the _Bible in Spain_ if that proved successful. Hitherto, he wrote, the
public had said "Good" (to his _Gypsies of Spain_, 1841), "Better" (to
the _Bible in Spain_), and he wanted it, when No. 3 appeared, to say
"Best." Five years rapidly passed away, until, in the summer of 1848,
the book was announced as about to appear shortly, under the title of
_Lavengro: An Autobiography_, which was soon changed to _Life: a Drama_.
The difficulty of writing a book which should have "no humbug in it,"
proved, as may well be supposed, immense, and would in any case be quite
sufficient to account for the long period of gestation. His perplexities
may have often been very near akin to those ascribed to the superstitious
author in the sixty-fifth chapter of _Lavengro_; his desire to be
original sadly cramping the powers of his mind, his fastidiousness being
so great that he invariably rejected whatever ideas he did not consider
to be legitimately his own. As a substitute for the usual padding of
humbug, sycophancy and second-hand ideas, he bethought himself of
philology, and he set himself to spring fragments of philological
instruction (often far from sound) upon his reader in the most unexpected
places, that his ingenuity could devise. He then began to base hopes
upon the book in proportion to its originality. At the last moment,
however, the Author grew querulous about his work, distrustful of the
reception that would be given to it, and even as to the advisability of
producing it at all. Much yet remained to be done, but for a long time
he refused, not only to forward new copy to Albemarle Street, but even to
revise the proofs of that which he had already written, and it required
all the dunning that Murray and the printer Woodfall dare apply before
_Lavengro_ with its altered sub-title (for at the last moment Borrow grew
afraid of openly avowing his identity with the speaking likeness which he
had created) could be announced as "just ready" in the _Athenaeum_ of
Dec. 14th, 1850.