, grey-haired brother--which
shall I have, brother?'

"In the napkin were two round cakes, seemingly made of rich and costly
compounds, and precisely similar in form, each weighing about half a
pound.

"'Which shall I have, brother?' said the Gypsy girl.

"'Whichever you please.'

"'No, brother, no, the cakes are yours, not mine, it is for you to say.'

"'Well, then, give me the one nearest you, and take the other.'

"'Yes, brother, yes,' said the girl; and taking the cakes, she flung them
into the air two or three times, catching them as they fell, and singing
the while. 'Pretty brother, grey-haired brother--here, brother,' said
she, 'here is your cake, this other is mine. . . .'"

I cannot afford to quote the whole passage, but it is at once as real and
as phantasmal as the witch scene in "Macbeth." He eats the poisoned cake
and lies deadly sick. Mrs. Herne and Leonora came to see the effect of
the poison:

"'Ha, ha! bebee, and here he lies, poisoned like a hog.'

"'You have taken drows, sir,' said Mrs. Herne; 'do you hear, sir? drows;
tip him a stave, child, of the song of poison.'

"And thereupon the girl clapped her hands, and sang--

"The Rommany churl
And the Rommany girl
To-morrow shall hie
To poison the sty,
And bewitch on the mead
The farmer's steed."

"'Do you hear that, sir?' said Mrs. Herne; 'the child has tipped you a
stave of the song of poison: that is, she has sung it Christianly, though
perhaps you would like to hear it Romanly; you were always fond of what
was Roman. Tip it him Romanly, child.'"

It is not much use to remark on "the uncolloquial vocabulary of the
speakers." Iago's vocabulary is not colloquial when he says:

"Not poppy nor mandragora
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
That thou ow'dst yesterday."

Borrow is not describing Gypsy life but the "dream" of his own early
life. I should say that he succeeds, because his words work upon the
indifferent reader in something like the same way as memory worked upon
himself. The physical activity, the "low life," and the open air of the
books are powerful. These and the England of his youth gave Borrow his
refuge from middle age and Victorian England of the middle class.
"Youth," he says in "The Romany Rye," "is the only season for enjoyment,
and the first twenty-five years of one's life are worth all the rest of
the longest life of man,