His perplexities may have often been very near akin to those ascribed to the superstitious author in the sixty-fifth chapter of _Lavengro_; his desire to be original sadly cramping the powers of his mind, his fastidiousness being so great that he invariably rejected whatever ideas he did not consider to be legitimately his own.

As a substitute for the usual padding of humbug, sycophancy and second-hand ideas, he bethought himself of philology, and he set himself to spring fragments of philological instruction (often far from sound) upon his reader in the most unexpected places, that his ingenuity could devise.

He then began to base hopes upon the book in proportion to its originality.

At the last moment, however, the Author grew querulous about his work, distrustful of the reception that would be given to it, and even as to the advisability of producing it at all.

Much yet remained to be done, but for a long time he refused, not only to forward new copy to Albemarle Street, but even to revise the proofs of that which he had already written, and it required all the dunning that Murray and the printer Woodfall dare apply before _Lavengro_ with its altered sub-title (for at the last moment Borrow grew afraid of openly avowing his identity with the speaking likeness which he had created) could be announced as "just ready" in the _Athenaeum_ of Dec.