as vain and egotistical on a Norfolk Broad as in Grosvenor Square. In
this Appendix Borrow defends 'Lavengro,' both the book and the man, at
some length, and with enormous spirit. At gentility in all its
manifestations he runs amuck. The Stuarts have a chapter to themselves.
Jacobites, old and new; Papists, old and new; and, alas! Sir Walter Scott
as the father of 'Charley o'er the Waterism,' all fall by turn under the
lash of Lavengro. The attack on the memory of Sir Walter is brutal. Not
so, we may be sure, did Pearce, and Cribb, and Spring, and Big Ben Brain,
and Broughton, heroes of renown, win name and fame in the brave days of
old. They never struck a man when he was down, or gloated over a rival's
fall. However, it will not do to get angry with George Borrow. One
could never keep it up. Still, the Appendix is a pity.

Next to Borrow's vagabondage, which, though I tremble to say it, has a
decidedly literary flavour, and his delightful _camaraderie_ or
willingness to hob-a-nob with everybody, I rank his eloquence. Great is
plot, though Borrow has but little, and that little mechanical;
delightful is incident, and Borrow is full of incident--e.g. the
poisoning scene in Chapter LXXI., where will you match it, unless it be
the very differently-treated scene of the robbers' cave in _The Heart of
Midlothian_? and glorious, too, is motion, and Borrow never stagnates,
never gathers moss or mould. But great also is eloquence. 'If a book be
eloquent,' says Mr. Stevenson, that most distinguished writer, 'its words
run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers.' Eloquence is
a little unfashionable just now. We are not allowed very much of it in
our romances and travels. What are called 'situations' grow stronger
every day, and language is strong too, but outbursts, apostrophes,
rhapsodies no longer abound. Perhaps they are forbidden by Art. Nobody
is ever eloquent in real life. A man's friends would not put up with it.
But a really eloquent book is a great possession. Plots explode, and