Chapter III: John Thomas Borrow

John Thomas Borrow was born two years before his younger brother, that is, on the 15th April 1801. His father, then Serjeant Borrow, was wandering from town to town, and it is not known where his elder son first saw the light. John Borrow's nature was cast in a somewhat different mould from that of his brother. He was his father's pride. Serjeant Borrow could not understand George with his extraordinary taste for the society of queer people--the wild Irish and the ragged Romanies. John had far more of the normal in his being. Borrow gives us in _Lavengro_ our earliest glimpse of his brother:

He was a beautiful child; one of those occasionally seen in
England, and in England alone; a rosy, angelic face, blue eyes,
and light chestnut hair; it was not exactly an Anglo-Saxon
countenance, in which, by the by, there is generally a cast of
loutishness and stupidity; it partook, to a certain extent, of
the Celtic character, particularly in the fire and vivacity
which illumined it; his face was the mirror of his mind;
perhaps no disposition more amiable was ever found amongst the
children of Adam, united, however, with no inconsiderable
portion of high and dauntless spirit. So great was his beauty
in infancy, that people, especially those of the poorer
classes, would follow the nurse who carried him about in order
to look at and bless his lovely face. At the age of three
months an attempt was made to snatch him from his mother's arms
in the streets of London, at the moment she was about to enter
a coach; indeed, his appearance seemed to operate so powerfully
upon every person who beheld him, that my parents were under
continual apprehension of losing him; his beauty, however, was
perhaps surpassed by the quickness of his parts. He mastered
his letters in a few hours, and in a day or two could decipher
the names of people on the doors of houses and over the
shop-windows.

John received his early education at the Norwich Grammar School, while the younger brother was kept under the paternal wing. Father and mother, with their younger boy George, were always on the move, passing from county to county and from country to country, as Serjeant Borrow, soon to be Captain, attended to his duties of drilling and recruiting, now in England, now in Scotland, now in Ireland. We are given a fascinating glimpse of John Borrow in _Lavengro_ by way of a conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Borrow over the education of their children. It was agreed that while the family were in Edinburgh the boys should be sent to the High School, and so at the historic school that Sir Walter Scott had attended a generation before the two boys were placed, John being removed from the Norwich Grammar School for the purpose. Among his many prejudices of after years Borrow's dislike of Scott was perhaps the most regrettable, otherwise he would have gloried in the fact that their childhood had had one remarkable point in common. Each boy took part in the feuds between the Old Town and the New Town. Exactly as Scott records his prowess at 'the manning of the Cowgate Port,' and the combats maintained with great vigour, 'with stones, and sticks, and fisticuffs,' as set forth in the first volume of Lockhart, so we have not dissimilar feats set down in _Lavengro_. Side by side also with the story of 'Green-Breeks,' which stands out in Scott's narrative of his school combats, we have the more lurid account by Borrow of David Haggart. Literary biography is made more interesting by such episodes of likeness and of contrast.

We next find John Borrow in Ireland with his father, mother, and brother. George is still a child, but he is precocious enough to be learning the language, and thus laying the foundation of his interest in little-known tongues. John is now an ensign in his father's regiment. 'Ah! he was a sweet being, that boy soldier, a plant of early promise, bidding fair to become in after time all that is great, good, and admirable.' Ensign John tells his little brother how pleased he is to find himself, although not yet sixteen years old, 'a person in authority with many Englishmen under me. Oh! these last six weeks have passed like hours in heaven.' That was in 1816, and we do not meet John again until five years later, when we hear of him rushing into the water to save a drowning man, while twenty others were bathing who might have rendered assistance. Borrow records once again his father's satisfaction:

'My boy, my own boy, you are the very image of myself, the day
I took off my coat in the park to fight Big Ben,' said my
father, on meeting his son, wet and dripping, immediately after
his bold feat. And who cannot excuse the honest pride of the
old man--the stout old man?

