printed an appendix (a sort of _catalogue raisonne_ of Borrovian
prejudices), satirising with unmeasured bitterness the critics of
_Lavengro_.

The resumption of a story after an interval of over six years, with
appendages so extravagant, whether we regard their tenor or their length,
and with an indifference so sublime to the popular desire that he should
get along with his personal narrative, was hardly calculated to
conciliate critical opinion; but it had one capital effect. It drew from
Whitwell Elwin, himself a Norfolk man, and a literary critic of the
widest grasp and knowledge, this remarkable testimony: that far from
exaggerating such incidents as were drawn from his own experience (not a
few, as he himself could verify), Borrow's descriptions were rather
_within the truth than beyond it_. "However picturesquely they may be
drawn, the lines are invariably those of nature. . . . There can be no
doubt that the larger part, and possibly the whole of the work, is a
narrative of actual occurrences."

Here, then, is the heart of the mystery, or of the mystery that is
apparent; the phenomenon is due primarily to the fact that Borrow's book
is so abnormally true as regards the matter, while in manner of
presentation it is so strikingly original. There are superficial traces,
no doubt, of not a few writers of the eighteenth century. In some of his
effects Borrow reproduces Sterne: essentially Sternean, for instance, is
the interview between the youthful author and the experienced Mr.
Taggart.

"Well, young gentleman," said Taggart to me one morning when we
chanced to be alone, a few days after the affair of cancelling, "how
do you like authorship?"