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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:53:40 -0700 |
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diff --git a/18588-h/18588-h.htm b/18588-h/18588-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..170f42e --- /dev/null +++ b/18588-h/18588-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10738 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>George Borrow</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + p.picture {text-align: center;} + + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">George Borrow, by Edward Thomas</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, George Borrow, by Edward Thomas + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: George Borrow + The Man and His Books + + +Author: Edward Thomas + + + +Release Date: June 14, 2006 [eBook #18588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE BORROW*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Chapman & Hall edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>GEORGE BORROW<br /> +THE MAN AND HIS BOOKS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +EDWARD THOMAS</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Author of</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">“THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES,” +“LIGHT AND TWILIGHT,” “REST AND UNREST,” “MAURICE +MAETERLINCK,” <span class="smcap">Etc</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS</p> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +CHAPMAN & HALL, <span class="smcap">Ltd</span>.<br /> +1912</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Jas. Truscott and Son, Ltd</span>.,<br /> +London, E.C.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page0.jpg"> +<img alt="George Borrow, (From the painting by H. W. Phillips, R.A., in the possession of Mr. John Murray, by whose kind permission the picture is reproduced.)" src="images/page0.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>NOTE</h2> +<p>The late Dr. W. I. Knapp’s Life (John Murray) and Mr. Watts-Dunton’s +prefaces are the fountains of information about Borrow, and I have clearly +indicated how much I owe to them. What I owe to my friend, Mr. +Thomas Seccombe, cannot be so clearly indicated, but his prefaces have +been meat and drink to me. I have also used Mr. R. A. J. Walling’s +sympathetic and interesting “George Borrow.” The British +and Foreign Bible Society has given me permission to quote from Borrow’s +letters to the Society, edited in 1911 by the Rev. T. H. Darlow; and +Messrs. T. C. Cantrill and J. Pringle have put at my disposal their +publication of Borrow’s journal of his second Welsh tour, wonderfully +annotated by themselves (“Y Cymmrodor,” 1910). These +and other sources are mentioned where they are used and in the bibliography.</p> +<h2>DEDICATION TO E. S. P. HAYNES</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">My Dear Haynes</span>,</p> +<p>By dedicating this book to you, I believe it is my privilege to introduce +you and Borrow. This were sufficient reason for the dedication. +The many better reasons are beyond my eloquence, much though I have +remembered them this winter, listening to the storms of Caermarthen +Bay, the screams of pigs, and the street tunes of “Fall in and +follow me,” “Yip-i-addy,” and “The first good +joy that Mary had.”</p> +<p>Yours,<br /> +EDWARD THOMAS.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Laugharne</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Caermarthenshire</span>,<br /> +<i>December</i>, 1911.</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER +I—BORROW’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2> +<p>The subject of this book was a man who was continually writing about +himself, whether openly or in disguise. He was by nature inclined +to thinking about himself and when he came to write he naturally wrote +about himself; and his inclination was fortified by the obvious impression +made upon other men by himself and by his writings. He has been +dead thirty years; much has been written about him by those who knew +him or knew those that did: yet the impression still made by him, and +it is one of the most powerful, is due mainly to his own books. +Nor has anything lately come to light to provide another writer on Borrow +with an excuse. The impertinence of the task can be tempered only +by its apparent hopelessness and by that necessity which Voltaire did +not see.</p> +<p>I shall attempt only a re-arrangement of the myriad details accessible +to all in the writings of Borrow and about Borrow. Such re-arrangement +will sometimes heighten the old effects and sometimes modify them. +The total impression will, I hope, not be a smaller one, though it must +inevitably be softer, less clear, less isolated, less gigantic. +I do not wish, and I shall not try, to deface Borrow’s portrait +of himself; I can only hope that I shall not do it by accident. +There may be a sense in which that portrait can be called inaccurate. +It may even be true that “lies—damned lies” <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +helped to make it. But nobody else knows anything like as much +about the truth, and a peddling <!-- page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>biographer’s +mouldy fragment of plain fact may be far more dangerous than the manly +lying of one who was in possession of all the facts. In most cases +the fact—to use an equivocal term—is dead and blown away +in dust while Borrow’s impression is as green as grass. +His “lies” are lies only in the same sense as all clothing +is a lie.</p> +<p>For example, he knew a Gypsy named Ambrose Smith, and had sworn brotherhood +with him as a boy. He wrote about this Gypsy, man and boy, and +at first called him, as the manuscripts bear witness, by his real name, +though Borrow thought of him in 1842 as Petulengro. In print he +was given the name Jasper Petulengro—Petulengro being Gypsy for +shoesmith—and as Jasper Petulengro he is now one of the most unforgetable +of heroes; the name is the man, and for many Englishmen his form and +character have probably created quite a new value for the name of Jasper. +Well, Jasper Petulengro lives. Ambrose Smith died in 1878, at +the age of seventy-four, after being visited by the late Queen Victoria +at Knockenhair Park: he was buried in Dunbar Cemetery. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a></p> +<p>In the matter of his own name Borrow made another creative change +of a significant kind. He was christened George Henry Borrow on +July 17th (having been born on the 5th), 1803, at East Dereham, in Norfolk. +As a boy he signed his name, George Henry Borrow. As a young man +of the Byronic age and a translator of Scandinavian literature, he called +himself in print, George Olaus Borrow. His biographer, Dr. William +Ireland Knapp, says that Borrow’s first name “expressed +the father’s admiration for the reigning monarch,” George +III.; but there is no reason to believe this, and certainly Borrow himself +made of the combination which he finally adopted—George Borrow—something +that retains not the slightest flavour of any other <!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>George. +Such changes are common enough. John Richard Jefferies becomes +Richard Jefferies; Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson becomes Robert Louis +Stevenson. But Borrow could touch nothing without transmuting +it. For example, in his Byronic period, when he was about twenty +years of age, he was translating “romantic ballads” from +the Danish. In the last verse of one of these, called “Elvir +Hill,” he takes the liberty of using the Byronic “lay”:</p> +<blockquote><p>’Tis therefore I counsel each young Danish swain +who may ride in the forest so dreary,<br /> +Ne’er to lay down upon lone Elvir Hill though he chance to be +ever so weary.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Twenty years later he used this ballad romantically in writing about +his early childhood. He was travelling with his father’s +regiment from town to town and from school to school, and they came +to Berwick-upon-Tweed: <a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a></p> +<p>“And it came to pass that, one morning, I found myself extended +on the bank of a river. It was a beautiful morning of early spring; +small white clouds were floating in the heaven, occasionally veiling +the countenance of the sun, whose light, as they retired, would again +burst forth, coursing like a racehorse over the scene—and a goodly +scene it was! Before me, across the water, on an eminence, stood +a white old city, surrounded with lofty walls, above which rose the +tops of tall houses, with here and there a church or steeple. +To my right hand was a long and massive bridge, with many arches and +of antique architecture, which traversed the river. The river +was a noble one; the broadest that I had hitherto seen. Its waters, +of a greenish tinge, poured with impetuosity beneath the narrow arches +to meet the sea, close at hand, as the boom of the billows breaking +distinctly upon a beach declared. There were songs upon the river +from the fisher-barks; <!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>and +occasionally a chorus, plaintive and wild, such as I had never heard +before, the words of which I did not understand, but which at the present +time, down the long avenue of years, seem in memory’s ear to sound +like ‘Horam, coram, dago.’ Several robust fellows +were near me, some knee-deep in water, employed in hauling the seine +upon the strand. Huge fish were struggling amidst the meshes—princely +salmon—their brilliant mail of blue and silver flashing in the +morning beam; so goodly and gay a scene, in truth, had never greeted +my boyish eye.</p> +<p>“And, as I gazed upon the prospect, my bosom began to heave, +and my tears to trickle. Was it the beauty of the scene which +gave rise to these emotions? Possibly; for though a poor ignorant +child—a half-wild creature—I was not insensible to the loveliness +of nature, and took pleasure in the happiness and handiworks of my fellow-creatures. +Yet, perhaps, in something more deep and mysterious the feeling which +then pervaded me might originate. Who can lie down on Elvir Hill +without experiencing something of the sorcery of the place? Flee +from Elvir Hill, young swain, or the maids of Elle will have power over +you, and you will go elf-wild!—so say the Danes. I had unconsciously +laid myself down on haunted ground; and I am willing to imagine that +what I then experienced was rather connected with the world of spirits +and dreams than with what I actually saw and heard around me. +Surely the elves and genii of the place were conversing, by some inscrutable +means, with the principle of intelligence lurking within the poor uncultivated +clod! Perhaps to that ethereal principle the wonders of the past, +as connected with that stream, the glories of the present, and even +the history of the future, were at that moment being revealed! +Of how many feats of chivalry had those old walls been witness, when +hostile kings contended for their possession?—how many an army +from the south and from the north had trod <!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>that +old bridge?—what red and noble blood had crimsoned those rushing +waters?—what strains had been sung, ay, were yet being sung on +its banks?—some soft as Doric reed; some fierce and sharp as those +of Norwegian Skaldaglam; some as replete with wild and wizard force +as Finland’s runes, singing of Kalevale’s moors, and the +deeds of Woinomoinen! Honour to thee, thou island stream! +Onward mayst thou ever roll, fresh and green, rejoicing in thy bright +past, thy glorious present, and in vivid hope of a triumphant future! +Flow on, beautiful one!—which of the world’s streams canst +thou envy, with thy beauty and renown? Stately is the Danube, +rolling in its might through lands romantic with the wild exploits of +Turk, Polak, and Magyar! Lovely is the Rhine! on its shelvy banks +grows the racy grape; and strange old keeps of robber-knights of yore +are reflected in its waters, from picturesque crags and airy headlands!—yet +neither the stately Danube, nor the beauteous Rhine, with all their +fame, though abundant, needst thou envy, thou pure island stream!—and +far less yon turbid river of old, not modern renown, gurgling beneath +the walls of what was once proud Rome, towering Rome, Jupiter’s +town, but now vile Rome, crumbling Rome, Batuscha’s town, far +less needst thou envy the turbid Tiber of bygone fame, creeping sadly +to the sea, surcharged with the abominations of modern Rome—how +unlike to thee, thou pure island stream!”</p> +<p>In this passage Borrow concentrates upon one scene the feelings of +three remote periods of his life. He gives the outward scene as +he remembers it forty years after, and together with the thoughts which +now come into his mind. He gives the romantic suggestion from +one of the favourite ballads of his youth, “Elvir Hill.” +He gives the child himself weeping, he knows not why. Yet the +passage is one and indivisible.</p> +<p>These, at any rate, are not “lies—damned lies.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>CHAPTER +II—HIS OWN HERO</h2> +<p>Borrow’s principal study was himself, and in all his best books +he is the chief subject and the chief object. Yet when he came +to write confessedly and consecutively about himself he found it no +easy task. Dr. Knapp gives an interesting account of the stages +by which he approached and executed it. His first mature and original +books, “The Zincali,” or “The Gypsies of Spain,” +and “The Bible in Spain,” had a solid body of subject matter +more or less interesting in itself, and anyone with a pen could have +made it acceptable to the public which desires information. “The +Bible of Spain” was the book of the year 1843, read by everybody +in one or other of the six editions published in the first twelve months. +These books were also full of himself. Even “The Zincali,” +written for the most part in Spain, when he was a man of about thirty +and had no reason for expecting the public to be interested in himself, +especially in a Gypsy crowd—even that early book prophesied very +different things. He said in the “preface” that he +bore the Gypsies no ill-will, for he had known them “for upwards +of twenty years, in various countries, and they never injured a hair +of his head, or deprived him of a shred of his raiment.” +The motive for this forbearance, he said, was that they thought him +a Gypsy. In his “introduction” he satisfied some curiosity, +but raised still more, when speaking of the English Gypsies and especially +of their eminence “in those disgraceful and brutalising exhibitions +called pugilistic combats.”</p> +<p>“When a boy of fourteen,” he says, “I was present +at a <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>prize +fight; why should I hide the truth? It took place on a green meadow, +beside a running stream, close by the old church of E---, and within +a league of the ancient town of N---, the capital of one of the eastern +counties. The terrible Thurtell was present, lord of the concourse; +for wherever he moved he was master, and whenever he spoke, even when +in chains, every other voice was silent. He stood on the mead, +grim and pale as usual, with his bruisers around. He it was, indeed, +who <i>got up</i> the fight, as he had previously done with respect +to twenty others; it being his frequent boast that he had first introduced +bruising and bloodshed amidst rural scenes, and transformed a quiet +slumbering town into a den of Jews and metropolitan thieves. Some +time before the commencement of the combat, three men, mounted on wild-looking +horses, came dashing down the road in the direction of the meadow, in +the midst of which they presently showed themselves, their horses clearing +the deep ditches with wonderful alacrity. ‘That’s +Gypsy Will and his gang,’ lisped a Hebrew pickpocket; ‘we +shall have another fight.’ The word Gypsy was always sufficient +to excite my curiosity, and I looked attentively at the new comers.</p> +<p>“I have seen Gypsies of various lands, Russian, Hungarian, +and Turkish; and I have also seen the legitimate children of most countries +of the world, but I never saw, upon the whole, three more remarkable +individuals, as far as personal appearance was concerned, than the three +English Gypsies who now presented themselves to my eyes on that spot. +Two of them had dismounted, and were holding their horses by the reins. +The tallest, and, at the first glance, the most interesting of the two, +was almost a giant, for his height could not have been less than six +feet three. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive any +thing more perfectly beautiful than were the features of this man, and +the most skilful sculptor of Greece might <!-- page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>have +taken them as his model for a hero and a god. The forehead was +exceedingly lofty—a rare thing in a Gypsy; the nose less Roman +than Grecian—fine yet delicate; the eyes large, overhung with +long drooping lashes, giving them almost a melancholy expression; it +was only when they were highly elevated that the Gypsy glance peered +out, if that can be called glance which is a strange stare, like nothing +else in this world. His complexion—a beautiful olive; and +his teeth of a brilliancy uncommon even amongst these people, who have +all fine teeth. He was dressed in a coarse waggoner’s slop, +which, however, was unable to conceal altogether the proportions of +his noble and Herculean figure. He might be about twenty-eight. +His companion and his captain, Gypsy Will, was, I think, fifty when +he was hanged, ten years subsequently (for I never afterwards lost sight +of him), in the front of the jail of Bury St. Edmunds. I have +still present before me his bushy black hair, his black face, and his +big black eyes, full and thoughtful, but fixed and staring. His +dress consisted of a loose blue jockey coat, jockey boots and breeches; +in his hand a huge jockey whip, and on his head (it struck me at the +time for its singularity) a broad-brimmed, high-peaked Andalusian hat, +or at least one very much resembling those generally worn in that province. +In stature he was shorter than his more youthful companion, yet he must +have measured six feet at least, and was stronger built, if possible. +What brawn!—what bone!—what legs!—what thighs! +The third Gypsy, who remained on horseback, looked more like a phantom +than any thing human. His complexion was the colour of pale dust, +and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and clothes. +His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his very horse +was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most of +his teeth were gone, and as to his age, he might be thirty or sixty. +He <!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>was +somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his steed, +which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit. I subsequently +discovered that he was considered the wizard of the gang.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page9.jpg"> +<img alt="John Thurtell. (From an old print.)" src="images/page9.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“I have been already prolix with respect to these Gypsies, +but I will not leave them quite yet. The intended combatants at +length arrived; it was necessary to clear the ring—always a troublesome +and difficult task. Thurtell went up to the two Gypsies, with +whom he seemed to be acquainted, and, with his surly smile, said two +or three words, which I, who was standing by, did not understand. +The Gypsies smiled in return, and giving the reins of their animals +to their mounted companion, immediately set about the task which the +king of the flash-men had, as I conjecture, imposed upon them; this +they soon accomplished. Who could stand against such fellows and +such whips? The fight was soon over—then there was a pause. +Once more Thurtell came up to the Gypsies and said something—the +Gypsies looked at each other and conversed; but their words had then +no meaning for my ears. The tall Gypsy shook his head. ‘Very +well,’ said the other, in English, ‘I will—that’s +all.’