In the interval the war had ended, and Napoleon had departed for St. Helena. Peace had led to the pensioning of militia officers, or reducing to half-pay of the juniors. The elder Borrow had settled in Norwich. George was set to study at the Grammar School there, while his brother worked in Old Crome's studio, for here was a moment when Norwich had its interesting Renaissance, and John Borrow was bent on being an artist. He had worked with Crome once before--during the brief interval that Napoleon was at Elba--but now he set to in real earnest, and we have evidence of a score of pictures by him that were catalogued In the exhibitions of the Norwich Society of Artists between the years 1817 and 1824. They include one portrait of the artist's father, and two of his brother George.[15] Old Crome died in 1821, and then John went to London to study under Haydon. Borrow declares that his brother had real taste for painting, and that 'if circumstances had not eventually diverted his mind from the pursuit, he would have attained excellence, and left behind him some enduring monument of his powers,' 'He lacked, however,' he tells us, 'one thing, the want of which is but too often fatal to the sons of genius, and without which genius is little more than a splendid toy in the hands of the possessor--perseverance, dogged perseverance.' It is when he is thus commenting on his brother's characteristics that Borrow gives his own fine if narrow eulogy of Old Crome. John Borrow seems to have continued his studies in London under Haydon for a year, and then to have gone to Paris to copy pictures at the Louvre. He mentions a particular copy that he made of a celebrated picture by one of the Italian masters, for which a Hungarian nobleman paid him well. His three years' absence was brought to an abrupt termination by news of his father's illness. He returned to Norwich in time to stand by that father's bedside when he died. The elder Borrow died, as we have seen, in February 1824. The little home in King's Court was kept on for the mother, and as John was making money by his pictures it was understood that he should stay with her. On the 1st April, however, George started for London, carrying the manuscript of _Romantic Ballads from the Danish_ to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher. On the 29th of the same month he was joined by his brother John. John had come to London at his own expense, but in the interests of the Norwich Town Council. The council wanted a portrait of one of its mayors for St. Andrew's Hall--that Valhalla of Norwich municipal worthies which still strikes the stranger as well-nigh unique in the city life of England. The municipality would fain have encouraged a fellow-citizen, and John Borrow had been invited to paint the portrait. 'Why,' it was asked, 'should the money go into a stranger's pocket and be spent in London?' John, however, felt diffident of his ability and declined, and this in spite of the fact that the £100 offered for the portrait must have been very tempting. 'What a pity it was,' he said, 'that Crome was dead.' 'Crome,' said the orator of the deputation that had called on John Borrow,

'Crome; yes, he was a clever man, a very clever man, in his
way; he was good at painting landscapes and farm-houses, but he
would not do in the present instance, were he alive. He had no
conception of the heroic, sir. We want some person capable of
representing our mayor standing under the Norman arch of the
cathedral.'[16]

At the mention of the heroic John bethought himself of Haydon, and suggested his name; hence his visit to London, and his proposed interview with Haydon. The two brothers went together to call upon the 'painter of the heroic' at his studio in Connaught Terrace, Hyde Park. There was some difficulty about their admission, and it turned out afterwards that Haydon thought they might be duns, as he was very hard up at the time. His eyes glistened at the mention of the £100. 'I am not very fond of painting portraits,' he said, 'but a mayor is a mayor, and there is something grand in that idea of the Norman arch.' And thus Mayor Hawkes came to be painted by Benjamin Haydon, and his portrait may be found, not without diligent search, among the many municipal worthies that figure on the walls of that most picturesque old Hall in Norwich. Here is Borrow's description of the painting:

The original mayor was a mighty, portly man, with a bull's
head, black hair, body like that of a dray horse, and legs and
thighs corresponding; a man six foot high at the least. To his
bull's head, black hair, and body the painter had done justice;
there was one point, however, in which the portrait did not
correspond with the original--the legs were disproportionably
short, the painter having substituted his own legs for those of
the mayor.

