BORROW AND THE BIBLE SOCIETY That George Borrow should have become an agent for the Bible Society, then in the third decade of its flourishing career, has naturally excited doubts as to his moral honesty.

The position was truly a contrast to an earlier ideal contained in the letter to his Norwich friend, Roger Kerrison, that we have already given, in which, with all the zest of a Shelley, he declares that he intends to live in London, 'write plays, poetry, etc., abuse religion, and get myself prosecuted.' But that was in 1824, and Borrow had suffered great tribulation in the intervening eight years.

He had acquired many languages, wandered far and written much, all too little of which had found a publisher.

There was plenty of time for his religious outlook to have changed in the interval, and in any case Borrow was no theologian.

The negative outlook of 'Godless Billy Taylor,' and the positive outlook of certain Evangelical friends with whom he was now on visiting terms, were of small account compared with the imperative need of making a living--and then there was the passionate longing of his nature for a wider sphere--for travelling activity which should not be dependent alone upon the vagabond's crust.