</p> +<p>“Then pushing the people aside, he strode to the ropes, over +which he bounded into the ring, flinging his Spanish hat high into the +air.</p> +<p>“<i>Gypsy Will</i>.—‘The best man in England for +twenty pounds!’</p> +<p>“<i>Thurtell</i>.—‘I am backer!’</p> +<p>“Twenty pounds is a tempting sum, and there were men that day +upon the green meadow who would have shed the blood of their own fathers +for the fifth of the price. But the Gypsy was not an unknown man, +his prowess and strength were notorious, and no one cared to encounter +him. Some of the Jews looked eager for a moment; but their sharp +eyes quailed quickly before his savage glances, as <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>he +towered in the ring, his huge form dilating, and his black features +convulsed with excitement. The Westminster bravos eyed the Gypsy +askance; but the comparison, if they made any, seemed by no means favourable +to themselves. ‘Gypsy! rum chap.—Ugly customer,—always +in training.’ Such were the exclamations which I heard, +some of which at that period of my life I did not understand.</p> +<p>“No man would fight the Gypsy.—Yes! a strong country +fellow wished to win the stakes, and was about to fling up his hat in +defiance, but he was prevented by his friends, with—‘Fool! +he’ll kill you!’</p> +<p>“As the Gypsies were mounting their horses, I heard the dusty +phantom exclaim—</p> +<p>“‘Brother, you are an arrant ring-maker and a horse-breaker; +you’ll make a hempen ring to break your own neck of a horse one +of these days.’</p> +<p>“They pressed their horses’ flanks, again leaped over +the ditches, and speedily vanished, amidst the whirlwinds of dust which +they raised upon the road.</p> +<p>“The words of the phantom Gypsy were ominous. Gypsy Will +was eventually executed for a murder committed in his early youth, in +company with two English labourers, one of whom confessed the fact on +his death-bed. He was the head of the clan Young, which, with +the clan Smith, still haunts two of the eastern counties.”</p> +<p>In spite of this, Borrow said in the same book that this would probably +be the last occasion he would have to speak of the Gypsies or anything +relating to them. In “The Bible in Spain,” written +and revised several years later, he changed his mind. He wrote +plenty about Gypsies and still more about himself. When he wished +to show the height of the Spanish Prime Minister, Mendizabal, he called +him “a huge athletic man, somewhat taller than myself, who measure +six feet two without my shoes.” He <!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>informed +the public that when he met an immense dog in strolling round the ruins +above Monte Moro, he stooped till his chin nearly touched his knee and +looked the animal full in the face, “and, as John Leyden says, +in the noblest ballad which the Land of Heather has produced:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘The hound he yowled, and back he fled,<br /> +As struck with fairy charm.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When his servant Lopez was imprisoned at Villallos, Borrow had reason +to fear that the man would be sacrificed to political opponents in that +violent time, so, as he told the English minister at Madrid, he bore +off Lopez, single-handed and entirely unarmed, through a crowd of at +least one hundred peasants, and furthermore shouted: “Hurrah for +Isabella the Second.” And as for mystery, “The Bible +in Spain” abounds with invitations to admiration and curiosity. +Let one example suffice. He had come back to Seville from a walk +in the country when a man emerging from an archway looked in his face +and started back, “exclaiming in the purest and most melodious +French: ‘What do I see? If my eyes do not deceive me—it +is himself. Yes, the very same as I saw him first at Bayonne; +then long subsequently beneath the brick wall at Novgorod; then beside +the Bosphorus; and last at—at—O my respectable and cherished +friend, where was it that I had last the felicity of seeing your well-remembered +and most remarkable physiognomy?’”</p> +<p>Borrows answers: “It was in the south of Ireland, if I mistake +not. Was it not there that I introduced you to the sorcerer who +tamed the savage horses by a single whisper into their ear? But +tell me, what brings you to Spain and Andalusia, the last place where +I should have expected to find you.”</p> +<p>Baron Taylor (Isidore Justin Severin, Baron Taylor, 1789-1879) now +introduces him to a friend as “My most cherished and respectable +friend, one who is better <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>acquainted +with Gypsy ways than the Chef de Bohémiens à Triana, one +who is an expert whisperer and horse-sorcerer, and who, to his honour +I say it, can wield hammer and tongs, and handle a horse-shoe, with +the best of the smiths amongst the Alpujarras of Granada.”</p> +<p>Borrow then lightly portrays his accomplished and extraordinary cosmopolitan +friend, with the conclusion:</p> +<p>“He has visited most portions of the earth, and it is remarkable +enough that we are continually encountering each other in strange places +and under singular circumstances. Whenever he descries me, whether +in the street or the desert, the brilliant hall or amongst Bedouin haimas, +at Novgorod or Stamboul, he flings up his arms and exclaims, ‘O +ciel! I have again the felicity of seeing my cherished and most +respectable B---.’”</p> +<p>Borrow could not avoid making himself impressive and mysterious. +He was impressive and mysterious without an effort; the individual or +the public was impressed, and he was naturally tempted to be more impressive. +Thus, in December of the year 1832 he had to go to London for his first +meeting with the Bible Society, who had been recommended to give him +work where he could use his knowledge of languages. As he was +at Norwich, the distance was a hundred and twelve miles, and as he was +poor he walked. He spent fivepence-halfpenny on a pint of ale, +half-pint of milk, a roll of bread and two apples during the journey, +which took him twenty-seven hours. He reached the Society’s +office early in the morning and waited for the secretary. When +the secretary arrived he hoped that Borrow had slept well on his journey. +Borrow said that, as far as he knew, he had not slept, because he had +walked. The secretary’s surprise can be imagined from this +alone, or if not, from what followed. For Borrow went on talking, +and told the man, among other things, that he was stolen by Gypsies +when he was a boy—had <!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>passed +several years with them, but had at last been recognised at a fair in +Norfolk, and brought home to his family by an uncle. It was not +to be expected that Borrow would conceal from the public “several +years” of this kind. Nevertheless, in none of his books +has he so much as hinted at a period of adoption with Gypsies when he +was a boy. Nor has that massive sleuth-hound, Dr. Knapp, discovered +any traces of such an adoption. If there is any foundation for +the story except Borrow’s wish to please the secretary, it is +the escapade of his fourteenth or fifteenth year—when he and three +other boys from Norwich Grammar School played truant, intending to make +caves to dwell in among the sandhills twenty miles away on the coast, +but were recognised on the road, deceitfully detained by a benevolent +gentleman and within a few days brought back, Borrow himself being horsed +on the back of James Martineau, according to the picturesque legend, +for such a thrashing that he had to lie in bed a fortnight and must +bear the marks of it while he was flesh and blood. Borrow celebrated +this escapade by a ballad in dialogue called “The Wandering Children +and the Benevolent Gentleman. An Idyll of the Roads.” <a name="citation13a"></a><a href="#footnote13a">{13a}</a> +There may have been another escapade of the same kind, for Dr Knapp +<a name="citation13b"></a><a href="#footnote13b">{13b}</a> prints an +account of how Borrow, at the age of fifteen, and two schoolfellows +lived for three days in a cave at Acle when they ought to have been +at school. But his companions were the same in both stories, and +“three days in a cave” is a very modest increase for such +a story in half-a-century. It was only fifteen years later that +Borrow took revenge upon the truth and told the story of his exile with +the Gypsies.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page12.jpg"> +<img alt="The Grammar School Norwich. Photo: Jarrold & Sons, Norwich" src="images/page12.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Probably every man has more or less clearly and more or less constantly +before his mind’s eye an ideal self which <!-- page 14--><a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>the +real seldom more than approaches. This ideal self may be morally +or in other ways inferior, but it remains the standard by which the +man judges his acts. Some men prove the existence of this ideal +self by announcing now and then that they are misunderstood. Or +they do things which they afterwards condemn as irrelevant or uncharacteristic +and out of harmony. Borrow had an ideal self very clearly before +him when he was writing, and it is probable that in writing he often +described not what he was but what in a better, larger, freer, more +Borrovian world he would have actually become. He admired the +work of his Creator, but he would not affect to be satisfied with it +in every detail, and stepping forward he snatched the brush and made +a bolder line and braver colour. Also he ardently desired to do +more than he ever did. When in Spain he wrote to his friend Hasfeldt +at St. Petersburg, telling him that he wished to visit China by way +of Russia or Constantinople and Armenia. When indignant with the +Bible Society in 1838 he suggested retiring to “the Wilds of Tartary +or the Zigani camps of Siberia.” He continued to suggest +China even after his engagement to Mrs. Clarke.</p> +<p>Just as he played up to the Secretary in conversation, so he played +up to the friends and the public who were allured by the stories left +untold or half-told in “The Zincali” and “The Bible +in Spain.” Chief among his encouragers was Richard Ford, +author (in 1845) of the “Handbook for Travellers in Spain and +Readers at Home,” a man of character and style, learned and a +traveller. In 1841, before “The Bible in Spain” appeared, +Ford told Borrow how he wished that he had told more about himself, +and how he was going to hint in a review that Borrow ought to publish +the whole of his adventures for the last twenty years. The publisher’s +reader, who saw the manuscript of “The Bible in Spain” in +1842, suggested that <!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>Borrow +should prefix a short account of his birth, parentage, education and +life. But already Borrow had taken Ford’s hint and was thinking +of an autobiography. By the end of 1842 he was suggesting a book +on his early life, studies and adventures, Gypsies, boxers, philosophers; +and he afterwards announced that “Lavengro” was planned +and the characters sketched in 1842 and 1843. He saw himself as +a public figure that had to be treated heroically. Read, for example, +his preface to the second edition of “The Zincali,” dated +March 1, 1843. There he tells of his astonishment at the success +of “The Zincali,” and of John Murray bidding him not to +think too much of the book but to try again and avoid “Gypsy poetry, +dry laws, and compilations from dull Spanish authors.”</p> +<p>“Borromeo,” he makes Murray say to him, “Borromeo, +don’t believe all you hear, nor think that you have accomplished +anything so very extraordinary. . . .”</p> +<p>And so, he says, he sat down and began “The Bible in Spain.” +He proceeds to make a picture of himself amidst a landscape by some +raving Titanic painter’s hand:</p> +<p>“At first,” he says, “I proceeded slowly,—sickness +was in the land and the face of nature was overcast,—heavy rain-clouds +swam in the heavens,—the blast howled amid the pines which nearly +surround my lonely dwelling, and the waters of the lake which lies before +it, so quiet in general and tranquil, were fearfully agitated. +‘Bring lights hither, O Hayim Ben Attar, son of the miracle!’ +And the Jew of Fez brought in the lights, for though it was midday I +could scarcely see in the little room where I was writing. . . .</p> +<p>“A dreary summer and autumn passed by, and were succeeded by +as gloomy a winter. I still proceeded with ‘The Bible in +Spain.’ The winter passed and spring came with cold dry +winds and occasional sunshine, whereupon I arose, shouted, and mounting +my horse, even Sidi <!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>Habismilk, +I scoured all the surrounding district, and thought but little of ‘The +Bible in Spain.’</p> +<p>“So I rode about the country, over the heaths, and through +the green lanes of my native land, occasionally visiting friends at +a distance, and sometimes, for variety’s sake, I staid at home +and amused myself by catching huge pike, which lie perdue in certain +deep ponds skirted with lofty reeds, upon my land, and to which there +is a communication from the lagoon by a deep and narrow watercourse.—I +had almost forgotten ‘The Bible in Spain.’</p> +<p>“Then came the summer with much heat and sunshine, and then +I would lie for hours in the sun and recall the sunny days I had spent +in Andalusia, and my thoughts were continually reverting to Spain, and +at last I remembered that ‘The Bible in Spain’ was still +unfinished; whereupon I arose and said: This loitering profiteth nothing,—and +I hastened to my summer-house by the side of the lake, and there I thought +and wrote, and every day I repaired to the same place, and thought and +wrote until I had finished ‘The Bible in Spain.’</p> +<p>“And at the proper season ‘The Bible in Spain’ +was given to the world; and the world, both learned and unlearned, was +delighted with ‘The Bible in Spain,’ and the highest authority +said, ‘This is a much better book than the Gypsies;’ and +the next great authority said, ‘Something betwixt Le Sage and +Bunyan.’ ‘A far more entertaining work than Don Quixote,’ +exclaimed a literary lady. ‘Another Gil Blas,’ said +the cleverest writer in Europe. ‘Yes,’ exclaimed the +cool sensible Spectator, ‘a Gil Blas <i>in water colours</i>.’</p> +<p>“A <i>Gil Blas</i> in water colours”—that, he says +himself, pleased him better than all the rest. He liked to think +that out of his adventures in distributing Bibles in Spain, out of letters +describing his work to his employers, the Bible Society, he had made +a narrative to be compared <!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>with +the fictitious life and adventures of that gentle Spanish rogue, Gil +Blas of Santillana. No wonder that he saw himself a public figure +to be treated reverently, nay! heroically. And so when he comes +to consider somebody’s suggestion that the Gypsies are of Jewish +origin, he relates a “little adventure” of his own, bringing +in Mr. Petulengro and the Jewish servant whom he had brought back with +him after his last visit to Spain. He mounts the heroic figure +upon an heroic horse:</p> +<p>“So it came to pass,” he says, “that one day I +was scampering over a heath, at some distance from my present home: +I was mounted upon the good horse Sidi Habismilk, and the Jew of Fez, +swifter than the wind, ran by the side of the good horse Habismilk, +when what should I see at a corner of the heath but the encampment of +certain friends of mine; and the chief of that camp, even Mr. Petulengro, +stood before the encampment, and his adopted daughter, Miss Pinfold, +stood beside him.</p> +<p>“<i>Myself</i>.—‘Kosko divvus, <a name="citation17a"></a><a href="#footnote17a">{17a}</a> +Mr. Petulengro! I am glad to see you: how are you getting on?’</p> +<p>“<i>Mr. Petulengro</i>.—‘How am I getting on? as +well as I can. What will you have for that nokengro?’ <a name="citation17b"></a><a href="#footnote17b">{17b}</a></p> +<p>“Thereupon I dismounted, and delivering the reins of the good +horse to Miss Pinfold, I took the Jew of Fez, even Hayim Ben Attar, +by the hand, and went up to Mr. Petulengro, exclaiming, ‘Sure +ye are two brothers.’ Anon the Gypsy passed his hand over +the Jew’s face, and stared him in the eyes: then turning to me, +he said, ‘We are not dui palor; <a name="citation17c"></a><a href="#footnote17c">{17c}</a> +this man is no Roman; I believe him to be a Jew; he has the face of +one; besides if he were a Rom, even from Jericho, he could rokra a few +words in Rommany.’”</p> +<p>Still more important than this equestrian figure of Borrow on Sidi +Habismilk is the note on “The English Dialect <!-- page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>of +the Rommany” hidden away at the end of the second edition of “The +Zincali.”</p> +<p>“‘Tachipen if I jaw ’doi, I can lel a bit of tan +to hatch: N’etist I shan’t puch kekomi wafu gorgies.’</p> +<p>“The above sentence, dear reader, I heard from the mouth of +Mr. Petulengro, the last time that he did me the honour to visit me +at my poor house, which was the day after Mol-divvus, <a name="citation18a"></a><a href="#footnote18a">{18a}</a> +1842: he stayed with me during the greatest part of the morning, discoursing +on the affairs of Egypt, the aspect of which, he assured me, was becoming +daily worse and worse. ‘There is no living for the poor +people, brother,’ said he, ‘the chokengres (police) pursue +us from place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or +miserly, that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the way side, +and ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon. Unless times +alter, brother, and of that I see no probability, unless you are made +either poknees or mecralliskoe geiro (justice of the peace or prime +minister), I am afraid the poor persons will have to give up wandering +altogether, and then what will become of them?</p> +<p>“‘However, brother,’ he continued, in a more cheerful +tone: ‘I am no hindity mush, <a name="citation18b"></a><a href="#footnote18b">{18b}</a> +as you well know. I suppose you have not forgot how, fifteen years +ago, when you made horse-shoes in the little dingle by the side of the +great north road, I lent you fifty cottors <a name="citation18c"></a><a href="#footnote18c">{18c}</a> +to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green +Newmarket coat, which three days after you sold for two hundred.</p> +<p>“‘Well, brother, if you had wanted the two hundred, instead +of the fifty, I could have lent them to you, and would have done so, +for I knew you would not be long pazorrhus to me. I am no hindity +mush, brother, no Irishman; I laid <!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>out +the other day twenty pounds, in buying ruponoe peamengries; <a name="citation19a"></a><a href="#footnote19a">{19a}</a> +and in the Chong-gav, <a name="citation19b"></a><a href="#footnote19b">{19b}</a> +have a house of my own with a yard behind it.</p> +<p>“‘<i>And</i>, <i>forsooth</i>, <i>if I go thither</i>, +<i>I can choose a place to light a fire upon</i>, <i>and shall have +no necessity to ask leave of these here Gentiles</i>.’</p> +<p>“Well, dear reader, this last is the translation of the Gypsy +sentence which heads the chapter, and which is a very characteristic +specimen of the general way of speaking of the English Gypsies.”