourites was George Borrow. . . ."

Another of "the harum-scarum young men" taken up by Taylor and introduced
"into the best society the place afforded," writes Harriet Martineau, was
Polidori.

Borrow was introduced to Taylor in 1820 by "Mousha," the Jew who taught
him Hebrew. Taylor "took a great interest" in him and taught him German.
"What I tell Borrow _once_," he said, "he ever remembers." In 1821
Taylor wrote to Southey, who was an early friend:

"A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller's 'Wilhelm Tell,'
with the view of translating it for the Press. His name is George Henry
Borrow, and he has learnt German with extraordinary rapidity; indeed he
has the gift of tongues, and, though not yet eighteen, understands twelve
languages--English, Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish,
French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese; he would like to get into the
Office for Foreign Affairs, but does not know how."

Borrow was at that time a "reserved and solitary" youth, tall, spare,
dark complexioned and usually dressed in black, who used to be seen
hanging about the Close and talking through the railings of his garden to
some of the Grammar School boys. He was a noticeable youth, and he told
his father that a lady had painted him and compared his face to that of
Alfieri's Saul.

{picture: Tuck's Court, Norwich. Photo: Jarrold & Sons, Norwich:
page70.jpg}

Borrow pleased neither his master nor his father by his knowledge of
languages, though it was largely acquired in the lawyer's office. "The
lad is too independent by half," Borrow makes his father say, after
painting a filial portrait of the old man, "with locks of silver gray
which set off so nobly his fine bold but benevolent face, his faithful
consort at his side, and his trusty dog at his feet." Nor did the youth
please himself. He was languid again, tired even of the Welsh poet, Ab
Gwilym. He was anxious about his father, who was low spirited over his
elder son's absence in London as a painter, and over his younger son's
misconduct and the "