[27] I am indebted to an admirable article by Thomas William Thompson in the _Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_, New Series, vol. iii, No, 3, January 1910, for information concerning the later life of Jasper Pétulengro.
[28] _Phrenological Observations on the Cerebral Development of David Haggart, who was lately executed at Edinburgh for murder, and whose life has since been published._ By George Combe, Esq. Edinburgh: W. and C. Tait, 1821.
[29] _The Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias John Morison, alias Barney McCone, alias John McColgan, alias Daniel O'Brien, alias The Switcher_, written by himself while under sentence of death. Edinburgh: Printed for W. and C. Tait by James Ballantyne and Co., 1821.
In the British Museum Library there is a copy with an autograph note by Lord Cockburn on the fly-leaf, which runs as follows:
'This youngster was my client when he was tried and convicted. He was a great villain. His life is almost all lies, and its chief curiosity consists in the strange spirit of lying, the indulgence of which formed his chief pleasure to the very last. The manuscript poem and picture of himself (bound up at the end of the _Life_) were truly composed and written by him. Being an enormous miscreant the phrenologists got hold of him, and made the notorious facts of his character into evidence of the truth of their system. He affected some decent poetry just before he was hanged, and therefore the Saints took up his memory and wrote monodies on him. His piety and the composition of the lies in this book broke out at the same time. H. C.'
[30] Although Captain Borrow was never as ignorant as one or two of Borrow's biographers, who call the Irish language 'Erse.'
[32] Dr. Johnson was the first as Borrow was the second to earn this distinction. Johnson, as reported by Boswell, says:
'_I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning, and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious on the origin of nations or the affinities of languages to be further informed of the evolution of a people so ancient and once so illustrious. I hope that you will continue to cultivate this kind of learning which has too long been neglected, and which, if it be suffered to remain in oblivion for another century, may perhaps never be retrieved._'