</p> +<p>Here be mysteries. The author of “The Bible in Spain” +is not only taken for a Gypsy, but once upon a time made horse-shoes +in a dingle beside the great north road and trafficked in horses. +When Borrow told John Murray of the Christmas meeting with Ambrose Smith, +whom he now called “The Gypsy King,” he said he was dressed +in “true regal fashion.” On the last day of that year +he told Murray that he often meditated on his “life” and +was arranging scenes. That reminder about the dingle and the wonderful +trotting cob, and the Christmas wine, was stirring his brain. +In two months time he had begun to write his “Life.” +He got back from the Bible Society the letters written to them when +he was their representative in Russia, and these he hoped to use as +he had already used those written in Spain. Ford encouraged him, +saying: “Truth is great and always pleases. Never mind nimminy-pimminy +people thinking subjects <i>low</i>. Things are low in manner +of handling.” In the midsummer of 1843 Borrow told Murray +that he was getting on—“some parts are very wild and strange,” +others are full of “useful information.” In another +place he called the pictures in it Rembrandts interspersed with Claudes. +At first the book was to have been “My Life, a Drama, by George +Borrow”; at the end <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>of +the year it was “Lavengro, a Biography,” and also “My +Life.” He was writing slowly “to please himself.” +Later on he called it a biography “in the Robinson Crusoe style.” +Nearly three years passed since that meeting with Mr. Petulengro, and +still the book was not ready. Ford had been pressing him to lift +a corner of the curtain which he had gradually let fall over the seven +years of his life preceding his work for the Bible Society, but he made +no promise. He was bent on putting in nothing but his best work, +and avoiding haste. In July, 1848, Murray announced, among his +“new works in preparation,” “Lavengro, an Autobiography, +by George Borrow.” The first volume went to press in the +autumn, and there was another announcement of “Lavengro, an Autobiography,” +followed by one of “Life, a Drama.” Yet again in 1849 +the book was announced as “Lavengro, an Autobiography,” +though the first volume already bore the title, “Life, a Drama.” +In 1850 publication was still delayed by Borrow’s ill health and +his reluctance to finish and have done with the book. It was still +announced as “Lavengro, an Autobiography.” But at +the end of the year it was “Lavengro: the Scholar—the Gypsy—the +Priest,” and with that title it appeared early in 1851. +Borrow was then forty-six years old, and the third volume of his book +left him still in the dingle beside the great north road, when he was, +according to the conversation with Mr. Petulengro, a young man of twenty-one.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page21b.jpg"> +<img alt="East Dereham Church, Norfolk. Photo: H. T. Cave, East Dereham" src="images/page21s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>CHAPTER +III—PRESENTING THE TRUTH</h2> +<p>“Life, a Drama,” was to have been published in 1849, +and proof sheets with this name and date on the title page were lately +in my hands: as far as page 168 the left hand page heading is “A +Dramatic History,” which is there crossed out and “Life, +a Drama” thenceforward substituted. Borrow’s corrections +are worth the attention of anyone who cares for men and books.</p> +<p>“Lavengro” now opens with the sentence: “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.”</p> +<p>The proof shows that Borrow preferred “a certain district of +East Anglia” to “The western division of Norfolk.” +Here the added shade of indefiniteness can hardly seem valuable to any +but the author himself. In another place he prefers (chapter XIII.) +the vague “one of the most glorious of Homer’s rhapsodies” +to “the enchantments of Canidia, the masterpiece of the prince +of Roman poets.”</p> +<p>In the second chapter he describes how, near Pett, in Sussex, as +a child less than three years old, he took up a viper without being +injured or even resisted, amid the alarms of his mother and elder brother. +After this description he comments:</p> +<p>“It is my firm belief that certain individuals possess an inherent +power, or fascination, over certain creatures, otherwise I should be +unable to account for many feats which I have witnessed, and, indeed, +borne a share in, connected with the taming of brutes and reptiles.”</p> +<p><!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>This +was in the proof preceded by a passage at first modified and then cut +out, reading thus:</p> +<p>“In some parts of the world and more particularly in India +there are people who devote themselves to the pursuit and taming of +serpents. Had I been born in those regions I perhaps should have +been what is termed a snake charmer. That I had a genius for the +profession, as probably all have who follow it, I gave decided proof +of the above instance as in others which I shall have occasion subsequently +to relate.”</p> +<p>This he cut out presumably because it was too “informing” +and too little “wild and strange.”</p> +<p>A little later in the same chapter he describes how, before he was +four years old, near Hythe, in Kent, he saw in a penthouse against an +old village church, “skulls of the old Danes”:</p> +<p>“‘Long ago’ (said the sexton, with Borrow’s +aid), ‘long ago they came pirating into these parts: and then +there chanced a mighty shipwreck, for God was angry with them, and He +sunk them; and their skulls, as they came ashore, were placed here as +a memorial. There were many more when I was young, but now they +are fast disappearing. Some of them must have belonged to strange +fellows, madam. Only see that one; why, the two young gentry can +scarcely lift it!’ And, indeed, my brother and myself had +entered the Golgotha, and commenced handling these grim relics of mortality. +One enormous skull, lying in a corner, had fixed our attention, and +we had drawn it forth. Spirit of eld, what a skull was yon!</p> +<p>“I still seem to see it, the huge grim thing; many of the others +were large, strikingly so, and appeared fully to justify the old man’s +conclusion that their owners must have been strange fellows; but compared +with this mighty mass of bone they looked small and diminutive, like +those of pigmies; it must have belonged to a giant, one of those <!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>red-haired +warriors of whose strength and stature such wondrous tales are told +in the ancient chronicles of the north, and whose grave-hills, when +ransacked, occasionally reveal secrets which fill the minds of puny +moderns with astonishment and awe. Reader, have you ever pored +days and nights over the pages of Snorro? probably not, for he wrote +in a language which few of the present day understand, and few would +be tempted to read him tamed down by Latin dragomans. A brave +old book is that of Snorro, containing the histories and adventures +of old northern kings and champions, who seemed to have been quite different +men, if we may judge from the feats which they performed, from those +of these days. One of the best of his histories is that which +describes the life of Harald Haardraade, who, after manifold adventures +by land and sea, now a pirate, now a mercenary of the Greek emperor, +became King of Norway, and eventually perished at the battle of Stanford +Bridge, whilst engaged in a gallant onslaught upon England. Now, +I have often thought that the old Kemp, whose mouldering skull in the +Golgotha at Hythe my brother and myself could scarcely lift, must have +resembled in one respect at least this Harald, whom Snorro describes +as a great and wise ruler and a determined leader, dangerous in battle, +of fair presence, and measuring in height just <i>five ells</i>, neither +more nor less.”</p> +<p>Of this incident he says he need offer no apology for relating it +“as it subsequently exercised considerable influence over his +pursuits,” <i>i.e.</i>, his study of Danish literature; but in +the proof he added also that the incident, “perhaps more than +anything else, tended to bring my imaginative powers into action”—this +he cut out, though the skulls may have impressed him as the skeleton +disinterred by a horse impressed Richard Jefferies and haunted him in +his “Gamekeeper,” “Meadow Thoughts,” and elsewhere.</p> +<p><!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>Sometimes +he modified a showy phrase, and “when I became ambitious of the +title of Lavengro and strove to deserve it” was cut down to “when +I became a student.” When he wrote of Cowper in the third +chapter he said, to justify Cowper’s melancholy, that “Providence, +whose ways are not our ways, interposed, and with the withering blasts +of misery nipped that which otherwise might have terminated in fruit, +noxious and lamentable”; but he substituted a mere “perhaps” +for the words about Providence. In the description of young Jasper +he changed his “short arms like” his father, into “long +arms unlike.”</p> +<p>In the fourteenth chapter Borrow describes his father’s retirement +from the army after Waterloo, and his settling down at Norwich, so poor +as to be anxious for his children’s future. He speaks of +poor officers who “had slight influence with the great who gave +themselves very little trouble either about them or their families.” +Originally he went on thus, but cut out the words from the proof:</p> +<p>“Yet I have reason for concluding that they were not altogether +overlooked by a certain power still higher than even the aristocracy +of England and with yet more extensive influence in the affairs of the +world. I allude to Providence, which, it is said, never forsakes +those who trust in it, as I suppose these old soldiers did, for I have +known many instances in which their children have contrived to make +their way gallantly in the world, unaided by the patronage of the great, +whilst others who were possessed of it were most miserably shipwrecked, +being suddenly overset by some unexpected squall, against which it could +avail them nothing.”</p> +<p>This change is a relief to the style. The next which I shall +quote is something more than that. It shows Borrow constructing +the conversation of his father and mother when they were considering +his prospects at the age of twelve. His father was complaining +of the boy’s Gypsy <!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>look, +and of his ways and manners, and of the strange company he kept in Ireland—“people +of evil report, of whom terrible things were said—horse-witches +and the like.” His mother made the excuse: “But he +thinks of other things now.” “Other languages, you +mean,” said his father. But in the proof his mother adds +to her speech, “He is no longer in Ireland,” and the father +takes her up with, “So much the better for him; yet should he +ever fall into evil practices, I shall always lay it to the account +of that melancholy sojourn in Ireland and the acquaintances he formed +there.”</p> +<p>Instead of putting into his friend, the Anglo-Germanist Williams +Taylor’s mouth, the opinion “that as we are aware that others +frequently misinterpret us, we are equally liable to fall into the same +error with respect to them,” he alters it to the very different +one, “That there is always some eye upon us; and that it is impossible +to keep anything we do from the world, as it will assuredly be divulged +by somebody as soon as it is his interest to do so.”</p> +<p>In the twenty-fourth chapter Borrow makes Thurtell, the friend of +bruisers, hint, with unconscious tragic irony, at his famous end—by +dying upon the gallows for the murder of Mr. William Weare. He +tells the magistrate whom he has asked to lend him a piece of land for +a prize-fight that his own name is no matter.</p> +<p>“However,” he continues, “a time may come—we +are not yet buried—whensoever my hour arrives, I hope I shall +prove myself equal to my destiny, however high—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Like bird that’s bred amongst the Helicons.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In the original Thurtell’s quotation was:</p> +<blockquote><p>“No poor unminded outlaw sneaking home.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This chapter now ends with the magistrate’s question to young +Borrow about this man: “What is his name?” In the +manuscript Borrow answered, “John Thurtell.” <!-- page 26--><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>The +proof had, “John . . .” Borrow hesitated, and in the margin, +having crossed out “John,” he put the initial “J” +as a substitute, but finally crossed that out also. He was afraid +of names which other people might know and regard in a different way. +Thus in the same proof he altered “the philologist Scaliger” +to “a certain philologist”: thus, too, he would not write +down the name of Dereham, but kept on calling it “pretty D---”; +and when he had to refer to Cowper as buried in Dereham Church he spoke +of the poet, not by name, but as “England’s sweetest and +most pious bard.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page27b.jpg"> +<img alt="Page 1 of “Lavengro,” showing Borrow’s corrections. (Photographed from the Author’s proof copy, by kind permission of Mr. Kyllmann and Mr. Thos. Seccombe.) Photo: W. J. Roberts" src="images/page27s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>CHAPTER +IV—WHAT IS TRUTH?</h2> +<p>These changes in the proof of what was afterwards called “Lavengro” +were, it need hardly be said, made in order to bring the words nearer +to a representation of the idea in Borrow’s brain, and nearer +to a perfect harmony with one another. Take the case of Jasper +Petulengro’s arm. Borrow knew the man Ambrose Smith well +enough to know whether he had a long or a short arm: for did not Jasper +say to him when he was dismal, “We’ll now go to the tents +and put on the gloves, and I’ll try to make you feel what a sweet +thing it is to be alive, brother!” Possibly he had a short +arm like his father, but in reading the proof it must somehow have seemed +to Borrow that his Jasper Petulengro—founded on Ambrose Smith +and at many points resembling him—ought to have a long arm. +The short arm was true to “the facts”; the long arm was +more impressive and was truer to the created character, which was more +important.</p> +<p>It was hardly these little things that kept Borrow working at “Lavengro” +for nearly half of his fourth decade and a full half of his fifth. +But these little things were part of the great difficulty of making +an harmonious whole by changing, cutting out and inserting. When +Ford and John Murray’s reader asked him for his life they probably +meant a plain statement of a few “important facts,” such +facts as there could hardly be two opinions about, such facts as fill +the ordinary biography or “Who’s Who.” Borrow +knew well enough that these facts either produce no effect in the reader’s +mind or they produce one effect here <!-- page 28--><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>and +a different one there, since the dullest mind cannot blankly receive +a dead statement without some effort to give it life. Borrow was +not going to commit himself to incontrovertible statements such as are +or might be made to a Life Insurance Company. He had no command +of a tombstone style and would not have himself circumscribed with full +Christian name, date of birth, etc., as a sexton or parish clerk might +have done for him. Twenty years later indeed—in 1862—he +did write such an account of himself to be printed as part of an appendix +to a history of his old school at Norwich. It is full of dates, +but they are often inaccurate, and the years 1825 to 1833 he fills with +“a life of roving adventures.” He cannot refrain from +calling himself a great rider, walker and swimmer, or from telling the +story of how he walked from Norwich to London—he calls it London +to Norwich—in twenty-seven hours. But in 1862 he could rely +on “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye”; he was an +author at the end of his career, and he had written himself down to +the best of his genius. The case was different in 1842.</p> +<p>He saw himself as a man variously and mysteriously alive, very different +from every other man and especially from certain kinds of man. +When you look at a larch wood with a floor of fern in October at the +end of twilight, you are not content to have that wood described as +so many hundred poles growing on three acres of land, the property of +a manufacturer of gin. Still less was Borrow content to sit down +at Oulton, while the blast howled amid the pines which nearly surround +his lonely dwelling, and answer the genial Ford’s questions one +by one: “What countries have you been in? What languages +do you understand?” and so on. Ford probably divined a book +as substantial and well-furnished with milestones as “The Bible +in Spain,” and he cheerfully told Borrow to make the broth “thick +and slab.”</p> +<p><!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>Ford, +in fact, doubled the difficulty. Not only did Borrow feel that +his book must create a living soul, but the soul must be heroic to meet +the expectations of Ford and the public. The equestrian group +had been easy enough—himself mounted on Sidi Habismilk, with the +swift Jew and the Gypsy at his side—but the life of a man was +a different matter. Nor was the task eased by his exceptional +memory. He claimed, as has been seen, to remember the look of +the viper seen in his third year. Later, in “Lavengro,” +he meets a tinker and buys his stock-in-trade to set himself up with. +The tinker tries to put him off by tales of the Blazing Tinman who has +driven him from his beat. Borrow answers that he can manage the +Tinman one way or other, saying, “I know all kinds of strange +words and names, and, as I told you before, I sometimes hit people when +they put me out.” At last the tinker consents to sell his +pony and things on one condition. “Tell me what’s +my name,” he says; “if you can’t, may I—.” +Borrow answers: “Don’t swear, it’s a bad habit, neither +pleasant nor profitable. Your name is Slingsby—Jack Slingsby. +There, don’t stare, there’s nothing in my telling you your +name: I’ve been in these parts before, at least not very far from +here. Ten years ago, when I was little more than a child, I was +about twenty miles from here in a post chaise, at the door of an inn, +and as I looked from the window of the chaise, I saw you standing by +a gutter, with a big tin ladle in your hand, and somebody called you +Jack Slingsby. I never forget anything I hear or see; I can’t, +I wish I could. So there’s nothing strange in my knowing +your name; indeed there’s nothing strange in anything, provided +you examine it to the bottom. Now what am I to give you for the +things?”</p> +<p>(I once heard a Gypsy give a similar and equal display of memory.) +Dr. Knapp has corroborated several details of “Lavengro” +which confirm Borrow’s opinion of his <!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>memory. +Hearing the author whom he met on his walk beyond Salisbury, speak of +the “wine of 1811, the comet year,” Borrow said that he +remembered being in the market-place of Dereham, looking at that comet. +<a name="citation30"></a><a href="#footnote30">{30}</a> Dr Knapp +first makes sure exactly when Borrow was at Dereham in 1811 and then +that there was a comet visible during that time. He proves also +from newspapers of 1820 that the fight, in the twenty sixth chapter +of “Lavengro,” ended in a thunderstorm like that described +by Borrow and used by Petulengro to forecast the violent end of Thurtell.</p> +<p>Now a brute memory like that, which cannot be gainsaid, is not an +entirely good servant to a man who will not put down everything he can, +like a boy at an examination. The ordinary man probably recalls +all that is of importance in his past life, though he may not like to +think so, but a man with a memory like Borrow’s or with a supply +of diaries like Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s may well ask, “What +is truth?” as Borrow often did. The facts may convey a false +impression which an omission or a positive “lie” may correct.