John Borrow described Robert Hawkes to his brother as a person of many qualifications:

--big and portly, with a voice like Boanerges; a religious man,
the possessor of an immense pew; loyal, so much so that I once
heard him say that he would at any time go three miles to hear
any one sing 'God save the King'; moreover, a giver of
excellent dinners. Such is our present mayor, who, owing to
his loyalty, his religion, and a little, perhaps, to his
dinners, is a mighty favourite.

Haydon, who makes no mention of the Borrows in his _Correspondence_ or _Autobiography_, although there is one letter of George Borrow's to him in the latter work, had been in jail for debt three years prior to the visit of the Borrows. He was then at work on his greatest success in 'the heroic'--_The Raising of Lazarus_, a canvas nineteen feet long by fifteen high. The debt was one to house decorators, for the artist had ever large ideas. The bailiff, he tells us,[17] was so agitated at the sight of the painting of Lazarus in the studio that he cried out, 'Oh, my God! Sir, I won't arrest you. Give me your word to meet me at twelve at the attorney's, and I'll take it.' In 1821 Haydon married, and a little later we find him again 'without a single shilling in the world--with a large picture before me not half done.' In April 1822 he is arrested at the instance of his colourman, 'with whom I had dealt for fifteen years,' and in November of the same year he is arrested again at the instance of 'a miserable apothecary.' In April 1823 we find him in the King's Bench Prison, from which he was released in July. _The Raising of Lazarus_ meanwhile had gone to pay his upholsterer £300, and his _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_ had been sold for £240, although it had brought him £3000 in receipts at exhibitions. Clearly heroic pictures did not pay, and Haydon here took up 'the torment of portrait-painting' as he called it.

From the painting by Benjamin Haydon in St. Andrew's Hall, Norwich. This portrait has its association with Borrow in that his brother John was sent to London to request Haydon to paint it, and Borrow describes the picture in _Lavengro_.]

'Can you wonder,' he wrote in July 1825, 'that I nauseate
portraits, except portraits of clever people. I feel quite
convinced that every portrait-painter, if there be purgatory,
will leap at once to heaven, without this previous
purification.'

Perhaps it was Mayor Hawkes who helped to inspire this feeling.[18] Yet the hundred pounds that John Borrow was able to procure must have been a godsend, for shortly before this we find him writing in his diary of the desperation that caused him to sell his books. 'Books that had cost me £20 I got only £3 for. But it was better than starvation.' Indeed it was in April of this year that the very baker was 'insolent,' and so in May 1824, as we learn from Tom Taylor's _Life_, he produced 'a full-length portrait of Mr. Hawkes, a late Mayor of Norwich, painted for St. Andrew's Hall in that city.' But I must leave Haydon's troubled career, which closes so far as the two brothers are concerned with a letter from George to Haydon written the following year from 26 Bryanston Street, Portman Square:

DEAR SIR,--I should feel extremely obliged if you would allow
me to sit to you as soon as possible. I am going to the south
of France in little better than a fortnight, and I would sooner
lose a thousand pounds than not have the honour of appearing in
the picture.--Yours sincerely,

GEORGE BORROW.[19]

As Borrow was at the time in a most impoverished condition, it is not easy to believe that he would have wished to be taken at his word. He certainly had not a thousand pounds to lose. But he did undoubtedly, as we shall see, take that journey on foot through the south of France, after the manner of an earlier vagabond of literature--Oliver Goldsmith. Haydon was to be far too much taken up with his own troubles during the coming months to think any more about the Borrows when he had once completed the portrait of the mayor, which he had done by July of this year. Borrow's letter to him is, however, an obvious outcome of a remark dropped by the painter on the occasion of his one visit to his studio when the following conversation took place:

