Gipsydom in all its aspects, though logically a side-issue with Borrow, was nevertheless the most noticeable thing relating to him: it engaged and colored him on the side of his temperament; and in the picture we form of a man, temperament tells far more than intellect because it is more individual. Later pundits have called in question the academic accuracy of Borrow's researches in the Romany language: but such frettings are beside the mark; Borrow is the only genuine expounder of Gipsyness that ever lived. He laid hold of their vitals, and they of his; his act of brotherhood with Mr. Jasper Petulengro is but a symbol of his mystical alliance with the race. This is not to say that he fathomed the heart of their mystery; the gipsies themselves cannot do that: but he comprehended whatever in them is open to comprehension, and his undying interest in them is due not only to his sympathy with their way of life, but to the fact that his curiosity about them could never be quite satisfied. Other mysteries come and go, but the gipsy mystery stays with us, and was to Borrow a source of endless content. For after sharpening his wits on the ethnological riddle, he could refresh himself with the psychical aspect of the matter, discovering in them the incarnation of one essential human quality, incompletely present in all men. They are the perfect vagabonds; but the germ of vagabondage inheres in mankind at large, and is the source of the changes that have resulted in what we call civilization. Borrow's nature comprised the gipsy, but the gipsy by no means comprised him; he wandered like them, but the object of his wanderings was something more than to tell dukkeripens, poison pigs, mend kettles, or deal in horseflesh. Therefore he puzzled them more than they did him. 'The Gipsies of Spain' (1841) was his first book about them; 'Lavengro' came ten years later, and 'Romany Rye' six years after that. In 1874 he returns to the subject in 'Roman Lavo-lil,' a sort of dictionary and phrase-book of the language, but unlike any other dictionary and phrase-book ever conceived: it is well worth reading as a piece of entertaining literature. His other books are translations of Norse and Welsh poetry, and a book of travels in 'Wild Wales,' published in 1862. All these works are more than readable: the translations, though rugged and unmusical, have about them a frank sensuousness and a primitive force that are amusing and attractive. But after all, Borrow is never thoroughly himself in literature unless the gipsies are close at hand; and of all his gipsy books 'Lavengro' is by far the best. Indeed, it is so much the best and broadest thing that he produced, that the reader who would know Borrow need never go beyond these pages. In 'Lavengro' we get the culmination of both the author and the man; it is his book in the full sense, and may afford profitable study to any competent reader for a lifetime.