Palmer’s peculiar gift of acquiring languages had manifested itself even before he went to London. Throughout his whole career his strength as a linguist lay in his extraordinary aptitude for learning a spoken language. The literature came afterwards. We are not aware that he was ever what is called a good scholar in Latin or in Greek, simply for the reason, according to our view, that those languages are no longer spoken anywhere. He did not repudiate the literature of a language; far from it. Probably few Orientalists have known the literatures of Arabia and Persia better than he knew them; but he learnt to speak Arabic and Persian before he learnt to read them. In this he resembled Cardinal Mezzofanti, who had the same power of picking up a language for speaking purposes from a few conversations—learning some words, and constructing for himself first a vocabulary and then a grammar. When Palmer was still a boy at school he learnt Romany. He learnt it, says Mr Besant, ‘by paying travelling tinkers sixpence for a lesson, by haunting the tents, talking to the men, and crossing the women’s palms with his pocket-money in exchange for a few more words to add to his vocabulary. In this way he gradually made for himself a Gipsy dictionary.’ In time he became a proficient in Gipsy lore, and Mr Besant tells several curious stories about his adventures with that remarkable people. We will quote the narrative supplied to him by Mr Charles Leland—better known as Hans Breitmann—Palmer’s intimate friend and brother in Romany lore.