'I'll stick to the heroic,' said the painter; 'I now and then
dabble in the comic, but what I do gives me no pleasure, the
comic is so low; there is nothing like the heroic. I am engaged
here on a heroic picture,' said he, pointing to the canvas;
'the subject is "Pharaoh dismissing Moses from Egypt," after
the last plague--the death of the first-born,--it is not far
advanced--that finished figure is Moses': they both looked at
the canvas, and I, standing behind, took a modest peep. The
picture, as the painter said, was not far advanced, the Pharaoh
was merely in outline; my eye was, of course, attracted by the
finished figure, or rather what the painter had called the
finished figure; but, as I gazed upon it, it appeared to me
that there was something defective--something unsatisfactory in
the figure. I concluded, however, that the painter,
notwithstanding what he had said, had omitted to give it the
finishing touch. 'I intend this to be my best picture,' said
the painter; 'what I want now is a face for Pharaoh; I have
long been meditating on a face for Pharaoh.' Here, chancing to
cast his eye upon my countenance, of whom he had scarcely taken
any manner of notice, he remained with his mouth open for some
time, 'Who is this?' said he at last. 'Oh, this is my brother,
I forgot to introduce him----.'

We wish that the acquaintance had extended further, but this was not to be. Borrow was soon to commence the wanderings which were to give him much unsatisfactory fame, and the pair never met again. Let us, however, return to John Borrow, who accompanied Haydon to Norwich, leaving his brother for some time longer to the tender mercies of Sir Richard Phillips. John, we judge, seems to have had plenty of shrewdness, and was not without a sense of his own limitations. A chance came to him of commercial success in a distant land, and he seized that chance. A Norwich friend, Allday Kerrison, had gone out to Mexico, and writing from Zacatecas in 1825 asked John to join him. John accepted. His salary in the service of the Real del Monte Company was to be £300 per annum. He sailed for Mexico in 1826, having obtained from his Colonel, Lord Orford, leave of absence for a year, it being understood that renewals of that leave of absence might be granted. He was entitled to half-pay as a Lieutenant of the West Norfolk Militia, and this he settled upon his mother during his absence. His career in Mexico was a failure. There are many of his letters to his mother and brother extant which tell of the difficulties of his situation. He was in three Mexican companies in succession, and was about to be sent to Columbia to take charge of a mine when he was stricken with a fever, and died at Guanajuato on 22nd November 1838. He had far exceeded any leave that his Colonel could in fairness grant, and before his death his name had been taken off the army rolls. The question of his pay produced a long correspondence, which can be found in the archives of the Rolls Office. I have the original drafts of these letters in Borrow's handwriting. The first letter by Borrow is dated 8th September 1831; it is better to give the correspondence in its order.[20] The letters speak for themselves, and require no comment.

I

To the Rt. Hon. The Secretary at War

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _September 8, 1831._

SIR,--I take the liberty of troubling you with these lines for
the purpose of enquiring whether there is any objection to the
issuing of the disembodied allowance of my brother Lieut. John
Borrow of the Welsh Norfolk Militia, who is at present abroad.
I do this by the advice of the Army Pay Office, a power of
Attorney having been granted to me by Lieut. Borrow to receive
the said allowance for him. I beg leave to add that my brother
was present at the last training of his regiment, that he went
abroad with the leave of his Commanding Officer, which leave of
absence has never been recalled, that he has sent home the
necessary affidavits, and that there is no clause in the Pay
and Clothing Act to authorize the stoppage of his allowance. I
have the honor to remain, Sir, your most obedient, humble
servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

