from traversing chapter by chapter, canto by canto, the whole of the Borrevian epic.  It is outside the dingle that he will have to look for the faithfully described bewilderment of the old applewoman after the loss of her book, and for the compassionate delineation of the old man with the bees and the donkey who gave the young Rye to drink of mead at his cottage, and was unashamed at having shed tears on the road.  The most heroic of the pugilistic encounters takes place, it is true, in the thick of the dingle, but it is elsewhere that the reader will have to look for the description of the memorable thrashing inflicted upon the bullying stage-coachman by the “elderly individual” who followed the craft of engraving, and learnt fisticuffs from Sergeant Broughton.  In the same neighbourhood he will find the admirable vignette of the old man who could read the inscription on Chinese crockery pots, but could not tell what’s o’clock, and the life narratives of the jockey and of the inexpert thimble-rigger, Murtagh, who was imprisoned three years for interrupting the Pope’s game at picquet, but finally won his way by card-sharping to the very threshold of the Cardinalate.  In the second half of the Romany Rye, too, he will find the noble apostrophes to youth, and ale, and England, “the true country for adventures,” which he will compare, as examples of Borrovian eloquence, with the stirring description of embattled England in the third chapter of Lavengro, or the apostrophe to the Irish cob and the Author’s first ride in chapter thirteen.

Borrow’s is a wonderful book for one to lose one’s way in, among the dense undergrowth, but it is a still grander book for the reader to lose himself in.  In the dingle, best of all, he can “forget his own troublesome personality as completely as if he were in the depths of the ancient forest along with Gurth and Wamba.”  Labyrinthine, however, as the autobiography may at first sight appear, the true lover of Borrow will soon have little difficulty in finding the patteran or gypsy trail (for indeed the Romany element runs persistently as a chorus-thread through the whole of the autobiographical writings), which serves as a clue to the delights of which his work is so rich a storehouse.  The question that really exercises Borrovians most is the relative merit of stories and sections of the narrative—­the comparative excellence of the early ‘life’ in Lavengro and of the later detached episodes in the Romany Rye.  Most are in some sort of agreement as to the supremacy of the dingle episode, which has this advantage:  Borrow is always at his best when dealing with strange beings and abnormal experiences.  When he is describing ordinary mortals he treats them with coldness as mere strangers.  The commonplace town-dwellers seldom arouse his sympathy, never kindle his enthusiasm.  He is quite another being when we wander by his side within the bounds of his enchanted dingle.