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page30b.jpg"> +<img alt="A page from the author’s proof copy of “Lavengro,” showing Borrow’s significant corrections. (Photographed by kind permission of Mr. Kyllmann and Mr. Thos. Seccombe.) Photo: W. J. Roberts" src="images/page30s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Just at first, as has been seen, a month after his Christmas wine +with Mr Petulengro, Borrow saw his life as a drama, perhaps as a melodrama, +full of Gypsies, jockeys and horses, wild men of many lands and several +murderers. “Capital subject,” he repeated. That +was when he saw himself as an adventurer and Europe craning its neck +to keep him in sight. But he knew well, and after the first flush +he remembered, that he was not merely a robust walker, rider and philologist. +When he was only eighteen he was continually asking himself “What +is truth?” “I had,” he says, “involved +myself imperceptibly in a dreary labyrinth of doubt, and, whichever +way I turned, no reasonable prospect of extricating myself appeared. +The means <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>by +which I had brought myself into this situation may be very briefly told; +I had inquired into many matters, in order that I might become wise, +and I had read and pondered over the words of the wise, so called, till +I had made myself master of the sum of human wisdom; namely, that everything +is enigmatical and that man is an enigma to himself; thence the cry +of ‘What is truth?’ I had ceased to believe in the +truth of that in which I had hitherto trusted, and yet could find nothing +in which I could put any fixed or deliberate belief. I was, indeed, +in a labyrinth! In what did I not doubt? With respect to +crime and virtue I was in doubt; I doubted that the one was blameable +and the other praiseworthy. Are not all things subjected to the +law of necessity? Assuredly; time and chance govern all things: +yet how can this be? alas!</p> +<p>“Then there was myself; for what was I born? Are not +all things born to be forgotten? That’s incomprehensible: +yet is it not so? Those butterflies fall and are forgotten. +In what is man better than a butterfly? All then is born to be +forgotten. Ah! that was a pang indeed; ’tis at such a moment +that a man wishes to die. The wise king of Jerusalem, who sat +in his shady arbours beside his sunny fishpools, saying so many fine +things, wished to die, when he saw that not only all was vanity, but +that he himself was vanity. Will a time come when all will be +forgotten that now is beneath the sun? If so, of what profit is +life? . . .</p> +<p>“‘Would I had never been born!’ I said to +myself; and a thought would occasionally intrude. But was I ever +born? Is not all that I see a lie—a deceitful phantom? +Is there a world, and earth, and sky? . . .”</p> +<p>If he no longer articulated these doubts he was still not as sure +of himself as Ford imagined. He was, by the way, seldom sure of +his own age, and Dr. Knapp <a name="citation31"></a><a href="#footnote31">{31}</a> +gives <!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>four +instances of his underestimating it by two and even five years. +Whatever may be the explanation of this, after three years’ work +at “Lavengro” he “will not be hurried for anyone.” +He was probably finding that, with no notebooks or letters to help, +the work was very different from the writing of “The Bible in +Spain,” which was pieced together out of long letters to the Bible +Society, and, moreover, was written within a few years of the events +described. The events of his childhood and youth had retired into +a perspective that was beyond his control: he would often be tempted +to change their perspective, to bring forward some things, to set back +others. In any case these things were no longer mere solid material +facts. They were living a silent life of spirits within his brain. +He took to calling the book his “life” or “autobiography,” +not “Life: a Drama.” It was advertised as such; but +he would not have it. At the last moment he refused to label it +an autobiography, because he knew that it was inadequate, and that in +any case other men would not understand or would misunderstand it. +He must have felt certain that the fair figure of “Don Jorge,” +created in “The Bible of Spain,” had been poisoned for most +readers by many a passage in “Lavengro,” like that where +he doubted the existence of self and sky and stars, or where he told +of the breakdown in his health when he was sixteen and of the gloom +that followed:</p> +<p>“But how much more quickly does strength desert the human frame +than return to it! I had become convalescent, it is true, but +my state of feebleness was truly pitiable. I believe it is in +that state that the most remarkable feature of human physiology frequently +exhibits itself. Oh, how dare I mention the dark feeling of mysterious +dread which comes over the mind, and which the lamp of reason, though +burning bright the while, is unable to dispel! Art thou, as leeches +say, the concomitant of disease—the result of <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>shattered +nerves? Nay, rather the principle of woe itself, the fountain +head of all sorrow co-existent with man, whose influence he feels when +yet unborn, and whose workings he testifies with his earliest cries, +when, ‘drowned in tears,’ he first beholds the light; for, +as the sparks fly upward, so is man born to trouble, and woe doth he +bring with him into the world, even thyself, dark one, terrible one, +causeless, unbegotten, without a father. Oh, how frequently dost +thou break down the barriers which divide thee from the poor soul of +man, and overcast its sunshine with thy gloomy shadow. In the +brightest days of prosperity—in the midst of health and wealth—how +sentient is the poor human creature of thy neighbourhood! how instinctively +aware that the floodgates of horror may be cast open, and the dark stream +engulf him for ever and ever! Then is it not lawful for man to +exclaim, ‘Better that I had never been born!’ Fool, +for thyself thou wast not born, but to fulfil the inscrutable decrees +of thy Creator; and how dost thou know that this dark principle is not, +after all, thy best friend; that it is not that which tempers the whole +mass of thy corruption? It may be, for what thou knowest, the +mother of wisdom, and of the great works: it is the dread of the horror +of the night that makes the pilgrim hasten on his way. When thou +feelest it nigh, let thy safety word be ‘Onward’; if thou +tarry, thou art overwhelmed. Courage! build great works—’tis +urging thee—it is ever nearest the favourites of God—the +fool knows little of it. Thou wouldst be joyous, wouldst thou? +then be a fool. What great work was ever the result of joy, the +puny one? Who have been the wise ones, the mighty ones, the conquering +ones of this earth? the joyous? I believe not. The fool +is happy, or comparatively so—certainly the least sorrowful, but +he is still a fool; and whose notes are sweetest, those of the nightingale, +or of the silly lark?</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p><!-- page 34--><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>“‘What +ails you, my child?’ said a mother to her son, as he lay on a +couch under the influence of the dreadful one; ‘what ails you? +you seem afraid!’</p> +<p>“<i>Boy</i>.—‘And so I am; a dreadful fear is upon +me.’</p> +<p>“<i>Mother</i>.—‘But of what? there is no one can +harm you; of what are you apprehensive?’</p> +<p>“<i>Boy</i>.—‘Of nothing that I can express; I +know not what I am afraid of, but afraid I am.’</p> +<p>“<i>Mother</i>.—‘Perhaps you see sights and visions; +I knew a lady once who was continually thinking that she saw an armed +man threaten her, but it was only an imagination, a phantom of the brain.’</p> +<p>“<i>Boy</i>.—‘No armed man threatens me; and ’tis +not a thing that would cause me any fear. Did an armed man threaten +me, I would get up and fight him; weak as I am, I would wish for nothing +better, for then, perhaps, I should lose this fear; mine is a dread +of I know not what, and there the horror lies.’</p> +<p>“<i>Mother</i>.—‘Your forehead is cool, and your +speech collected. Do you know where you are?’</p> +<p>“<i>Boy</i>.—‘I know where I am, and I see things +just as they are; you are beside me, and upon the table there is a book +which was written by a Florentine; all this I see, and that there is +no ground for being afraid. I am, moreover, quite cool, and feel +no pain—but, but—’</p> +<p>“And then there was a burst of ‘gemiti, sospiri ed alti +guai.’ Alas, alas, poor child of clay! as the sparks fly +upward, so wast thou born to sorrow—Onward!”</p> +<p>And if men passed over this as a youthful distemper, rather often +recurring, what would they make of his saying that “Fame after +death is better than the top of fashion in life”? Would +they not accuse him of entertaining them, as he did his companion and +half-sweetheart of the dingle, Isopel Berners, “with strange dreams +of adventure, in which he figures in opaque forests, strangling wild +beasts, <!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>or +discovering and plundering the hordes of dragons; and sometimes . . +. other things far more genuine—how he had tamed savage mares, +wrestled with Satan, and had dealings with ferocious publishers”?</p> +<p>He did not simplify the matter by his preface. There he announced +that the book was “a dream.” He had, he said, endeavoured +to describe a dream, partly of adventure, in which will be found copious +notices of books and many descriptions of life and manners, some in +a very unusual form. A dream containing “copious notices +of books”! A dream in three volumes and over a thousand +pages! A dream which he had “endeavoured to describe”! +From these three words it was necessary to suppose that it was a real +dream, not a narrative introduced by the machinery of a dream, like +“Pilgrim’s Progress,” and “The Dream of Fair +Women.” And so it was. The book was not an autobiography +but a representation of a man’s life in the backward dream of +memory. He had refused to drag the events of his life out of the +spirit land, to turn them into a narrative on the same plane as a newspaper, +leaving readers to convert them back again into reality or not, according +to their choice or ability. His life seemed to him a dream, not +a newspaper obituary, not an equestrian statue on a pedestal in Albemarle +Street opposite John Murray’s office.</p> +<p>The result was that “the long-talked-of autobiography” +disappointed those who expected more than a collection of bold picaresque +sketches. “It is not,” complained the “Athenæum,” +“an autobiography, even with the licence of fiction;” “the +interest of autobiography is lost,” and as a work of fiction it +is a failure. “Fraser’s Magazine” said that +it was “for ever hovering between Romance and Reality, and the +whole tone of the narrative inspires profound distrust. Nay, more, +it will make us disbelieve the tales in ‘The Zincali’ and +‘The Bible in Spain.’” <!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>Another +critic found “a false dream in the place of reality, a shadowy +nothing in the place of that something all who had read ‘The Bible +in Spain’ craved and hoped for from his pen.” His +friend, William Bodham Donne, in “Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine,” +explained how “Lavengro” was “not exactly what the +public had been expecting.” Another friend, Whitwell Elwin, +in the “Quarterly Review,” reviewing “Lavengro” +and its continuation, “The Romany Rye,” not only praised +the truth and vividness of the descriptions, but said that “various +portions of the history are known to be a faithful narrative of Mr. +Borrow’s career, while we ourselves can testify, as to many other +parts of his volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which +he has described both men and things,” and “why under these +circumstances he should envelop the question in mystery is more than +we can divine. There can be no doubt that the larger part, and +possibly the whole, of the work is a narrative of actual occurrences, +and just as little that it would gain immensely by a plain avowal of +the fact.” I have suggested that there were good reasons +for not calling the work an autobiography. Dr. Knapp has shown +in his fortieth chapter that the narrative was interrupted to admit +lengthy references to much later events for purposes of “occult +vengeance”; and that these interruptions helped to cause the delay +and to change the title there can be little doubt.</p> +<p>Borrow was angry at the failure of “Lavengro,” and in +the appendix to “The Romany Rye” he actually said that he +had never called “Lavengro” an autobiography and never authorised +anyone to call it such. This was not a lie but a somewhat frantic +assertion that his critics were mistaken about his “dream.” +In later years he quietly admitted that “Lavengro” gave +an account of his early life.</p> +<p><!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>Yet +Dr. Knapp was not strictly and completely accurate in saying that the +first volume of “Lavengro” is “strictly autobiographical +and authentic as the whole was at first intended to be.” +He could give no proof that Borrow’s memory went back to his third +year or that he first handled a viper at that time. He could only +show that Borrow’s accounts do not conflict with other accounts +of the same matters. When they did conflict, Dr. Knapp was unduly +elated by the discovery.</p> +<p>Take, for example, the sixteenth chapter of “Lavengro,” +where he describes the horse fair at Norwich when he was a boy:</p> +<p>“The reader is already aware that I had long since conceived +a passion for the equine race, a passion in which circumstances had +of late not permitted me to indulge. I had no horses to ride, +but I took pleasure in looking at them; and I had already attended more +than one of these fairs: the present was lively enough, indeed horse +fairs are seldom dull. There was shouting and whooping, neighing +and braying; there was galloping and trotting; fellows with highlows +and white stockings, and with many a string dangling from the knees +of their tight breeches, were running desperately, holding horses by +the halter, and in some cases dragging them along; there were long-tailed +steeds, and dock-tailed steeds of every degree and breed; there were +droves of wild ponies, and long rows of sober cart horses; there were +donkeys and even mules: the last rare things to be seen in damp, misty +England, for the mule pines in mud and rain, and thrives best with a +hot sun above and a burning sand below. There were—oh, the +gallant creatures! I hear their neigh upon the wind; there were—goodliest +sight of all—certain enormous quadrupeds only seen to perfection +in our native isle, led about by dapper grooms, their manes ribanded +and their tails <!-- page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>curiously +clubbed and balled. Ha! ha!—how distinctly do they say, +ha! ha!</p> +<p>“An old man draws nigh, he is mounted on a lean pony, and he +leads by the bridle one of these animals; nothing very remarkable about +that creature, unless in being smaller than the rest and gentle, which +they are not; he is not of the sightliest look; he is almost dun, and +over one eye a thick film has gathered. But stay! there <i>is</i> +something remarkable about that horse, there is something in his action +in which he differs from all the rest: as he advances, the clamour is +hushed! all eyes are turned upon him—what looks of interest—of +respect—and, what is this? people are taking off their hats—surely +not to that steed! Yes, verily! men, especially old men, are taking +off their hats to that one-eyed steed, and I hear more than one deep-drawn +ah!</p> +<p>“‘What horse is that?’ said I to a very old fellow, +the counterpart of the old man on the pony, save that the last wore +a faded suit of velveteen, and this one was dressed in a white frock.</p> +<p>“‘The best in mother England,’ said the very old +man, taking a knobbed stick from his mouth, and looking me in the face, +at first carelessly, but presently with something like interest; ‘he +is old like myself, but can still trot his twenty miles an hour. +You won’t live long, my swain; tall and overgrown ones like thee +never does; yet, if you should chance to reach my years, you may boast +to thy great grand boys, thou hast seen Marshland Shales.’</p> +<p>“Amain I did for the horse what I would neither do for earl +or baron, doffed my hat; yes! I doffed my hat to the wondrous +horse, the fast trotter, the best in mother England; and I, too, drew +a deep ah! and repeated the words of the old fellows around. ‘Such +a horse as this we shall never see again, a pity that he is so old.’”</p> +<p><!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>But +Dr. Knapp informs us that the well-known trotting stallion, Marshland +Shales, was not offered for sale by auction until 1827, when he was +twenty-five years old, and ten years after the date implied in “Lavengro.” +And what is more, Dr. Knapp concludes that Borrow must have been in +Norwich in 1827, on the fair day, April 12.</p> +<h2><!-- page 40--><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>CHAPTER +V—HIS PREDECESSORS</h2> +<p>I do not wish to make Borrow out a suffering innocent in the hands +of that learned heavy-weight and wag, Dr. Knapp. Borrow was a +writing man; he was sometimes a friend of jockeys, of Gypsies and of +pugilists, but he was always a writing man; and the writer who is delighted +to have his travels in Spain compared with the rogue romance, “Gil +Blas,” is no innocent. Photography, it must be remembered, +was not invented. It was not in those days thought possible to +get life on to the paper by copying it with ink. Words could not +be the equivalents of acts. Life itself is fleeting, but words +remain and are put to our account. Every action, it is true, is +as old as man and never perishes without an heir. But so are words +as old as man, and they are conservative and stern in their treatment +of transitory life. Every action seems new and unique to the doer, +but how rarely does it seem so when it is recorded in words, how rarely +perhaps it is possible for it to seem so. A new form of literature +cannot be invented to match the most grand or most lovely life. +And fortunately; for if it could, one more proof of the ancient lineage +of our life would have been lost. Borrow did not sacrifice the +proof. He had read many books in many languages, and he had a +strong taste. He liked “Gil Blas,” which is a simple +chain of various and surprising adventures. He liked the lives +of criminals in the “Newgate Lives and Trials” (or rather +“Celebrated Trials,” 1825), which he compiled for a publisher +in his youth.</p> +<p>“What struck me most,” he said, “with respect to +these lives was the art which the writers, whoever they were, possessed +<!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>of +telling a plain story. It is no easy thing to tell a story plainly +and distinctly by mouth; but to tell one on paper is difficult indeed, +so many snares lie in the way. People are afraid to put down what +is common on paper, they seek to embellish their narrative, as they +think, by philosophic speculations and reflections; they are anxious +to shine, and people who are anxious to shine, can never tell a plain +story. ‘So I went with them to a music booth, where they +made me almost drunk with gin, and began to talk their flash language, +which I did not understand,’ says, or is made to say, Henry Simms, +executed at Tyburn some seventy years before the time of which I am +speaking. I have always looked upon this sentence as a masterpiece +of the narrative style, it is so concise and yet so very clear.”</p> +<p>Borrow read Bunyan, Sterne and Smollett: he liked Byron’s “Childe +Harold” and his “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte”;—he +liked that portrait with all Europe and all history for a background. +Above all, he read Defoe, and in the third chapter of “Lavengro” +he has described his first sight of “Robinson Crusoe” as +a little child:</p> +<p>“The first object on which my eyes rested was a picture; it +was exceedingly well executed, at least the scene which it represented +made a vivid impression upon me, which would hardly have been the case +had the artist not been faithful to nature. A wild scene it was—a +heavy sea and rocky shore, with mountains in the background, above which +the moon was peering. Not far from the shore, upon the water, +was a boat with two figures in it, one of which stood at the bow, pointing +with what I knew to be a gun at a dreadful shape in the water; fire +was flashing from the muzzle of the gun, and the monster appeared to +be transfixed. I almost thought I heard its cry. I remained +motionless, gazing upon the picture, scarcely daring to draw my breath, +lest the new and wondrous world should vanish of which I had now obtained +a glimpse. ‘Who <!