at the same time discontented both with its subject-matter and its style.
To a not altogether misplaced curiosity on the part of the public as to
Borrow's antecedents, the author of the _Bible in Spain_ had responded by
_Lavengro_, which he fully meant to be (what it indeed was) a
masterpiece. Yet public and critics were agreed in failing to see the
matter in this light. As the reader will probably have deduced from the
foregoing pages, the trouble was mainly due to the following causes.
First, baffled curiosity. Secondly, a dislike for Borrow's prejudices.
Thirdly, a disgust at his philistinism in refusing to bow down and
worship the regnant idols of 'taste.' Fourthly, the total absence in
Borrow of the sentimentality for which the soul of the normal Englishman
yearns. Fifthly, disappointment at not finding the critic's due from an
accepted author in quotable passages of picturesque prose.

These views are appropriately summed up through the medium of the pure
and scentless taste of the _Athenaeum_. The varied contents of
_Lavengro_ are here easily reduced to one denomination--'balderdash,' for
the emission of which the _Athenaeum_ critic proceeds (in the interests,
of course, of the highest gentility), to give George Borrow a good
scolding.

How sadly removed was such procedure from Borrow's own ideal of
reviewing, as set forth in the very volume under consideration! Such
operations should always, he held, be conducted in a spirit worthy of an
editor of Quintilian, in a gentlemanly, Oxford-like manner. No
vituperation! No insinuations! Occasionally a word of admonition, but
gently expressed as an Oxford M.A. might have expressed it. Some one had
ventured to call the _Bible in Spain_ a grotesque book, but the utterance
had been drowned in the chorus of acclamation. Now Borrow complained
that he had had the honour of being rancorously abused by every unmanly