Borrow's sturdy forthrightness, his abhorrence of suave ambiguities and formal inanities, found vent in most vigorous and unmistakeable language; dogmatic _obiter dicta_ came from his mouth or his pen like so many cudgel-thwacks. His nature was tense and intense, very excitable and subject to aberrant moods--and he was often the victim of a false ply, as the French would say. It cannot be gainsaid that his suspicions of society ways, and of ordinarily conventional literary men, often betrayed him into tactless discourtesies. It is needless to repeat the anecdotes in which he appears in an unfavourable light, some of them probably exaggerations, as, for instance, the well-known story of Borrow snubbing Thackeray, as told by Dr. Hake. Miss Jay, whose father was of the firm of Jay and Pilgrim, told me (November 22nd, 1893) that Borrow was loud in his denunciation of Thackeray's meanness on a certain occasion, and she utterly refused to believe Dr. Hake's version of the alleged boorishness at Hardwick Hall. Borrow was a man of many moods, and Miss Jay seems to have seen him only in his brighter hours: she described him to me as open-hearted and generous, always thought highly of good old ale, and liked Burgundy. "It puts fire into your veins," he would say; if he poured out wine for anyone, he was angry if they did not drink it. But she never knew him to exceed, and, though she often saw him highly excited, never heard him swear. Very similar accounts appeared in the _Eastern Daily Press_, of October 1st, 1892, over the signature "E.H." [Picture: Corner of George Borrow's Bedroom, showing a view of city roofs. By C. M. Nichols, R.E.] Another friend of Borrow's with whom I had many talks was the late Rev. Whitwell Elwin, at Booton Rectory. He was editor of the _Quarterly Review_ (1854-60), and in 1857 had reviewed "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" in excellent style, under the heading "Roving Life in England." Mr. Elwin and his wife were a most delightful couple, models of old-fashioned courtesy and heart-kindness. He knew Borrow well, and quite discredited the innuendoes and insinuations of many Norwich folk about him. It was a joke with the Murray circle that "big Borrow was second fiddle at his home, and there is ample testimony that his wife was a capable manager and looked after his affairs, literary as well as domestic." Though Borrow boasted of his proficiency in the Norfolk dialect, Mr. Elwin told him that he had not cultivated it with his usual success. Mr. Elwin died January 1st, 1900, aged eighty-three.