may judge from the reviews, this is how _Lavengro_ struck many, but by no
means all. The book had its passionate admirers, its lovers from the
first. Men, women, and boys took it to their hearts. Happy day when
_Lavengro_ first fell into boyish hands. It brought adventure and the
spirit of adventure to your doorstep. No need painfully to walk to Hull,
and there take shipping with Robinson Crusoe; no need to sail round the
world with Captain Cook, or even to shoot lions in Bechuanaland with that
prince of missionaries, Mr. Robert Moffat; for were there not gypsies on
the common half a mile from one's homestead, and a dingle at the end of
the lane? But the general verdict was, '"Lavengro" has gone too far.'

Borrow was not the man to whistle and let the world go by. His advice to
his country men and women was: 'To be courteous to everybody as Lavengro
was, but always independent like him, and if people meddle with them, to
give them as good as they bring, even as he and Isopel Berners were in
the habit of doing; and it will be as well for him to observe that he by
no means advises women to be too womanly, but, bearing the conduct of
Isopel Berners in mind, to take their own parts, and if anybody strikes
them to strike again.'

This is not the spirit which is patient under reproof. Borrow was not
going to be sentenced by the gentility party. He would fulfil his
dukkeripen. _Lavengro_ having ended abruptly enough, Borrow took .up the
tale where he had left it off; and though he kept his admirers on the
tenter-hooks for six years, did at last in 1857 give to the world _The
Romany Rye_, to which he added an Appendix. Ah! that Appendix! It is
Borrow's Apologia, and therefore must be read. It is interesting and
amusing, and is therefore easily read. But it is a cruel and outrageous
bit of writing all the same, proving, were proof needed, that it is every
whit as easy to be spiteful and envious in dells as in drawing-rooms, and