Literary biography is made more interesting by such episodes of likeness and of contrast.
We next find John Borrow in Ireland with his father, mother, and brother.

George is still a child, but he is precocious enough to be learning the language, and thus laying the foundation of his interest in little-known tongues.

John is now an ensign in his father's regiment.
'Ah! he was a sweet being, that boy soldier, a plant of early promise, bidding fair to become in after time all that is great, good, and admirable.' Ensign John tells his little brother how pleased he is to find himself, although not yet sixteen years old, 'a person in authority with many Englishmen under me.

Oh! these last six weeks have passed like hours in heaven.' That was in 1816, and we do not meet John again until five years later, when we hear of him rushing into the water to save a drowning man, while twenty others were bathing who might have rendered assistance.

Borrow records once again his father's satisfaction: 'My boy, my own boy, you are the very image of myself, the day I took off my coat in the park to fight Big Ben,' said my father, on meeting his son, wet and dripping, immediately after his bold feat.