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>are +those people, and what could have brought them into that strange situation?’ +I asked myself; and now the seed of curiosity, which had so long lain +dormant, began to expand, and I vowed to myself to become speedily acquainted +with the whole history of the people in the boat. After looking +on the picture till every mark and line in it were familiar to me, I +turned over various leaves till I came to another engraving; a new source +of wonder—a low sandy beach on which the furious sea was breaking +in mountain-like billows; cloud and rack deformed the firmament, which +wore a dull and leaden-like hue; gulls and other aquatic fowls were +toppling upon the blast, or skimming over the tops of the maddening +waves—‘Mercy upon him! he must be drowned!’ I exclaimed, +as my eyes fell upon a poor wretch who appeared to be striving to reach +the shore; he was upon his legs, but was evidently half smothered with +the brine; high above his head curled a horrible billow, as if to engulf +him for ever. ‘He must be drowned! he must be drowned!’ +I almost shrieked, and dropped the book. I soon snatched it up +again, and now my eye lighted on a third picture; again a shore, but +what a sweet and lovely one, and how I wished to be treading it; there +were beautiful shells lying on the smooth white sand, some were empty +like those I had occasionally seen on marble mantelpieces, but out of +others peered the heads and bodies of wondrous crayfish; a wood of thick +green trees skirted the beach and partly shaded it from the rays of +the sun, which shone hot above, while blue waves slightly crested with +foam were gently curling against it; there was a human figure upon the +beach, wild and uncouth, clad in the skins of animals, with a huge cap +on his head, a hatchet at his girdle, and in his hand a gun; his feet +and legs were bare; he stood in an attitude of horror and surprise; +his body was bent far back, and his eyes, which seemed starting out +of his head, were fixed <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>upon +a mark on the sand—a large distinct mark—a human footprint!</p> +<p>“Reader, is it necessary to name the book which now stood open +in my hand, and whose very prints, feeble expounders of its wondrous +lines, had produced within me emotions strange and novel? Scarcely, +for it was a book which has exerted over the minds of Englishmen an +influence certainly greater than any other of modern times, which has +been in most people’s hands, and with the contents of which even +those who cannot read are to a certain extent acquainted; a book from +which the most luxuriant and fertile of our modern prose writers have +drunk inspiration; a book, moreover, to which, from the hardy deeds +which it narrates, and the spirit of strange and romantic enterprise +which it tends to awaken, England owes many of her astonishing discoveries +both by sea and land, and no inconsiderable part of her naval glory.</p> +<p>“Hail to thee, spirit of De Foe! What does not my own +poor self owe to thee? England has better bards than either Greece +or Rome, yet I could spare them easier far than De Foe, ‘unabashed +De Foe,’ as the hunchbacked rhymer styled him.”</p> +<p>It was in this manner, he declares, that he “first took to +the paths of knowledge,” and when he began his own “autobiography” +he must have well remembered the opening of “Robinson Crusoe”:—“I +was born in the year 1632, in the City of York, of a good family, though +not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, named Kreutznaer, +who first settled at Hull,” though Borrow himself would have written +it: “I was born in the year 16---, in the City of Y---, of a good +family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, +named Kruschen, who first settled at H---.” Probably he +remembered also that other fictitious autobiography of Defoe’s, +“The Adventures of Captain Singleton,” of the child who +<!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>was +stolen and disposed of to a Gypsy and lived with his good Gypsy mother +until she happened to be hanged, a little too soon for him to be “perfected +in the strolling trade.” Defoe had told him long before +Richard Ford that he need not be afraid of being low. He could +always give the same excuse as Defoe in “Moll Flanders”—“as +the best use is to be made even of the worst story, the moral, ’tis +hoped, will keep the reader serious, even where the story might incline +him to be otherwise.” In fact, Borrow did afterwards claim +that his book set forth in as striking a way as any “the kindness +and providence of God.” Even so, De Quincey suggested as +an excuse in his “Confessions” the service possibly to be +rendered to other opium-eaters. Borrow tells us in the twenty-second +chapter of “Lavengro” how he sought for other books of adventure +like “Robinson Crusoe”—which he will not mention by +name!—and how he read many “books of singular power, but +of coarse and prurient imagination.” One of these, “The +English Rogue,” he describes as a book “written by a remarkable +genius.” He might have remembered in its preface the author +lamenting that, though it was meant for the life of a “witty extravagant,” +readers would regard it as the author’s own life, “and notwithstanding +all that hath been said to the contrary many still continue in this +belief.” He might also have remembered that the apology +for portraying so much vice was that the ugliness of it—“her +<i>vizard-mask</i> being remov’d”—“cannot but +cause in her (<i>quondam</i>) adorers, a <i>loathing</i> instead of +<i>loving</i>.” The dirty hero runs away as a boy and on +the very first day tires of nuts and blackberries and longs “to +taste of the <i>fleshpots</i> again.” He sleeps in a barn +until he is waked, pursued and caught by Gypsies. He agrees to +stay with them, and they have a debauch of eating, drinking and fornication, +which makes him well content to join the “Ragged Regiment.” +They colour his face with walnut <!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>juice +so that he looks a “true son of an Egyptian.” Hundreds +of pages are filled thereafter by tediously dragging in, mostly from +other books, joyless and leering adventures of low dishonesty and low +lust. Another book of the kind which Borrow knew was the life +of Bamfylde Moore-Carew, born in 1693 at a Devonshire rectory. +He hunted the deer with some of his schoolfellows from Tiverton and +they played truant for fear of punishment. They fell in with some +Gypsies feasting and carousing and asked to be allowed to “enlist +into their company.” The Gypsies admitted them after the +“requisite ceremonies” and “proper oaths.” +The philosophy of Carew or his historian is worth noticing. He +says of the Gypsies:</p> +<p>“There are perhaps no people so completely happy as they are, +or enjoy so great a share of liberty. The king is elective by +the whole people, but none are allowed to stand as candidates for that +honour but such as have been long in their society, and perfectly studied +the nature and institution of it; they must likewise have given repeated +proofs of their personal wisdom, courage and capacity; this is better +known as they always keep a public record or register of all remarkable +(either good or bad) actions performed by any of their society, and +they can have no temptation to make choice of any but the most worthy, +as their king has no titles or legislative employments to bestow, which +might influence or corrupt their judgments.</p> +<p>“The laws of these people are few and simple, but most exactly +and punctually observed; the fundamental of which is that strong love +and mutual regard for each member in particular and for the whole community +in general, which is inculcated into them from the earliest infancy. +. . . Experience has shown them that, by keeping up their nice sense +of honour and shame, they are always enabled to keep their community +in better order <!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>than +the most severe corporal punishments have been able to effect in other +governments.</p> +<p>“But what has still more tended to preserve their happiness +is that they know no other use of riches than the enjoyment of them. +They know no other use of it than that of promoting mirth and good humour; +for which end they generously bring their gains into a common stock, +whereby they whose gains are small have an equal enjoyment with those +whose profits are larger, excepting only that a mark or ignominy is +affixed on those who do not contribute to the common stock proportionately +to their abilities and the opportunities they have of gain, and this +is the source of their uninterrupted happiness; fully this means they +have no griping usurer to grind them, no lordly possessor to trample +on them, nor any envyings to torment them; they have no settled habitations, +but, like the Scythian of old, remove from place to place, as often +as their convenience or pleasure requires it, which render their life +a perpetual source of the greatest variety.</p> +<p>“By what we have said above, and much more that we could add +of the happiness of these people and of their peculiar attachment to +each other, we may account for what has been matter of much surprise +to the friends of our hero, viz., his strong attachment, for the space +of about forty years, to this community, and his refusing the large +offers that have been made to quit their society.”</p> +<p>Carew himself met with nothing but success in his various impersonations +of Tom o’ Bedlam, a rat-catcher, a non-juring clergyman, a shipwrecked +Quaker, and an aged woman with three orphan grandchildren. He +was elected King of the Beggars, and lost the dignity only by deliberate +abdication. “The restraints of a town not suiting him after +the free rambling life he had led, he took a house in the country, and +having acquired some property on the decease of a relation, he was in +a position to purchase a <!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>residence +more suited to his taste, and lived for some years a quiet life ‘respected +best by those who knew him best.’”</p> +<p>A very different literary hero of Borrow’s was William Cobbett, +in spite of his radical opinions. Cobbett was a man who wrote, +as it were, with his fist, not the tips of his fingers. When I +begin to read him I think at once of a small country town where men +talk loudly to one another at a distance or as they walk along in opposite +directions, and the voices ring as their heels do on the cobbles. +He is not a man of arguments, but of convictions. He is so full +of convictions that, though not an indolent man, he has no time for +arguments. “On this stiff ground,” he says in North +Wiltshire, “they grow a good many beans and give them to the pigs +with whey; which makes excellent pork for the <i>Londoners</i>; but +which must meet with a pretty hungry stomach to swallow it in Hampshire.” +When he was being shouted down at Lewes in 1822, and someone moved that +he should be put out of the room, he says: “I rose that they might +see the man that they had to put out.” The hand that holds +the bridle holds the pen. The night after he has been hare-hunting—Friday, +November the sixteenth, 1821, at Old Hall, in Herefordshire—he +writes down this note of it:</p> +<p>“A whole day most delightfully passed a hare-hunting, with +a pretty pack of hounds kept here by Messrs. Palmer. They put +me upon a horse that seemed to have been made on purpose for me, strong, +tall, gentle and bold; and that carried me either over or through every +thing. I, who am just the weight of a four-bushel sack of good +wheat, actually sat on her back from daylight in the morning to dusk +(about nine hours) without once setting my foot on the ground. +Our ground was at Orcop, a place about four miles distance from this +place. We found a hare in a few minutes after throwing off; and, +in the course of the day, we had to find four, and were never more than +ten minutes <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>in +finding. A steep and naked ridge, lying between two flat valleys, +having a mixture of pretty large fields and small woods, formed our +ground. The hares crossed the ridge forward and backward, and +gave us numerous views and very fine sport. I never rode on such +steep ground before; and, really, in going up and down some of the craggy +places, where the rain had washed the earth from the rocks, I did think, +once or twice of my neck, and how Sidmouth would like to see me. +As to the <i>cruelty</i>, as some pretend, of this sport, that point +I have, I think, settled, in one of the chapters of my ‘Year’s +Residence in America.’ As to the expense, a pack, even a +full pack of harriers, like this, costs less than two bottles of wine +a day with their inseparable concomitants. And as to the <i>time</i> +spent, hunting is inseparable from <i>early rising</i>; and, with habits +of early rising, who ever wanted time for any business?”</p> +<p>Borrow could not resist this man’s plain living and plain thinking, +or his sentences that are like acts—like blows or strides. +And if he had needed any encouragement in the expression of prejudices, +Cobbett offered it. The following, from “Cottage Economy,” +will serve as an example. It is from a chapter on “Brewing”:—</p> +<p>“The practice of tea drinking must render the frame feeble +and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while, as I have +shown, it deducts from the means of replenishing the belly and covering +the back. Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking +for the fireside, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, all the characteristics +of idleness for which, in his case, real want of strength furnishes +an apology. The tea drinking fills the public-house, makes the +frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys as soon as they are able to +move from home, and does little less for the girls, to whom the gossip +of the teatable is no bad preparatory school for the brothel. +At the very least, <!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>it +teaches them idleness. The everlasting dawdling about with the +slops of the tea-tackle gives them a relish for nothing that requires +strength and activity. When they go from home, they know how to +do nothing that is useful, to brew, to bake, to make butter, to milk, +to rear poultry; to do any earthly thing of use they are wholly unqualified. +To shut poor young creatures up in manufactories is bad enough; but +there at any rate they do something that is useful; whereas the girl +that has been brought up merely to boil the teakettle, and to assist +in the gossip inseparable from the practice, is a mere consumer of food, +a pest to her employer, and a curse to her husband, if any man be so +unfortunate as to fix his affections upon her.</p> +<p>“But is it in the power of any man, any good labourer who has +attained the age of fifty, to look back upon the last thirty years of +his life, without cursing the day in which tea was introduced into England? +Where is there such a man who cannot trace to this cause a very considerable +part of all the mortifications and sufferings of his life? When +was he ever too late at his labour; when did he ever meet with a frown, +with a turning off and with pauperism on that account, without being +able to trace it to the teakettle? When reproached with lagging +in the morning, the poor wretch tells you that he will make up for it +by <i>working during his breakfast time</i>! I have heard this +a hundred and a hundred times over. He was up time enough; but +the teakettle kept him lolling and lounging at home; and now instead +of sitting down to a breakfast upon bread, bacon and beer, which is +to carry him on to the hour of dinner, he has to force his limbs along +under the sweat of feebleness, and at dinner-time to swallow his dry +bread, or slake his half-feverish thirst at the pump or the brook. +To the wretched teakettle he has to return at night with legs hardly +sufficient to maintain him; and then he makes his miserable progress +towards <!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>that +death which he finds ten or fifteen years sooner than he would have +found it had he made his wife brew beer instead of making tea. +If he now and then gladdens his heart with the drugs of the public-house, +some quarrel, some accident, some illness is the probable consequence; +to the affray abroad succeeds an affray at home; the mischievous example +reaches the children, cramps them or scatters them, and misery for life +is the consequence.” As Cobbett wrote against tea so was +Borrow to write against the Pope.</p> +<p>Being a reading and a writing man who had set down all his most substantial +adventures in earlier books, Borrow, says Mr. Thomas Seccombe, had no +choice but “to interpret autobiography as ‘autobiographiction.’” +<a name="citation50"></a><a href="#footnote50">{50}</a> Parts +of the autobiography, he says, are “as accurate and veracious +as John Wesley’s ‘Journal,’ but the way in which the +dingle ingredients” [in the stories of Isopel Berners, the postillion, +and the Man in Black] “are mingled, and the extent to which lies—damned +lies—or facts predominate, will always be a fascinating topic +for literary conjecture.” It must not be forgotten, however, +that Borrow never called the published book his autobiography. +He did something like what I believe young writers often do; he described +events in his own life with modifications for the purpose of concealment +in some cases and of embellishment in others. If he had never +labelled it an autobiography there would have been no mystery, and the +conclusion of readers would be that most of it could not have been invented, +but that the postillion’s story, for example, is a short story +written to embody some facts and some opinions, without any appearance +of being the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If Borrow +made a set of letters to the Bible Society into a book like “Gil +Blas,” he could hardly do <!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>less—especially +when he had been reminded of the fact—with his remoter adventures; +and having taken out dates and names of persons and places he felt free. +He produced his view of himself, as De Quincey did in his “Confessions +of an English Opium Eater.” This view was modified by his +public reputation, by his too potent memory and the need for selection, +by his artistic sense, and by his literary training. So far from +suffering by the two elements, if they are to be separated, of fiction +and autobiography, “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” +gain immensely. The autobiographical form—the use of the +first person singular—is no mere device to attract an interest +and belief as in “Captain Singleton” and a thousand novels. +Again and again we are made perfectly certain that the man could not +have written otherwise. He is sounding his own depths, and out +of mere shyness, at times, uses the transparent amateur trick of pretending +that he was writing of someone else. Years afterwards, when Mr. +Watts-Dunton asked him, “What is the real nature of autobiography?” +he answered in questions: “Is it a mere record of the incidents +of a man’s life? or is it a picture of the man himself—his +character, his soul?”</p> +<h2><!-- page 52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>CHAPTER +VI—THE BIOGRAPHER’S MATERIAL</h2> +<p>“Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” give Borrow’s +character and soul by direct and indirect means. Their truth and +fiction produce a consistent picture which we feel to be true. +Dr. Knapp has shown, where the facts are accessible, that Borrow does +not much neglect, mislay or pervert them. But neither Dr. Knapp +nor anyone else has captured facts which would be of any significance +had Borrow told us nothing himself. Some of the anecdotes lap +a branch here and there; some disclose a little rotten wood or fungus; +others show the might of a great limb, perhaps a knotty protuberance +with a grotesque likeness, or the height of the whole; others again +are like clumsy arrogant initials carved on the venerable bark. +I shall use some of them, but for the most part I shall use Borrow’s +own brush both to portray and to correct.