12 JULY 1913, Page 3

That is on the whole a fair verdict. To appropriate

a phrase from the inexhaustible magazine of Stevenson, there is something in Borrow after all; not so much as most people suppose, but still a good deal. Borrow may have been tumid, self-conscious, and affected in his style, but he really did love the open air, a good horse, a good fight with fists, a pretty woman, having one's talk out, ballads, antiquarianism and scholarship, and above all the Bible. As long as these things are beloved of Englishmen Borrow is certain to keep his place in our hearts in spite of his ewaggerings and his paste- board gypsies—unnatural creatures, one-third pugilist and horse-coper, one-third stage bandit, and one-third local preacher or poacher, as might be required by the plot.