He did not accept the Victorian basis. He knew too much.

There is one more matter that may best be considered here, though
briefly: it illustrates the extreme difficulty of dealing with the
Victorian English in a book like this, because of their eccentricity;
not of opinions, but of character and artistic form. There are several
great Victorians who will not fit into any of the obvious categories I
employ; because they will not fit into anything, hardly into the world
itself. Where Germany or Italy would relieve the monotony of mankind by
paying serious respect to an artist, or a scholar, or a patriotic
warrior, or a priest--it was always the instinct of the English to do it
by pointing out a Character. Dr. Johnson has faded as a poet or a
critic, but he survives as a Character. Cobbett is neglected
(unfortunately) as a publicist and pamphleteer, but he is remembered as
a Character. Now these people continued to crop up through the Victorian
time; and each stands so much by himself that I shall end these pages
with a profound suspicion that I have forgotten to mention a Character
of gigantic dimensions. Perhaps the best example of such eccentrics is
George Borrow; who sympathised with unsuccessful nomads like the gipsies
while every one else sympathised with successful nomads like the Jews;
who had a genius like the west wind for the awakening of wild and casual
friendships and the drag and attraction of the roads. But whether George
Borrow ought to go into the section devoted to philosophers, or the
section devoted to novelists, or the section devoted to liars, nobody
else has ever known, even if he did.

But the strongest case of this Victorian power of being abruptly
original in a corner can be found in two things: the literature meant
merely for children and the literature meant merely for fun. It is true
that these two very Victorian things often melted into each other (as