</p> +<h2><!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>CHAPTER +VII—PORTRAITS OF THE ARTIST</h2> +<p>The five works of Borrow’s maturity—from “The Zincali: +or the Gypsies of Spain,” written when he had turned thirty, to +“Wild Wales,” written when he had turned fifty—have +this in common, and perhaps for their chief quality, that of set purpose +and by inevitable accident they reveal Borrow, the body and the spirit +of the man. Together they compose a portrait, if not a small gallery +of portraits. Of these the most deliberate is the one that emerges +from “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.” +In these books, written after he had passed forty, he described the +first twenty-two years of his life, without, so far as is known, using +any notebooks or other contemporary documents. As I have said +before, the literal accuracy of such a description must have been limited +by his power and his willingness to see things as they were. In +some ways there is no greater stranger to the youth of twenty than the +man of forty who was once that youth, and if he overcomes that strangeness +it is often by the perilous process of concealing the strangeness and +the difference. The result is—or is it an individual misfortune +of mine?—that the figure of “Lavengro” seems to me, +more often than not, and on the whole, to be nearer the age of forty +than of twenty. The artist, that is to say, dominates his subject, +the tall overgrown youth of twenty-two, as grey as a badger. It +is very different in “The Bible in Spain,” where artist +and subject are equally matched, and both mature. In <!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>“Lavengro” +there is a roundabout method, a painful poring subtlety and minuteness, +a marvellous combination of Sterne and Defoe, resulting in something +very little like any book written by either man: in “The Bible +in Spain” a straightforward, confident, unqualified revelation +that seems almost unconsidered.</p> +<h2><!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>CHAPTER +VIII—CHILDHOOD</h2> +<p>And now for some raw bones of the life of a man who was born in 1803 +and died in 1881, bones picked white and dry by the winds of thirty, +forty, fifty, and a hundred years.</p> +<p>Thomas Borrow, his father, an eighth and youngest son, was born in +1758 of a yeoman family long and still settled in Cornwall, near Liskeard. +He worked for some time on his brother’s farm. At nineteen +he joined the Militia and was apprenticed to a maltster, but, having +knocked his master down in a free fight at Menheniot Fair in 1783, disappeared +and enlisted as a private in the Coldstream Guards. He was then +a man of fresh complexion and light brown hair, just under five feet +eight inches in height. He was a sergeant when he was transferred +nine years later to the West Norfolk Regiment of Militia. In 1798 +he was promoted to the office of adjutant with the rank of captain. +In 1793 he had married Ann Perfrement, a tenant farmer’s daughter +from East Dereham, and probably of French Protestant descent, whom he +had first met when she was playing a minor part as an amateur at East +Dereham with a company from the Theatre Royal at Norwich. She +had, says Borrow, dark brilliant eyes, oval face, olive complexion, +and Grecian forehead.</p> +<p>The first child of this marriage, John Thomas, was born in 1800. +Borrow describes this elder brother as a beautiful child of “rosy, +angelic face, blue eyes and light chestnut hair,” yet of “not +exactly an Anglo-Saxon countenance,” having something of “the +Celtic character, particularly in <!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>the +fire and vivacity which illumined it.” John was his father’s +favourite. He entered the army and became a lieutenant, but also, +and especially after the end of the war, a painter, studying under B. +R. Haydon and old Crome. He went out to Mexico in the service +of a mining company in 1826, and died there in 1834.</p> +<p>George Borrow was born in 1803 at another station of the regiment, +East Dereham. He calls himself a gloomy child, a “lover +of nooks and retired corners . . . sitting for hours together with my +head on my breast . . . conscious of a peculiar heaviness within me, +and at times of a strange sensation of fear, which occasionally amounted +to horror, and for which I could assign no real cause whatever.” +A maidservant thought him a little wrong in the head, but a Jew pedlar +rebuked her for saying so, and said the child had “all the look +of one of our people’s children,” and praised his bright +eyes. With the regiment he travelled along the Sussex and Kent +coast during the next four years. They were at Pett in 1806, and +there he tells us that he first handled a viper, fearless and unharmed. +In 1806 also they were at Hythe, where he saw the skulls of the Danes. +They were at Canterbury in 1807, and near there was the scene of his +eating the “green, red, and purple” berries from the hedge +and suffering convulsions. They were, says Dr. Knapp, from the +regimental records, never at Winchester, but at Winchelsea. In +1809 and 1810 they were back at Dereham, which was then the home of +Eleanor Fenn, his “Lady Bountiful,” widow of the editor +of the “Paston Letters,” Sir John Fenn. He had “increased +rapidly in size and in strength,” but not in mind, and could read +only imperfectly until “Robinson Crusoe” drew him out. +He went to church twice on Sundays, and never heard God’s name +without a tremor, “for I now knew that God was an awful and inscrutable +being, the maker of all things; that we <!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>were +His children, and that we, by our sins, had justly offended Him; that +we were in very great peril from His anger, not so much in this life +as in another and far stranger state of being yet to come; that we had +a Saviour withal to whom it was necessary to look for help: upon this +point, however, I was yet very much in the dark, as, indeed, were most +of those with whom I was connected. The power and terrors of God +were uppermost in my thoughts; they fascinated though they astounded +me.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page57.jpg"> +<img alt="Borrow’s birth-place, East Dereham, Norfolk. Photo: H. T. Cave, East Dereham" src="images/page57.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Later in 1810 he was at Norman Cross, in Huntingdonshire, and was +free to wander alone by Whittlesea Mere. There he met the old +viper-hunter and herbalist, into whose mouth he puts the tale of the +King of the Vipers. There he met the Gypsies. He answered +their threats with a viper that had lain hid in his breast; they called +him “Sapengro, a chap who catches snakes and plays tricks with +them.” He was sworn brother to Jasper, the son, who despised +him for being puny.</p> +<p>The Borrows were at Dereham again in 1811, and George went to school +“for the acquisition of Latin,” and learnt the whole of +Lilly’s Grammar by heart. Other marches of the regiment +left him time to wonder at that “stupendous erection, the aqueduct +at Stockport”—to visit Durham and “a capital old inn” +there, where he had “a capital dinner off roast Durham beef, and +a capital glass of ale, which I believe was the cause of my being ever +after fond of ale”—so he told the Durham miner whom he met +on his way to the Devil’s Bridge, in Cardiganshire—and to +attend school at Huddersfield in 1812 and at Edinburgh in 1813 and 1814.</p> +<p>He mentions the frequent fights at the High School and the pitched +battles between the Old and the New Town. Climbing the Castle +Rock was his favourite diversion, and on one “horrible edge” +he came upon David Haggart sitting and thinking of William Wallace:</p> +<p><!-- page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>“And +why were ye thinking of him?” Borrow says that he asked the lad. +“The English hanged him long since, as I have heard say.”</p> +<p>“I was thinking,” he answered, “that I should wish +to be like him.”</p> +<p>“Do ye mean,” Borrow says that he said, “that ye +would wish to be hanged?”</p> +<p>This youth was a drummer boy in Captain Borrow’s regiment. +Borrow describes him upsetting the New Town champion in one of the bickers. +Seven years later he was condemned to death at Edinburgh, and to earn +a little money for his mother he dictated an account of his life to +the prison chaplain before he died. It was published in 1821 with +the title: “The Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias +John Morison, alias Barney M’Coul, alias John M’Colgan, +alias David O’Brien, alias the Switcher. Written by himself, +while under sentence of death.” It is worth reading, notable +in itself and for its style.</p> +<p>He was a gamekeeper’s son, and being a merry boy was liberally +tipped by sportsmen. Yet he ran away from home at the age of ten. +One of his first exploits was the stealing of a bantam cock. It +belonged to a woman at the back of the New Town of Edinburgh, says he, +and he took a great fancy to it, “for it was a real beauty and +I offered to <i>buy</i>, but mistress would not <i>sell</i>, so I got +another cock, and set the two a fighting, and then off with my prize.” +This is like Mr. W. B. Yeats’ Paddy Cockfight in “Where +there is nothing”; he got a fighting cock from a man below Mullingar—“The +first day I saw him I fastened my eyes on him, he preyed on my mind, +and next night if I didn’t go back every foot of nine miles to +put him in my bag.” When he was twelve he got drunk at the +Leith races and enlisted in the Norfolk Militia, which had a recruiting +party for patriots at the races. “I learned,” he says, +“to beat the drum very well in the course of three <!-- page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>months, +and afterwards made considerable progress in blowing the bugle-horn. +I liked the red coat and the soldiering well enough for a while, but +soon tired. We were too much confined, and there was too little +pay for me;” and so he got his discharge. “The restraining +influences of military discipline,” says Dr. Knapp, “gradually +wore away.” He went back to school even, but in vain. +He was “never happier in his life” than when he “fingered +all this money”—£200 acquired by theft. He worked +at his trade of thieving in many parts of Scotland and Ireland. +As early as 1818 he was sentenced to death, but escaped, and, being +recognised by a policeman, killed him and got clear away. He served +one or two sentences and escaped from another. He escaped a third +time, with a friend, after hitting the gaoler in such a manner that +he afterwards died. The friend was caught at once, but David ran +well—“never did a fox double the hounds in better style”—and +got away in woman’s clothes. As he was resting in a haystack +after his run of ten miles in an hour, he heard a woman ask “if +that lad was taken that had broken out of Dumfries Gaol,” and +the answer: “No; but the gaoler died last night at ten o’clock.” +He got arrested in Ireland through sheer carelessness, was recognised +and taken in irons to Dumfries again—and so he died.</p> +<p>In 1814 and 1815 Borrow was for a time at the Grammar School at Norwich, +but sailed with the regiment “in the autumn of the year 1815” +for Ireland. “On the eighth day of our voyage,” he +says, “we were in sight of Ireland. The weather was now +calm and serene, the sun shone brightly on the sea and on certain green +hills in the distance, on which I descried what at first sight I believed +to be two ladies gathering flowers, which, however, on our near approach, +proved to be two tall white towers, doubtless built for some purpose +or other, though I did not learn for what.” He was at “the +Protestant Academy” at Clonmel, and <!-- page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>“read +the Latin tongue and the Greek letters with a nice old clergyman.” +From a schoolfellow he learnt something of the Irish tongue in exchange +for a pack of cards.</p> +<p>School, he says, had helped him to cast aside, in a great degree, +his unsocial habits and natural reserve, and when he moved to Templemore, +where there was no school, he roamed about the wild country, “sometimes +entering the cabins of the peasantry with a ‘God’s blessing +upon you good people!’” Here, as in Scotland, he seems +to have done as he liked. His father had other things to do than +look after the child whom he was later on to upbraid for growing up +in a displeasing way. Ireland made a strong impression upon the +boy, if we may judge from his writing about it when he looked back on +those days. He recalls, in “Wild Wales,” hearing the +glorious tune of “Croppies lie Down” in the barrack yard +at Clonmel. Again and again he recalls Murtagh, the wild Irish +boy who taught him Irish for a pack of cards. In Ireland he learnt +to be “a frank rider” without a saddle, and had awakened +in him his “passion for the equine race”: and here he had +his cob shoed by a “fairy smith” who first roused the animal +to a frenzy by uttering a strange word “in a sharp pungent tone,” +and then calmed it by another word “in a voice singularly modified +but sweet and almost plaintive.” Above all there is a mystery +which might easily be called Celtic about his memories of Ireland, due +chiefly to something in his own blood, but also to the Irish atmosphere +which evoked that something in its perfection.</p> +<p>After less than a year in Ireland the regiment was back at Norwich, +and war being at an end, the men were mustered out in 1815.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page61b.jpg"> +<img alt="Borrow’s Court, Norwich. Photo: Jarrold & Sons, Norwich" src="images/page61s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>CHAPTER +IX—SCHOOLDAYS</h2> +<p>The Borrows now settled at Norwich in what was then King’s +Court and is now Borrow’s Court, off Willow Lane. George +Borrow, therefore, again attended the Grammar School of Norwich. +He could then, he says, read Greek. His father’s dissatisfaction +was apparently due to some instinctive antipathy for the child, who +had neither his hair nor his eyes, but was “absolutely swarthy, +God forgive me! I had almost said like that of a Gypsy.” +As in Scotland and Ireland, so now at Norwich, Captain Borrow probably +let the boy do what he liked. As for Mrs. Borrow, perhaps she +favoured the boy, who took after her in eyes and complexion, if not +also in temperament. Her influence was of an unconscious kind, +strengthening her prenatal influence; unlike her husband, she had no +doubt that “Providence” would take care of the boy. +Borrow, at least, thought her like himself. In a suppressed portion +of the twentieth chapter of “Lavengo” he makes his parents +talk together in the garden, and the mother having a story to tell suggests +their going in because it is growing dark. The father says that +a tale of terror is the better for being told in the dark, and hopes +she is not afraid. The mother scoffs at the mention of fear, and +yet, she says, she feels a thrill as if something were casting a cold +shadow on her. She wonders if this feeling is like the indescribable +fear, “which he calls the shadow,” which sometimes attacks +her younger child. “Never mind the child or his shadow,” +says the father, and bids her go on. And from what follows the +mother has evidently told the story before to her son. This <!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>dialogue +may very well express the contrast between husband and wife and their +attitudes towards their younger son. Borrow very eloquently addresses +his father as “a noble specimen of those strong single-minded +Englishmen, who, without making a parade either of religion or loyalty, +feared God and honoured their king, and were not particularly friendly +to the French,” and as a pugilist who almost vanquished the famous +Ben Bryan; but he does not conceal the fact that he was “so little +to thee that thou understoodst me not.”</p> +<p>At Norwich Grammar School Borrow had as schoolfellows James Martineau +and James Brooke, afterwards Rajah of Sarawak. The headmaster +was one Edward Valpy, who thrashed Borrow, and there is nothing more +to be said. The boy was fond of study but not of school. +“For want of something better to do,” he taught himself +some French and Italian, but wished he had a master. A master +was found in a French <i>émigré</i>, the Rev. Thomas D’Eterville, +who gave private lessons to Borrow, among others, in French, Italian +and Spanish. His other teachers were an old musket with which +he shot bullfinches, blackbirds and linnets, a fishing rod with which +he haunted the Yare, and the sporting gent, John Thurtell, who taught +him to box and accustomed him to pugilism.</p> +<p>Something is known of Thurtell apart from Borrow. He was the +son of a man who was afterwards Mayor of Norwich. He had been +a soldier and he was now in business. He arranged prize fights +and boxed himself. He afterwards murdered a man who had dishonestly +relieved him of £400 at gambling, and he was executed for the +offence at Hertford in 1824. The trial was celebrated. It +was there that a “respectable” man was defined by a witness +as one who “kept a gig.” The trial was included in +the “Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence” +which Borrow compiled <!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>in +1825; and Borrow may have written this description of the accused:</p> +<p>“Thurtell was dressed in a plum-coloured frock coat, with a +drab waistcoat and gilt buttons, and white corded breeches. His +neck had a black stock on, which fitted as usual stiffly up to the bottom +of the cheek and end of the chin, and which therefore pushed forward +the flesh on this part of the face so as to give an additionally sullen +weight to the countenance. The lower part of the face was unusually +large, muscular and heavy, and appeared to hang like a load to the head, +and to make it drop like the mastiff’s jowl. The upper lip +was long and large, and the mouth had a severe and dogged appearance. +His nose was rather small for such a face, but it was not badly shaped; +his eyes, too, were small and buried deep under his protruding forehead, +so indeed as to defy detection of their colour. The forehead was +extremely strong, bony and knotted—and the eyebrows were forcibly +marked though irregular—that over the right eye being nearly straight +and that on the left turning up to a point so as to give a very painful +expression to the whole face. His hair was of a good lightish +brown, and not worn after any fashion. His frame was exceedingly +well knit and athletic.”</p> +<p>An eye witness reports that seven hours before his execution, Thurtell +said: “It is perhaps wrong in my situation, but I own I should +like to read Pierce Egan’s account of the great fight yesterday” +(meaning that between Spring and Langan). He slept well through +his last night, and said: “I have dreamt many odd things, but +I never dreamt anything about <i>this business</i> since I have been +in Hertford.” Pierce Egan described the trial and execution, +and how Thurtell bowed in a friendly and dignified manner to someone—“we +believe, Mr. Pierce Egan”—in the crowd about the gallows. +Pierce Egan did not mention the sound of his cracking neck, but Borrow +is reported to have said <!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>it +was a shame to hang such a man as Thurtell: “Why, when his neck +broke it went off like a pistol.”</p> +<p>Thurtell is the second of Borrow’s friends who preceded him +in fame.</p> +<p>During his school days under Valpy, Borrow met his sworn brother +again—the Gypsy Petulengro. He places this meeting at the +Tombland Fair at Norwich, and Dr. Knapp fixes it, precisely, on March +19, 1818. According to Borrow’s account, which is the only +one, he was shadowed and then greeted by Jasper Petulengro. They +went together to the Gypsy encampment on Household Heath, and they were +together there often again, in spite of the hostility of one Gypsy, +Mrs. Herne, to Borrow. He says that he went with them to fairs +and markets and learnt their language in spite of Mrs. Herne, so that +they called him Lav-engro, or Word Master. The mighty Tawno Chikno +also called him Cooro-mengro, because of his mastery with the fist. +He was then sixteen. He is said to have stained his face to darken +it further, and to have been asked by Valpy: “Is that jaundice +or only dirt, Borrow?”