parson and a publican who deserve places in the same gallery with wicked
earls and noble savages of popular fiction. It may be true that this
"creation of Borrow's most studied hatred" is, as Mr. Seccombe says,
{242} "a triumph of complex characterisation." He is "a joyous liver and
an unscrupulous libertine, sceptical as Voltaire, as atheistic as a
German professor, as practical as a Jew banker, as subtle as a Jesuit, he
has as many ways of converting the folks among whom he is thrown as
Panurge had of eating the corn in ear. For the simple and
credulous--crosses and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal--material
considerations; for the cultured and educated--a fine tissue of epigrams
and anthropology; for the ladies--flattery and badinage. A spiritual
ancestor of Anatole France's marvellous full-length figure of Jerome
Coignard, Borrow's conception takes us back first to Rabelais and
secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the profound
Machiavellism of Jesuitry."

But in "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye" he is an intruder with a design of
turning these books into tracts. He is treated far more elaborately than
any other character except the author's, and with a massive man's
striving after subtlety. Moreover, Borrow has made it impossible to
ignore him or to cut him out, by interlacing him with every other
character in these two books. With sad persistency and naive ingenuity
he brings it about that every one shall see, or have seen in the past,
this terrible priest. Borrow's natural way of dealing with such a man
would be that of the converted pugilist who, on hearing of an atheist in
the vicinity, wanted to go and "knock the beggar down for Jesus' sake";
and a variation upon this would have been delightful and in harmony with
the rest of the book. But clever as the priest is, Borrow himself is
stronger, honester and cleverer, too. Of course, the priest leads him to
some good things. Above all, he leads to the incident of the