But it was not from casual meetings with Welsh grooms and Danes and Dutchmen that Borrow acquired even such command of various languages as was undoubtedly his.

We have it on the authority of an old fellow-pupil at the Grammar School, Burcham, afterwards a London police-magistrate, that William Taylor gave him lessons in German,[46] but he acquired most of his varied knowledge in these impressionable years in the Corporation Library of Norwich.

Dr.
Knapp found, in his most laudable examination of some of the books, Borrow's neat pencil notes, the making of which was not laudable on the part of his hero.

One book here marked was on ancient Danish literature, the author of which, Olaus Wormius, gave him the hint for calling himself Olaus Borrow for a time--a signature that we find in some of Borrow's published translations.

Borrow at this time had aspirations of a literary kind, and Thomas Campbell accepted a translation of Schiller's _Diver_, which was signed 'O.