II

To the Right Hon. The Secretary at War

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _17th Septr. 1831._

SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of No. 33,063, dated
16th inst., from the War Office, in which I am informed that
the Office does not feel authorized to give instructions for
the issue of the arrears of disembodied allowance claimed by my
brother Lieut. Borrow of the West Norfolk, until he attend the
next training of his regiment, and I now beg leave to ask the
following question, and to request that I may receive an
answer with all convenient speed. What farther right to his
_present_ arrears of disembodied allowance will Lieut. Borrow's
appearance at the _next training_ of his regiment confer upon
him, and provided there is no authority at present for ordering
the payment of those arrears, by what authority will the War
Office issue instructions for the payment of the same, after
his arrival in this country and attendance at the training?
Sir, provided Lieut. Borrow is not entitled to his arrears of
disembodied allowance at the present moment, he will be
entitled to them at no future period, and I was to the last
degree surprised at the receipt of an answer which tends to
involve the office in an inextricable dilemma, for it is in
fact a full acknowledgment of the justice of Lieutenant
Borrow's claims, and a refusal to satisfy them until a certain
time, which instantly brings on the question, 'By what
authority does the War Office seek to detain the disembodied
allowance of an officer, to which he is entitled by Act of
Parliament, a moment after it has become due and is legally
demanded?' If it be objected that it is not legally demanded, I
reply that the affidavits filled up in the required form are in
the possession of the Pay Office, and also a power of Attorney
in the Spanish language, together with a Notarial translation,
which power of Attorney has been declared by the Solicitor of
the Treasury to be legal and sufficient. To that part of the
Official letter relating to my brother's appearance at the next
training I have to reply, that I believe he is at present lying
sick in the Mountains above Vera Cruz, the pest-house of the
New World, and that the last time I heard from him I was
informed that it would be certain death for him to descend into
the level country, even were he capable of the exertion, for
the fever was then raging there. Full six months have elapsed
since he prepared to return to his native country, having
received information that there was a probability that his
regiment would be embodied, (but) the hand of God overtook him
on his route. He is the son, Sir, of an Officer who served his
King abroad and at home for upwards of half a century; he had
intended his disembodied allowance for the use of his widowed
and infirm mother, but it must now be transmitted to him for
his own support until he can arrive in England. But, Sir, I do
not wish to excite compassion in his behalf, all I request is
that he may have justice done him, and if it be, I shall be
informed in the next letter, that the necessary order has been
given to the Pay Office for the issue of his arrears. I have
the honor to remain, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

III

To the Right Hon. The Secretary at War

NORWICH, _Novr. 24, 1831._

SIR,--Not having been favoured with an answer to the letter
which I last addressed to you concerning the arrears of
disembodied allowance due to Lieut. John Borrow of the West
Norfolk Militia, I again take the liberty of submitting this
matter to your consideration. More than six months have elapsed
since by virtue of a power of attorney granted to me by Lieut.
Borrow, I made demand at the army Pay Office for a portion of
those arrears, being the amount of two affidavits which were
produced, but owing to the much unnecessary demur which ensued,
chiefly with respect to the power of Attorney, since declared
to be valid, that demand has not hitherto been satisfied. I
therefore am compelled to beg that an order may be issued to
the Pay Office for the payment to me of the sums specified in
the said affidavits, that the amount may be remitted to Lieut.
Borrow, he being at present in great need thereof. If it be
answered that Lieut. Borrow was absent at the last training of
his regiment, and that he is not entitled to any arrears of
pay, I must beg leave to observe that the demand was legally
made many months previous to the said training, and cannot now
be set aside by his non-appearance, which arose from
unavoidable necessity; he having for the last year been lying
sick in one of the provinces of New Spain. And now, Sir, I will
make bold to inquire whether Lieut. Borrow, the son of an
Officer, who served his country abroad and at home, for upwards
of fifty years, is to lose his commission for being incapable,
from a natural visitation, of attending at the training; if it
be replied in the affirmative, I have only to add that his case
will be a cruelly hard one. But I hope and trust, Sir, that
taking all these circumstances into consideration you will not
_yet_ cause his name to be stricken off the list, and that you
will permit him to retain his commission in the event of his
arriving in England with all the speed which his health of body
will permit, and that to enable him so to do his arrears[21]
you will forthwith give an order for the payment of his
arrears. I have the honor to be, Sir, your very humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

