On an evening of July, in the year 18—, at East D—, a beautiful little town in a certain district of East Anglia, I first saw the light,

 

he writes in the opening lines of Lavengro, using almost the identical phraseology that we find in the opening lines of Goethe’s Wahrheit und Dichtung.  Here is a later memory of Dereham from Lavengro:

 

What it is at present I know not, for thirty years and more have elapsed since I last trod its streets.  It will scarcely have improved, for how could it be better than it was?  I love to think on thee, pretty, quiet D—, thou pattern of an English country town, with thy clean but narrow streets branching out from thy modest market-place, with their old-fashioned houses, with here and there a roof of venerable thatch¹, with thy one half-aristocratic mansion², where resided the Lady Bountiful—she, the generous and kind, who loved to visit the sick, leaning on her golden-headed cane³, while the sleek⁴ old footman walked at a respectful distance behind.  Pretty, quiet D—, with thy venerable church, in which moulder⁵ the mortal remains⁶ of England’s sweetest and most pious⁷ bard⁸.

 

Then follows an exquisite⁹ eulogy¹⁰ of the poet Cowper, which readers of Lavengro know full well.  Three years before p. 8Borrow was born William Cowper died in this very town, leaving behind him so rich a

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