He was asked to become a member of the Royal Institution.
_Mr. George Borrow to John Murray_.
_February_ 26, 1843.
"I should like to become a member. The thing would just suit me, more
especially as they do not want _clever_ men, but _safe_ men. Now, I am
safe enough; ask the Bible Society, whose secrets I have kept so much to
their satisfaction, that they have just accepted at my hands an English
Gypsy Gospel gratis. What would the Institution expect me to write? I
have exhausted Spain and the Gypsies, though an essay on Welsh language
and literature might suit, with an account of the Celtic tongue. Or,
won't something about the ancient North and its literature be more
acceptable? I have just received an invitation to join the Ethnological
Society (who are they?), which I have declined. I am at present in great
demand; a bishop has just requested me to visit him. The worst of these
bishops is that they are skin-flints, saving for their families. Their
cuisine is bad, and their port wine execrable, and as for their
cigars!--I say, do you remember those precious ones of the Sanctuary? A
few days ago one of them turned up again.
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