Government to grant him the necessary authorization and passports. But Borrow’s energies were transferred to a project which scarcely, if at all, less deserves the epithet Quixotic. It was to disseminate a Castilian translation of the Vulgate (made by Father Scio at Valencia between 1790 and 1793) in Spain and Portugal. To disperse Bibles in Papua or in Park-lane were, it might be argued, an enterprise fully as hopeful as to scatter them in Galicia or La Mancha; but this is neither here nor there, and the stimulus that was lacking in other directions was abundantly supplied to the society and their emissary by the fact that, according to the _regla quinta_ of the old Index, all Spanish versions of the Bible or of any part of it were absolutely forbidden, and that as a necessary consequence the Bible was a book as unfamiliar in Spain as it was held to be dangerous and revolutionary. Spain was to Borrow what the Harley Ministry was to Swift. It seemed to develop in him an almost superhuman activity and power; and, fond of cant as Borrow’s employers too often were, it is infinitely to their credit that they not only tolerated but even applauded the unconventional epistles which he wrote to them of his exploits during his three long journeys in Spain, which with two brief intervals occupied him from November, 1835, down to April, 1840. These letters with the addition of a few chapters and a number of insignificant changes made up “The Bible in Spain,” which was published by John Murray on December 10, 1812, when “El Gitano,” as the enthusiastic Ford dubbed the author, literally woke up to find himself famous. His experience for a season was that of “the man Sterne”; he dined with peers, Ambassadors, and Bishops, and, like Major Pendennis, was particularly complacent with Bishops. We might here for a moment compare his position to that of Johnson in 1763. He had gone down into the arena and fought his wild beasts, and had come up triumphant, as Johnson had done after the Dictionary. He still had difficulties to meet and debts to face, for he had gradually become estranged from “the sub-committee,” and the Bible Society suddenly found that “no sphere remained open in which his services could be utilized.” Fortunately, he had provided for his future, not by obtaining a pension, but by marrying, in April, 1840, an old ally of his, Mary Clarke, a widow with a good jointure (over £400 a year), a skilful hand at dumplings and treacle posset, and “an excellent woman of business.” He was now fifteen years older than when he had “lost” Isopel. The motives which prompted this scorner of matrimony to marry a woman seven or eight years his senior were similar, it may be surmised, to those which actuated Disraeli on his marriage. The compact was based upon convenience and mutual esteem, and there is no reason to doubt that it conduced not only to Borrow’s comfort and security, but also to his happiness. There were no children. The