</p> +<h2><!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>CHAPTER +X—LEAVING SCHOOL</h2> +<p>With so much liberty Borrow desired more. He played truant +and, as we have seen, was thrashed for it. He was soon to leave +school for good, though there is nothing to prove that he left on account +of this escapade, or that the thrashing produced the “symptoms +of a rapid decline,” with a failure of strength and appetite, +which he speaks of in the eighteenth chapter of “Lavengro,” +after the Gypsies had gone away. He was almost given over by the +physicians, he tells us, but cured by an “ancient female, a kind +of doctress,” with a decoction of “a bitter root which grows +on commons and desolate places.” An attack of “the +dark feeling of mysterious dread” came with convalescence.</p> +<p>But “never during any portion of my life did time flow on more +speedily,” he says, than during the next two or three years. +After some hesitation between Church and Law, he was articled in 1819 +to Messrs. Simpson and Rackham, solicitors, of Tuck’s Court, St. +Giles’, Norwich, and he lived with Simpson in the Upper Close. +As a friend said, the law was an excellent profession for those who +never intend to follow it. As Borrow himself said, “I have +ever loved to be as explicit as possible; on which account, perhaps, +I never attained to any proficiency in the law.” Borrow +sat faithfully at his desk and learned a good deal of Welsh, Danish, +Hebrew, Arabic, Gaelic, and Armenian, making translations from these +languages in prose and verse. In “Wild Wales” he recalls +translating Danish poems “over the desk of his ancient master, +the gentleman solicitor of East Anglia,” and learning Welsh by +reading <!-- page 66--><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>a +Welsh “Paradise Lost” side by side with the original, and +by having lessons on Sunday afternoons at his father’s house from +a groom named Lloyd.</p> +<p>His chief master was William Taylor, the “Anglo-Germanist” +of “Lavengro.” Taylor was born in 1765. He studied +in Germany as a youth and returned to England with a great enthusiasm +for German literature. He translated Goethe’s “Iphigenia” +(1793), Lessing’s “Nathan” (1791), Wieland’s +“Dialogues of the Gods,” etc. (1795); he published “Tales +of Yore,” translated from several languages, and a “Letter +concerning the two first chapters of Luke,” in 1810, “English +Synonyms discriminated” in 1813, and an “Historical Survey +of German Poetry,” interspersed with various translations, in +1823-30. He was bred among Unitarians, read Hume, Voltaire and +Rousseau, disliked the Church, and welcomed the French Revolution, though +he was no friend to “the cause of national ambition and aggrandisement.” +He belonged to a Revolution Society at Norwich, and in 1790 wrote from +Paris calling the National Assembly “that well-head of philosophical +legislation, whose pure streams are now overflowing the fairest country +upon earth and will soon be sluiced off into the other realms of Europe, +fertilising all with the living energy of its waters.” In +1791 he and his father withdrew their capital from manufacture and William +Taylor devoted himself to literature. Hazlitt speaks of the “style +of philosophical criticism which has been the boast of the ‘Edinburgh +Review,’” as first introduced into the “Monthly Review” +by Taylor in 1796. Scott said that Taylor’s translation +of Burger’s “Lenore” made him a poet. Sir James +Mackintosh learned the Taylorian language for the sake of the man’s +“vigour and originality”—“As the Hebrew is studied +for one book, so is the Taylorian by me for one author.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page66b.jpg"> +<img alt="William Taylor, of Norwich" src="images/page66s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>I +will give a few hints at the nature of his speculation. In one +of his letters he speaks of stumbling on “the new hypothesis that +the Nebuchadnezzar of Scripture is the Cyrus of Greek History,” +and second, that “David, the Jew, a favourite of this prince, +wrote all those oracles scattered in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel relative +to his enterprises, for the particularisation of which they afford ample +materials.” Writing of his analysis, in the “Critical +Review,” of Paulus’ Commentary on the New Testament, he +blames the editor for a suppression—“an attempt to prove, +from the first and second chapter of Luke, that Zacharias, who wrote +these chapters, meant to hold himself out as the father of Jesus Christ +as well as of John the Baptist. The Jewish idea of being conceived +of the Holy Ghost did not exclude the idea of human parentage. +The rabbinical commentator on Genesis explains this.” He +was called “Godless Billy Taylor,” but says he: “When +I publish my other pamphlet in proof of the great truth that Jesus Christ +wrote the ‘Wisdom’ and translated the ‘Ecclesiasticus’ +from the Hebrew of his grandfather Hillel, you will be convinced (that +I am convinced) that I and I alone am a precise and classical Christian; +the only man alive who thinks concerning the person and doctrines of +Christ what he himself thought and taught.” His “Letter +concerning the two first chapters of Luke” has the further title, +“Who was the father of Christ?” He calls “not +absolutely indefensible” the opinion of the anonymous German author +of the “Natural History of Jesus of Nazareth,” that Joseph +of Arimathæa was the father of Jesus Christ. He mentions +that “a more recent anonymous theorist, with greater plausibility, +imagines that the acolytes employed in the Temple of Jerusalem were +called by the names of angels, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, accordingly +as they were stationed behind, beside, or before, the mercy-seat; and +that the Gabriel of the Temple found means to <!-- page 68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>impose +on the innocence of the virgin.” “This,” he +says, “is in many ways compatible with Mary’s having faithfully +given the testimony put together by Luke.” He gives at great +length the arguments in favour of Zacharias as the father, and tells +Josephus’ story of Mundus and Paulina. <a name="citation68"></a><a href="#footnote68">{68}</a></p> +<p>Norwich was then “a little Academe among provincial cities,” +as Mr. Seccombe calls it; he continues:</p> +<p>“Among the high lights of the illuminated capital of East Anglia +were the Cromes, the Opies, John Sell Cotman, Elizabeth Fry, Dr. William +Enfield (of Speaker fame), and Dr. Rigby, the father of Lady Eastlake; +but pre-eminent above all reigned the twin cliques of Taylors and Martineaus, +who amalgamated at impressive intervals for purposes of mutual elevation +and refinement.</p> +<p>“The salon of Susannah Taylor, the mother of Sarah Austin, +the wife of John Taylor, hymn writer and deacon of the seminal chapel, +the once noted Octagon, in Norwich, included in its zenith Sir James +Mackintosh, Mrs. Barbauld, Crabb Robinson, the solemn Dr. John Alderson, +Amelia Opie, Henry Reeve of Edinburgh fame, Basil Montagu, the Sewards, +the Quaker Gurneys of Earlham, and Dr. Frank Sayers, whom the German +critics compared to Gray, who had handled the Norse mythology in poetry, +to which Borrow was introduced by Sayer’s private biographer, +the eminent and aforesaid William Taylor” [no relation of <i>the</i> +“Taylors of Norwich”] “whose ‘Jail-delivery +of German Studies’ the jealous Thomas Carlyle stigmatized in 1830 +as the work of a natural-born English Philistine.”</p> +<p>Nevertheless, in spite of <i>the</i> Taylors and the Martineaus, +says William Taylor’s biographer, Robberds: “The love of +society almost necessarily produces the habit of indulging in the pleasures +of the table; and, though he cannot be charged with having carried this +to an <!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>immoderate +excess, still the daily repetition of it had taxed too much the powers +of nature and exhausted them before the usual period.” Taylor +died in 1836 and was remembered best for his drinking and for his bloated +appearance. Harriet Martineau wrote of him in her autobiography:</p> +<p>“William Taylor was managed by a regular process, first of +feeding, then of wine-bibbing, and immediately after of poking to make +him talk: and then came his sayings, devoured by the gentlemen and making +ladies and children aghast;—defences of suicide, avowals that +snuff alone had rescued him from it: information given as certain that +‘God Save the King’ was sung by Jeremiah in the Temple of +Solomon,—that Christ was watched on the day of His supposed ascension, +and observed to hide Himself till dark, and then to make His way down +the other side of the mountain; and other such plagiarisms from the +German Rationalists. When William Taylor began with ‘I firmly +believe,’ we knew that something particularly incredible was coming. +. . . His virtues as a son were before our eyes when we witnessed his +endurance of his father’s brutality of temper and manners, and +his watchfulness in ministering to the old man’s comfort in his +infirmities. When we saw, on a Sunday morning, William Taylor +guiding his blind mother to chapel, and getting her there with her shoes +as clean as if she had crossed no gutters in those flint-paved streets, +we could forgive anything that had shocked or disgusted us at the dinner +table. But matters grew worse in his old age, when his habits +of intemperance kept him out of the sight of the ladies, and he got +round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they +could set the world right by their destructive tendencies. One +of his chief favourites was George Borrow. . . .”</p> +<p>Another of “the harum-scarum young men” taken up by <!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>Taylor +and introduced “into the best society the place afforded,” +writes Harriet Martineau, was Polidori.</p> +<p>Borrow was introduced to Taylor in 1820 by “Mousha,” +the Jew who taught him Hebrew. Taylor “took a great interest” +in him and taught him German. “What I tell Borrow <i>once</i>,” +he said, “he ever remembers.” In 1821 Taylor wrote +to Southey, who was an early friend:</p> +<p>“A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller’s +‘Wilhelm Tell,’ with the view of translating it for the +Press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he has learnt German +with extraordinary rapidity; indeed he has the gift of tongues, and, +though not yet eighteen, understands twelve languages—English, +Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish, French, Italian, +Spanish and Portuguese; he would like to get into the Office for Foreign +Affairs, but does not know how.”</p> +<p>Borrow was at that time a “reserved and solitary” youth, +tall, spare, dark complexioned and usually dressed in black, who used +to be seen hanging about the Close and talking through the railings +of his garden to some of the Grammar School boys. He was a noticeable +youth, and he told his father that a lady had painted him and compared +his face to that of Alfieri’s Saul.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page70b.jpg"> +<img alt="Tuck’s Court, Norwich. Photo: Jarrold & Sons, Norwich" src="images/page70s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Borrow pleased neither his master nor his father by his knowledge +of languages, though it was largely acquired in the lawyer’s office. +“The lad is too independent by half,” Borrow makes his father +say, after painting a filial portrait of the old man, “with locks +of silver gray which set off so nobly his fine bold but benevolent face, +his faithful consort at his side, and his trusty dog at his feet.” +Nor did the youth please himself. He was languid again, tired +even of the Welsh poet, Ab Gwilym. He was anxious about his father, +who was low spirited over his elder son’s absence in London as +a painter, and over his younger son’s misconduct and the “strange +notions and doctrines”—especially <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>the +doctrine that everyone has a right to dispose as he thinks best of that +which is his own, even of his life—which he had imbibed from Taylor. +Taylor was “fond of getting hold of young men and, according to +orthodox accounts, doing them a deal of harm.” <a name="citation71a"></a><a href="#footnote71a">{71a}</a> +His views, says Dr. Knapp, sank deep “into the organism of his +pupil,” and “would only be eradicated, if at all, through +much suffering.” Dr. Knapp thought that the execution of +Thurtell ought to have produced a “favourable change in his mode +of thinking”—as if prize fighting and murder were not far +more common among Christians than atheists. But if Borrow had +never met Taylor he would have met someone else, atheist or religious +enthusiast, who would have lured him from the straight, smooth, flowery +path of orthodoxy; otherwise he might have been a clergyman or he might +have been Dr. Knapp, but he would not have been George Borrow. +“What is truth?” he asked. “Would that I had +never been born!” he said to himself. And it was an open +air ranter, not a clergyman or unobtrusive godly man, that made him +exclaim: “Would that my life had been like his—even like +that man’s.” Then the Gypsy reminded him of “the +wind on the heath” and the boxing gloves.</p> +<p>When his father asked Borrow what he proposed to do, <a name="citation71b"></a><a href="#footnote71b">{71b}</a> +seeing that he was likely to do nothing at law, he had nothing to suggest. +Southey apparently could not help him to the Foreign Office. The +only opening that can have seemed possible to him was literature. +He might, for example, produce a volume of translations like the “Specimen +of Russian Poets” (1820) of John Bowring, whom he met at Taylor’s. +Bowring, a man of twenty-nine in 1821, was the head of a commercial +firm and afterwards a friend of Borrow and the author of many translations +from <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>Russian, +Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Servian, Hungarian and Bohemian song. +He was, as the “Old Radical” of “The Romany Rye,” +Borrow’s victim in his lifetime, and after his death the victim +of Dr. Knapp as the supposed false friend of his hero. The mud +thrown at him had long since dried, and has now been brushed off in +a satisfactory manner by Mr. R. A. J. Walling. <a name="citation72"></a><a href="#footnote72">{72}</a></p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page72b.jpg"> +<img alt="Tom Shelton, Jack Randall" src="images/page72s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>CHAPTER +XI—LITERATURE AND LANGUAGES</h2> +<p>When Borrow was in his nineteenth year—according to Dr. Knapp’s +estimate—he told his father what he had done: “I have learned +Welsh, and have translated the songs of Ab Gwilym, some ten thousand +lines, into English rhyme. I have also learnt Danish, and have +rendered the old book of Ballads into English metre. I have learned +many other tongues, and have acquired some knowledge even of Hebrew +and Arabic.” He read and conversed with William Taylor; +he read alone in the Guildhall of Norwich, where the Corporation Library +offered him the books from which he gained “his knowledge of Anglo-Saxon +and early English, Welsh or British, Northern or Scandinavian learning”—so +writes Dr. Knapp, who has seen the “neat young pencilled notes” +of Borrow in Edmund Lhuyd’s ‘Archæologia Britannica’ +and the ‘Danica Literatura Antiquissima’ of Olaus Wormius, +etc. He tells us himself that he passed entire nights in reading +an old Danish book, till he was almost blind.</p> +<p>In 1823 Borrow began to publish his translations. Taylor introduced +him to Thomas Campbell, then editor of the “New Monthly,” +and to Sir Richard Phillips, editor and proprietor of the “Monthly +Magazine.” Both editors printed Borrow’s works.</p> +<p>Sir Richard Phillips was particularly flattering: he used Borrow’s +article on “Danish Poetry and Ballad Writing” and about +six hundred lines of translation from German, Danish, Swedish and Dutch +poetry in the first year of the connection, usually with the signature, +“George Olaus <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>Borrow.” +I will quote only one specimen, his version of Goethe’s “Erl +King” (“Monthly Magazine,” December, 1823):</p> +<blockquote><p>Who is it that gallops so late on the wild!<br /> +O it is the father that carries his child!<br /> +He presses him close in his circling arm,<br /> +To save him from cold, and to shield him from harm.</p> +<p>“Dear baby, what makes ye your countenance hide?”<br /> +“Spur, father, your courser and rowel his side;<br /> +The Erl-King is chasing us over the heath;”<br /> +“Peace, baby, thou seest a vapoury wreath?”</p> +<p>“Dear boy, come with me, and I’ll join in your sport,<br /> +And show ye the place where the fairies resort;<br /> +My mother, who dwells in the cool pleasant mine<br /> +Shall clothe thee in garments so fair and so fine.”</p> +<p>“My father, my father, in mercy attend,<br /> +And hear what is said by the whispering fiend.”<br /> +“Be quiet, be quiet, my dearly-loved child;<br /> +’Tis naught but the wind as it stirs in the wild.”</p> +<p>“Dear baby, if thou wilt but venture with me,<br /> +My daughter shall dandle thy form on her knee;<br /> +My daughter, who dwells where the moon-shadows play,<br /> +Shall lull ye to sleep with the song of the fay.”</p> +<p>“My father, my father, and seest thou not<br /> +His sorceress daughter in yonder dark spot?”<br /> +“I see something truly, thou dear little fool,—<br /> +I see the great alders that hang by the pool.”</p> +<p>“Sweet baby, I doat on that beautiful form,<br /> +And thou shalt ride with me the wings of the storm.”<br /> +“O father, my father, he grapples me now,<br /> +And already has done me a mischief, I vow.”</p> +<p>The father was terrified, onward he press’d,<br /> +And closer he cradled the child to his breast,<br /> +And reach’d the far cottage, and, wild with alarm,<br /> +He found that the baby hung dead on his arm!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The only criticism that need be passed on this is that any man of +some intelligence and patience can hope to do as well: he seldom wrote +any verse that was either much better or much worse. At the same +time it must not be <!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>forgotten +that the success of the translation is no measure of the impression +made on the young Borrow by the legend.</p> +<p>His translations from Ab Gwilym are not interesting either to lovers +of that poet or to lovers of Borrow: some are preserved in a sort of +life in death in the pages of “Wild Wales.”</p> +<p>From the German he had also translated F. M. Von Klinger’s +“Faustus: his life, death and descent into hell.” +<a name="citation75a"></a><a href="#footnote75a">{75a}</a> The +preface announces that “although scenes of vice and crime are +here exhibited, it is merely in the hope that they may serve as beacons, +to guide the ignorant and unwary from the shoals on which they might +otherwise be wrecked.” He insisted, furthermore, that the +book contained “the highly useful advice,” that everyone +should bear their lot in patience and not seek “at the expense +of his repose to penetrate into those secrets which the spirit of man, +while dressed in the garb of mortality cannot and must not unveil. . +. . To the mind of man all is dark; he is an enigma to himself; let +him live, therefore, in the hope of once seeing clearly; and happy indeed +is he who in that manner passeth his days.”</p> +<p>From the Danish of Johannes Evald, he translated “The Death +of Balder,” a play, into blank verse with consistently feminine +endings, as in this speech of Thor to Balder: <a name="citation75b"></a><a href="#footnote75b">{75b}</a></p> +<blockquote><p>How long dost think, degenerate son of Odin,<br /> +Unmanly pining for a foolish maiden,<br /> +And all the weary train of love-sick follies,<br /> +Will move a bosom that is steel’d by virtue?