he night was tolerably well advanced.'
But on July 24, as I learn, Charles's Wain was in the N.W., and at
midnight or 1 a.m. lay nearly due north, and as low down in the sky as it
could be. This, however, is perhaps to consider too closely. Indeed,
the general accuracy of this part of Borrow's story renders it probable
that it was expanded from a brief diary kept at the time.

It will be seen that the dates thus arrived at differ from those of
Borrow's biographer. According to Professor Knapp, {0i} Borrow visits
Greenwich Fair on May 12, 1825, writes 'Joseph Sell' May 13 to 18, and
disposes of the MS. on the 20th; leaves London on the 22nd, reaches
Amesbury on the 23rd; leaves Salisbury May 26, and meets author (man who
touches) May 30. On May 31 he buys Slingsby's pony, is in dingle June 1,
visited by Leonora on the 5th, and drugged by Mrs. Herne on the 8th. He
passes Sunday, June 12, and the following week with Peter Williams and
his wife, on the 21st he sees them to the border, turns back with
Petulengro and settles in Mumpers' Dingle. His fight with the Flaming
Tinman, Professor Knapp tells us, must have occurred about the end of
June. The Professor's chronology, however, seems to me derived from a
calculation--not in itself over-exact {0j}--based upon the erroneous idea
that the fair took place on May 12. {0k} This is traceable to a
statement in Thorpe {0l} that 'the fair lasted as a "hog" and pleasure
fair, and was held on May 12 and October 11, till 1872'; but Thorpe here
refers to a later period, and there is no doubt that in 1825 the
Greenwich Fair was held on Whit-Monday, May 23.

Not the least interesting corollary from this correction is the discovery
that 'that extraordinary work,' the 'Life of Joseph Sell,' was never
written. To me Borrow's insistent iteration of the bare statement that
he wrote such a book is in itself suspicious, and it _is _not a little
strange that a work for which 'during the last few months (before August,
1825) there has been a prodigious demand'{0m} should have entirely
disappeared from the face of the earth. The name 'Sell,' which in some
curious fashion seems to carry conviction to Professor Knapp's mind, {0n}
seems to me a singularly inauspicious one, especially when coming from a
writer who, like Pakomovna, was 'born not far from the sign of the
gammon,' and who boasts in his appendix of having inserted deliberate
misstatements in his books in order to deceive and mis