IV

To the Rt. Hon. The Secretary at War

NORWICH, _Decr. 13, 1831._

SIR,--I have just received a letter from my brother Lieutenant
J. Borrow, from which it appears he has had leave of absence
from his Colonel, the Earl of Orford, up to the present year.
He says 'in a letter dated Wolterton, 21st June 1828, Lord
Orford writes: "should you want a further leave I will not
object to it." 20th May 1829 says: "I am much obliged to you
for a letter of the 18th March, and shall be glad to allow you
leave of absence for a twelvemonth." I enclose his last letter
from Brussels, August 6, 1829. At the end it gives very evident
proof that my remaining in Mexico _was not only by his
Lordship's permission, but even by his advice_. Sir, if you
should require it I will transmit this last letter of the Earl
of Orford's, which my brother has sent to me, but beg leave to
observe that no blame can be attached to his Lordship in this
case, he having from a multiplicity of important business
doubtless forgotten these minor matters. I hope now, Sir, that
you will have no further objection to issue an order for the
payment of that portion of my brother's arrears specified in
the two affidavits in the possession of the Paymaster General.
By the unnecessary obstacles which have been flung in my
brother's way in obtaining his arrears he has been subjected to
great inconvenience and distress. An early answer on this point
will much oblige, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

V

To the Rt. Hon. The Secretary at War

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _May 24, 1833._

SIR,--I take the liberty of addressing you for the purpose of
requesting that an order be given to the Paymaster General for
the issue of the arrears of pay of my brother Lieutenant John
Borrow of the West Norfolk Militia, whose agent I am by virtue
of certain powers of Attorney, and also for the continuance of
the payment of his disembodied allowance. Lieutenant Borrow was
not present at the last training of his Regiment, being in
Mexico at the time, and knowing nothing of the matter. I beg
leave to observe that no official nor other letter was
dispatched to him by the adjutant to give him notice of the
event, nor was I, his agent, informed of it, he therefore
cannot have forfeited his arrears and disembodied allowance. He
was moreover for twelve months previous to the training, and
still is, so much indisposed from the effects of an attack of
the yellow fever, that his return would be attended with great
danger, which can be proved by the certificate of a Medical
Gentleman practising in Norwich, who was consulted from Mexico.
Lieutenants Harper and Williams, of the same Regiment, have
recovered their pay and arrears, although absent at the last
training, therefore it is clear and manifest that no objection
can be made to Lieut. Borrow's claim, who went abroad with his
Commanding Officer's permission, which those Gentlemen did not.
In conclusion I have to add that I have stated nothing which I
cannot substantiate, and that I court the most minute scrutiny
into the matter. I have the honor to be, Sir, your most
obedient and most humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

From a portrait by his brother John Thomas Borrow taken in early youth when his hair was black. This portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.]

The last of these letters is in another handwriting than that of Borrow, who by this time had started for St. Petersburg for the Bible Society. The officials were adamant. To one letter the War Office replied that they could not consider any claims until Lieutenant Borrow of the West Norfolk Militia should have arrived in England to attend the training of his regiment. These five letters are, as we have said, in the Rolls Office, although the indefatigable Professor Knapp seems to have dropped across only two of them there. Their chief interest is in that they are the earliest in order of date of the hitherto known letters of Borrow. There is one further letter on the subject written somewhat later by old Mrs. Borrow. She also appeals to the War Office for her son's allowance.[22] It would seem clear that the arrears were never paid.

