One summer day during the Crimean War we had a call from George Borrow, who had not enjoyed a visit to Anna Gurney so much as he had expected. In a walking tour round Norfolk he had given her a short notice of his intended call, and she was ready to receive him. When, according to his account, he had been but a very short time in her presence, she wheeled her chair round and reached her hand to one of her bookshelves and took down an Arabic grammar, and put it into his hand, asking for explanation of some difficult point, which he tried to decipher; but meanwhile she talked to him continuously; when, said he, 'I could not study the Arabic grammar and listen to her at the same time, so I threw down the book and ran out of the room.' He seems not to have stopped running till he reached Old Tucker's Inn at Cromer, where he renewed his strength, or calmed his temper, with five excellent sausages, and then came on to Sheringham. He told us there were three personages in the world whom he always had a desire to see; two of these had slipped through his fingers, so he was determined to see the third. 'Pray, Mr. Borrow, who were they?' He held up three fingers of his left hand and pointed them off with the forefinger of the right: the first, Daniel O'Connell; the second, Lamplighter (the sire of Phosphorus, Lord Berners's winner of the Derby); the third, Anna Gurney. The first two were dead and he had not seen them; now he had come to see Anna Gurney, and this was the end of his visit. I took him up to the Hall, he talking of many persons and occasionally doubling his fist, and giving a sort of warning like that of his Isopel Berners (in _Lavengro_) to give the Flaming Tinman 'Long Melford' with his right hand. As soon as we reached the Hall a battle- piece by Wouvermans was the first thing that caught his eye and greatly interested him. He told me of a descendant of Wouvermans--an officer in the Austrian army--whom he knew. Then entering the drawing- room and looking out of the bay-window through the oak wood on the deep blue sea beyond, he seemed for some time quite entranced by the lovely, peaceful view, till at last I felt I must arouse him, and said, 'A charming view, Mr. Borrow!' With a deep sigh he slowly answered, 'Yes!--please God the Russians don't come here.' PREFACE In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe a dream, partly of study, partly of adventure, in which will be found copious notices of books, and many descriptions of life and manners, some in a very unusual form.