[462a] Leland’s annoyance with Borrow did not prevent him paying to his memory the following tribute:—
“What I admire in Borrow to such a degree that before it his faults or failings seem very trifling, is his absolutely vigorous, marvellously varied originality, based on direct familiarity with Nature, but guided and cultured by the study of natural, simple writers, such as Defoe and Smollett. I think that the ‘interest’ in, or rather sympathy for gypsies, in his case as in mine, came not from their being curious or dramatic beings, but because they are so much a part of free life, of out-of-doors Nature; so associated with sheltered nooks among rocks and trees, the hedgerow and birds, river-sides, and wild roads. Borrow’s heart was large and true as regarded English rural life; there was a place in it for everything which was of the open air and freshly beautiful.”—Memoirs of C. G. Leland, 1893.
[462b] Romano Lavo-Lil. Word-Book of the Romany, or English Gypsy Language. With Specimens of Gypsy Poetry, and an Account of Certain Gypsyries or Places Inhabited by Them, and of Various Things Relating to Gypsy Life in England.
[462c] “There were not two educated men in England who possessed the slightest knowledge of Romany.”—F. H. Groome in Academy,—13th June 1874.
[463a] F. H. Groome in Academy, 13th June 1874.
[463b] Ibid.
[464] The Athenæum, 17th March 1888.
[466a] The Bookman, February 1893.
[466b] The Athenæum, 10th Sept. 1881.
[467] William Bodham Donne and His Friends. Edited by Catherine B. Johnson, 1905.