To the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Orford

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _26 May 1834._

MY LORD,--I a few days since received the distressing
intelligence of the death of my dear son John, a lieutenant in
your Lordship's West Norfolk Regiment of Militia, after the
sufferings of a protracted and painful illness; the melancholy
event took place on the 22nd November last at Guanajuato in
Mexico. Having on the former irreparable loss of my dear
husband experienced your Lordship's kindness, I am induced to
trespass on your goodness in a like case of heavy affliction,
by requesting that you will be pleased to make the necessary
application to the Secretary at War to authorise me to receive
the arrears of pay due to my late son, viz.: ten months to the
period of the training, and from that time to the day of his
decease, for which I am informed it is requisite to have your
Lordship's certificate of leave of absence from the said
training. The amount is a matter of great importance to me in
my very limited circumstances, having been at considerable
expense in fitting him out, which, though at the time it
occasioned me much pecuniary inconvenience, I thought it my
duty to exert all my means to accomplish, my present distress
of mind is the greater having to struggle with my feelings
without the consolation and advice of my son George, who is at
this time at St. Petersburg. Your Lordship will, I trust,
pardon the liberty I am taking, and the trouble I am giving,
and allow for the feelings of an afflicted mother. I have the
honor to be your Lordship's most obedient servant,

ANN BORROW.

I have said that there are letters of John Borrow's extant. Fragments of these will be found in Dr. Knapp's book. These show a keen intelligence, great practicality, and common sense. George--in 1829--had asked his brother as to joining him in Mexico. 'If the country is soon settled I shall say "yes,"' John answers. With equal wisdom he says to his brother, 'Do not enter the army; it is a bad spec.' In this same year, 1829, John writes to ask whether his mother and brother are 'still living in that windy house of old King's; it gives me the rheumatism to think of it.' In 1830 he writes to his mother that he wishes his brother were making money. 'Neither he nor I have any luck, he works hard and remains poor.' In February of 1831 John writes to George suggesting that he should endeavour to procure a commission in the regiment, and in July of the same year to try the law again:

I am convinced that your want of success in life is more owing
to your being unlike other people than to any other cause.

John, as we have seen, died in Mexico of fever. George was at St. Petersburg working for the Bible Society when his mother writes from Norwich to tell him the news. John had died on 22nd November 1833. 'You are now my only hope,' she writes, '... do not grieve, my dear George. I trust we shall all meet in heaven. Put a crape on your hat for some time.' Had George Borrow's brother lived it might have meant very much in his life. There might have been nephews and nieces to soften the asperity of his later years. Who can say? Meanwhile, _Lavengro_ contains no happier pages than those concerned with this dearly loved brother.

_From a drawing by Fortunino Matania_]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] I am not able to trace more than three of John Borrow's pictures: firstly, a portrait of George Borrow, reproduced in this book, which was long in the possession of Mr. William Jarrold, the well-known publisher of Norwich, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London, having been purchased by the Director in 1912; secondly, the portrait of Borrow's father in the possession of a lady at Leamington; and thirdly, _The Judgment of Solomon_, which for a long time hung as an overmantel in the Borrow Home in Willow Lane, Norwich. Dr. Knapp also saw in Norwich 'A Portrait of a Gentleman,' by John Borrow. A second portrait of George Borrow by his brother was taken by the latter to Mexico, and has not since been heard of.

[16] _Lavengro_, ch. xxv.

[17] _Life of B. R. Haydon_, by Tom Taylor, 1853, vol. ii. p. 21.

[18] Or perhaps the experience contained in a letter to Miss Mitford in 1824 (_Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table Talk_, 2 vols., 1876):

'I have had a horrid week with a mother and eight daughters! Mamma _remembering_ herself a beauty; Sally and Betsey, etc., see her a matron. They say, "Oh! this is more suitable to mamma's age," and "that fits mamma's time of life!" But mamma does not agree. Betsey, and Sally, and Eliza, and Patty want "mamma"! Mamma wants herself as she looked when she was Betsey's age, and papa fell in love with her. So I am distracted to death. I have a great mind to paint her with a long beard like Salvator, and say, "That's _my_ idea of a fit accompaniment."'

[19] _Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table Talk_, with a Memoir by his son Frederic Wordsworth Haydon, vol. i. pp. 360-61.

[20] From what are called the 'War Office Weeded Papers, Old Series, No. 33,063/17,' and succeeding numbers.

[21] ('his arrears' are ruled out.) Note by War Office.

[22] This letter is from the original among the Borrow Papers in my possession.