face had a great deal of sad and ominous expression; but an old brick
wall, overrun with foliage, was so exquisitely and elaborately wrought
that it was hardly possible to look at the personages of the picture.
Every separate leaf of the climbing and clustering shrubbery was
painfully made out; and the wall was reality itself, with the
weather-stains, and the moss, and the crumbling lime between the bricks.
It is not well to be so perfect in the inanimate, unless the artist can
likewise make man and woman as lifelike, and to as great a depth, too, as
the Creator does.

Bennoch left town for some place in Yorkshire, and I for Liverpool. I
asked him to come and dine with me at the Adelphi, meaning to ask two or
three people to meet him; but he had other engagements, and could not
spare a day at present, though he promises to come before long.

Dining at Mr. Rathbone's one evening last week (May 21st), it was
mentioned that



BORROW,


author of the Bible in Spain, is supposed to be of gypsy descent by the
mother's side. Hereupon Mr. Martineau mentioned that he had been a
schoolfellow of Borrow, and though he had never heard of his gypsy blood,
he thought it probable, from Borrow's traits of character. He said that,
Borrow had once run away from school, and carried with him a party of
other boys, meaning to lead a wandering life.