We know that Borrow was in Norwich in 1826, for we have seen him superintending the publication of the _Romantic Ballads_ by subscription in that year.

In that year also he wrote the letter to Haydon, the painter, to say that he was ready to sit for him, but that he was 'going to the south of France in a little better than a fortnight.'[81] We know also that he was in Norwich in 1827, because it was then, and not in 1818 as described in _Lavengro_, that he 'doffed his hat' to the famous trotting stallion Marshland Shales, when that famous old horse was exhibited at Tombland Fair on the Castle Hill.

We meet him next as the friend of Dr.Bowring.The letters to Bowring we must leave to another chapter, but they commence in 1829 and continue through 1830 and 1831.

Through them all Borrow shows himself alive to the necessity of obtaining an appointment of some kind, and meanwhile he is hard at work upon his translations from various languages, which, in conjunction with Dr.Bowring, he is to issue as _Songs of Scandinavia_.

Dr.Knapp thinks that in 1829 he made the translation of the _Memoirs of Vidocq_, which appeared in that year with a short preface by the translator.[82] But these little volumes bear no internal evidence of Borrow's style, and there is no external evidence to support the assumption that he had a hand in their publication.