<br /> +Thou dotest! Dote and weep, in tears swim ever;<br /> +But by thy father’s arm, by Odin’s honour,<br /> +<!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>Haste, +hide thy tears and thee in shades of alder!<br /> +Haste to the still, the peace-accustom’d valley,<br /> +Where lazy herdsmen dance amid the clover.<br /> +There wet each leaf which soft the west wind kisses,<br /> +Each plant which breathes around voluptuous odours,<br /> +With tears! There sigh and moan, and the tired peasant<br /> +Shall hear thee, and, behind his ploughshare resting,<br /> +Shall wonder at thy grief, and pity Balder!</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There are lyrics interspersed. The following is sung by three +Valkyries marching round the cauldron before Rota dips the fatal spear +that she is to present to Hother:</p> +<blockquote><p>In juice of rue<br /> +And trefoil too;<br /> +In marrow of bear<br /> + And blood of Trold,<br /> +Be cool’d the spear,<br /> + Threetimes cool’d,<br /> +When hot from blazes<br /> +Which Nastroud raises<br /> + For Valhall’s May.</p> +<p>1st Valk. Whom it woundeth,<br /> +It shall slay.</p> +<p>2nd Whom it woundeth,<br /> +It shall slay.</p> +<p>3rd Whom it woundeth,<br /> +It shall slay.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In 1826 he was to publish “Romantic Ballads,” translated +from the Gaelic, Danish, Norse, Swedish, and German, with eight original +pieces. He “hoped shortly” to publish a complete translation +of the “Kjæmpe Viser” and of Gaelic songs, made by +him “some years ago.” Few of these are valuable or +interesting, but I must quote “Svend Vonved” because Borrow +himself so often refers to it. The legend haunted him of “that +strange melancholy Swayne Vonved, who roams about the world propounding +people riddles; slaying those who cannot answer, and rewarding those +who <!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>can +with golden bracelets.” When he was walking alone in wild +weather in Cornwall he roared it aloud:</p> +<blockquote><p>Svend Vonved sits in his lonely bower;<br /> +He strikes his harp with a hand of power;<br /> +His harp returned a responsive din;<br /> +Then came his mother hurrying in:<br /> + Look out, look out, Svend Vonved.</p> +<p>In came his mother Adeline,<br /> +And who was she, but a queen so fine:<br /> +“Now hark, Svend Vonved! out must thou ride<br /> +And wage stout battle with knights of pride.”<br /> + Look out, look out, Svend Vonved.</p> +<p>“Avenge thy father’s untimely end;<br /> +To me, or another, thy gold harp lend;<br /> +This moment boune thee, and straight begone!<br /> +I rede thee, do it, my own dear son.”<br /> + Look out, look out, Svend Vonved.</p> +<p>Svend Vonved binds his sword to his side;<br /> +He fain will battle with knights of pride.<br /> +“When may I look for thee once more here?<br /> +When roast the heifer and spice the beer?”<br /> + Look out, look out, Svend Vonved.</p> +<p>“When stones shall take, of themselves, a flight<br /> +And ravens’ feathers are waxen white,<br /> +Then may’st thou expect Svend Vonved home:<br /> +In all my days, I will never come.”<br /> + Look out, look out, Svend Vonved.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If we did not know that Borrow used these verses as a kind of incantation +we should be sorry to have read them. But one of the original +pieces in this book is as good in itself as it is interesting. +I mean “Lines to Six-foot-three”:</p> +<blockquote><p>A lad, who twenty tongues can talk,<br /> +And sixty miles a day can walk;<br /> +Drink at a draught a pint of rum,<br /> +And then be neither sick nor dumb;<br /> +Can tune a song, and make a verse,<br /> +And deeds of northern kings rehearse;<br /> +Who never will forsake his friend,<br /> +While he his bony fist can bend;<br /> +And, though averse to brawl and strife,<br /> +Will fight a Dutchman with a knife.<br /> +O that is just the lad for me,<br /> +And such is honest six-foot three.</p> +<p><!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>A +braver being ne’er had birth<br /> +Since God first kneaded man from earth;<br /> +O, I have come to know him well,<br /> +As Ferroe’s blacken’d rocks can tell.<br /> +Who was it did, at Suderöe,<br /> +The deed no other dared to do?<br /> +Who was it, when the Boff had burst,<br /> +And whelm’d me in its womb accurst,<br /> +Who was it dashed amid the wave,<br /> +With frantic zeal, my life to save?<br /> +Who was it flung the rope to me?<br /> +O, who, but honest six-foot three!</p> +<p>Who was it taught my willing tongue,<br /> +The songs that Braga fram’d and sung?<br /> +Who was it op’d to me the store<br /> +Of dark unearthly Runic lore,<br /> +And taught me to beguile my time<br /> +With Denmark’s aged and witching rhyme;<br /> +To rest in thought in Elvir shades,<br /> +And hear the song of fairy maids;<br /> +Or climb the top of Dovrefeld,<br /> +Where magic knights their muster held!<br /> +Who was it did all this for me?<br /> +O, who, but honest six-foot three!</p> +<p>Wherever fate shall bid me roam,<br /> +Far, far from social joy and home;<br /> +’Mid burning Afric’s desert sands;<br /> +Or wild Kamschatka’s frozen lands;<br /> +Bit by the poison-loaded breeze<br /> +Or blasts which clog with ice the seas;<br /> +In lowly cot or lordly hall,<br /> +In beggar’s rags or robes of pall,<br /> +’Mong robber-bands or honest men,<br /> +In crowded town or forest den,<br /> +I never will unmindful be<br /> +Of what I owe to six-foot three.</p> +<p>That form which moves with giant grace—<br /> +That wild, tho’ not unhandsome face;<br /> +That voice which sometimes in its tone<br /> +Is softer than the wood-dove’s moan,<br /> +At others, louder than the storm<br /> +Which beats the side of old Cairn Gorm;<br /> +That hand, as white as falling snow,<br /> +Which yet can fell the stoutest foe;<br /> +And, last of all, that noble heart,<br /> +Which ne’er from honour’s path would start,<br /> +Shall never be forgot by me—<br /> +So farewell, honest six-foot three.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>This +is already pure Borrow, with a vigour excusing if not quite transmuting +its rant. He creates a sort of hero in his own image, and it should +be read as an introduction and invocation to “Lavengro” +and “The Romany Rye.” It is one of the few contemporary +records of Borrow at about the age when he wrote “Celebrated Trials,” +made horse-shoes and fought the Blazing Tinman. So far as I know, +it was more than ten years before he wrote anything so good again, and +he never wrote anything better in verse, unless it is the song of the +“genuine old English gentleman,” in the twenty-fourth chapter +of “Lavengro”:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Give me the haunch of a buck to eat, and to drink +Madeira old,<br /> +And a gentle wife to rest with, and in my arms to fold,<br /> +An Arabic book to study, a Norfolk cob to ride,<br /> +And a house to live in shaded with trees, and near to a river side;<br /> +With such good things around me, and blessed with good health withal,<br /> +Though I should live for a hundred years, for death I would not call.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The only other verse of his which can be remembered for any good +reason is this song from the Romany, included among the translations +from thirty languages and dialects which he published, in 1835, with +the title of “Targum,” and the appropriate motto: “The +raven has ascended to the nest of the nightingale.” The +Gypsy verses are as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>The strength of the ox,<br /> +The wit of the fox,<br /> +And the leveret’s speed,—<br /> +Full oft to oppose<br /> +To their numerous foes,<br /> +The Rommany need.</p> +<p>Our horses they take,<br /> +Our waggons they break,<br /> +And ourselves they seize,<br /> +In their prisons to coop,<br /> +Where we pine and droop,<br /> +For want of breeze.</p> +<p><!-- page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>When +the dead swallow<br /> +The fly shall follow<br /> +O’er Burra-panee,<br /> +Then we will forget<br /> +The wrongs we have met<br /> +And forgiving be.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It will not be necessary to say anything more about Borrow’s +verses. Poetry for him was above all declamatory sentiment or +wild narrative, and so he never wrote, and perhaps never cared much +for poetry, except ballads and his contemporary Byron. He desired, +as he said in the note to “Romantic Ballads,” not the merely +harmonious but the grand, and he condemned the modern muse for “the +violent desire to be smooth and tuneful, forgetting that smoothness +and tunefulness are nearly synonymous with tameness and unmeaningness.” +He once said of Keats: “They are attempting to resuscitate him, +I believe.” He regarded Wordsworth as a soporific merely.</p> +<h2><!-- page 81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>CHAPTER +XII—LONDON</h2> +<p>Early in 1824, and just before George Borrow’s articles with +the solicitors expired, Captain Borrow died. He left all that +he had to his widow, with something for the maintenance and education +of the younger son during his minority. Borrow had already planned +to go to London, to write, to abuse religion and to get himself prosecuted. +A month later, the day after the expiration of his articles, before +he had quite reached his majority, he went up to London. He was +“cast upon the world” in no very hopeful condition. +He had lately been laid up again—was it by the “fear” +or something else?—by a complaint which destroyed his strength, +impaired his understanding and threatened his life, as he wrote to a +friend: he was taking mercury for a cure. But he had his translations +from Ab Gwilym and his romantic ballads, and he believed in them. +He took them to Sir Richard Phillips, who did not believe in them, and +had moreover given up publishing. According to his own account, +which is very well known (Lavengro, chapter XXX.), Sir Richard suggested +that he should write something in the style of the “Dairyman’s +Daughter” instead.</p> +<p>Men of this generation, fortunate at least in this ignorance, probably +think of the “Dairyman’s Daughter” as a fictitious +title, like the “Oxford Review” (which stood for “The +Universal Review”) and the “Newgate Lives” (which +should have been “Celebrated Trials,” etc.). But such +a book really was published in 1811. It was an “authentic +narrative” by a clergyman of the Church of <!-- page 82--><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>England +named Legh Richmond, who thought it “delightful to trace and discover +the operations of Divine love among the poorer classes of mankind.” +The book was about the conversion and holy life and early death of a +pale, delicate, consumptive dairyman’s daughter in the Isle of +Wight. It became famous, was translated into many languages, and +was reprinted by some misguided or malevolent man not long ago. +I will give a specimen of the book which the writer of “Six-foot-three” +was asked to imitate:</p> +<p>“Travellers, as they pass through the country, usually stop +to inquire whose are the splendid mansions which they discover among +the woods and plains around them. The families, titles, fortune, +or character of the respective owners, engage much attention. . . . +In the meantime, the lowly cottage of the poor husbandman is passed +by as scarcely deserving of notice. Yet, perchance, such a cottage +may often contain a treasure of infinitely more value than the sumptuous +palace of the rich man; even “the pearl of great price.” +If this be set in the heart of the poor cottager, it proves a jewel +of unspeakable value, and will shine among the brightest ornaments of +the Redeemer’s crown, in that day when he maketh up his “jewels.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page82b.jpg"> +<img alt="Sir Richard Phillips. (From the painting by James Saxon in The National Portrait Gallery.) Photo: Emery Walker" src="images/page82s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Hence, the Christian traveller, while he bestows, in common +with others, his due share of applause on the decorations of the rich, +and is not insensible to the beauties and magnificence which are the +lawfully allowed appendages of rank and fortune, cannot overlook the +humbler dwelling of the poor. And if he should find that true +piety and grace beneath the thatched roof, which he has in vain looked +for amidst the worldly grandeur of the rich, he remembers the word of +God. . . . He sees, with admiration, that ‘the high and lofty +One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the +high and holy place, dwelleth with <i>him also</i> that is of a contrite +and <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>humble +spirit,’ Isaiah lvii., 15; and although heaven is his throne, +and the earth his footstool, yet when a home is to be built, and a place +of rest to be sought for himself, he says, ‘To this man will I +look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth +at my word,’ Isaiah lxvi., 1, 2. When a home is thus tenanted, +faith beholds this inscription written on the walls, <i>The Lord lives +here</i>. Faith, therefore, cannot pass it by unnoticed, but loves +to lift up the latch of the door, and sit down, and converse with the +poor, though perhaps despised, inhabitant. Many a sweet interview +does faith obtain when she thus takes her walks abroad. Many such +a sweet interview have I myself enjoyed beneath the roof where dwelt +the Dairyman and his little family.</p> +<p>“I soon perceived that his daughter’s health was rapidly +on the decline. The pale, wasting consumption, which is the Lord’s +instrument for removing so many thousands every year from the land of +the living, made hasty strides on her constitution. The hollow +eye, the distressing cough, and the often too flattering red on the +cheek, foretold the approach of death.</p> +<p>“I have often thought what a field for usefulness and affectionate +attention, on the part of ministers and Christian friends, is opened +by the frequent attacks and lingering progress of <i>consumptive</i> +illness. How many such precious opportunities are daily lost, +where Providence seems in so marked a way to afford time and space for +serious and Godly instruction! Of how many may it be said: ‘The +way of peace have they not known’; for not one friend ever came +nigh to warn them to ‘flee from the wrath to come.’</p> +<p>“But the Dairyman’s Daughter was happily made acquainted +with the things which belonged to her everlasting peace before the present +disease had taken root in her constitution. In my visits to her +I might be said rather <!-- page 84--><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>to +receive information than to impart it. Her mind was abundantly +stored with Divine truths, and her conversations truly edifying. +The recollection of it still produces a thankful sensation in my heart.”</p> +<p>Nevertheless, when Borrow had bought a copy of this book he was willing +to do what was asked, and to attempt also to translate into German Phillips’ +“Proximate Causes of the Material Phenomena of the Universe,” +or what the translator called “his tale of an apple and a pear.” +But Phillips changed his mind about the “Dairyman’s Daughter” +and commissioned a compilation of “Newgate Lives and Trials” +instead. Borrow failed with the translation of the “Proximate +Causes” but liked very well the compiling of the “Celebrated +Trials”—of Joan of Arc, Cagliostro, Mary Queen of Scots, +Raleigh, the Gunpowder Plotters, Queen Caroline, Thurtell, the Cato +Street Conspirators, and many more—in six volumes. He also +wrote reviews for Phillips’ Magazine, and contributed more translations +of poetry and many scraps of “Danish Traditions and Superstitions,” +like the following:</p> +<p>“At East Hessing, in the district of Calling, there was once +a rural wedding; and when the morning was near at hand, the guests rushed +out of the house with much noise and tumult. When they were putting +their horses to the carts, in order to leave the place, each of them +boasted and bragged of his bridal present. But when the uproar +was at the highest, and they were all speaking together, a maiden dressed +in green, and with a bulrush plaited over her head, came from a neighbouring +morass, and going up to the fellow who was noisiest and bragged most +of his bridal gift, she said, ‘What will you give to Lady Bœ?’ +The boor, who was half intoxicated from the brandy and ale he had swallowed, +seized a whip, and answered, ‘Three strokes of my waggon-whip.’ +But at the same moment he fell a corpse to the ground.”</p> +<p><!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>If +translation like this is journeyman’s work for the journeyman, +for Borrow it was of great value because it familiarised him with the +marvellous and the supernatural and so helped him towards the expression +of his own material and spiritual adventures. The wild and often +other-worldly air of much of his work is doubtless due to his wild and +other-worldly mind, but owes a considerable if uncertain debt to his +reading of ballads and legends, which give a little to the substance +of his work and far more to the tone of it. Among other things +translated at this time he mentions the “Saga of Burnt Njal.”</p> +<p>He was not happy in London. He had few friends there, and perhaps +those he had only disturbed without sweetening his solitude. One +of these was a Norwich friend, named Roger Kerrison, who shared lodgings +with him at 16, Millman Street, Bedford Row. Borrow confided in +Kerrison, and had written to him before leaving Norwich in terms of +perhaps unconsciously worked-up affection. But Borrow’s +low spirits in London were more than Kerrison could stand. When +Borrow was proposing a short visit to Norwich his friend wrote to John +Thomas Borrow, suggesting that he should keep his brother there for +a time, or else return with him, for this reason. Borrow had “repeatedly” +threatened suicide, and unable to endure his fits of desperation Kerrison +had gone into separate lodgings: if his friend were to return in this +state and find himself alone he would “again make some attempt +to destroy himself.” Nothing was done, so far as is known, +and he did not commit suicide. It is a curious commentary on the +work of hack writers that this youth should have written as a note to +his translation of “The Suicide’s Grave,” <a name="citation85"></a><a href="#footnote85">{85}</a> +that it was not translated for its sentiments but for its poetry; “although +the path of human life is rough <!-- page 86--><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>and +thorny, the mind may always receive consolation by looking forward to +the world to come. The mind which rejects a future state has to +thank itself for its utter misery and hopelessness.” His +malady was youth, aggravated, the food reformer would say, by eating +fourteen pennyworth of bread and cheese at a meal, and certainly aggravated +by literary ambition.</p> +<p>Judging from the thirty-first chapter of “Lavengro,” +he was exceptionally sensitive at this time to all impressions—probably +both pleasant and unpleasant. He describes himself on his first +day gazing at the dome of St. Paul’s until his brain became dizzy, +and he thought the dome would fall and crush him, and he shrank within +himself, and struck yet deeper into the heart of the big city. +He stood on London Bridge dazed by the mighty motion of the waters and +the multitude of men and “horses as large as elephants. +There I stood, just above the principal arch, looking through the balustrade +at the scene that presented itself—and such a scene! Towards +the left bank of the river, a forest of masts, thick and close, as far +as the eye could reach; spacious wharfs, surmounted with gigantic edifices; +and, far away, Cæsar’s Castle, with its White Tower. +To the right, another forest of masts, and a maze of buildings, from +which, here and there, shot up to the sky chimneys taller than Cleopatra’s +Needle, vomiting forth huge wreaths of that black smoke which forms +the canopy—occasionally a gorgeous one—of the more than +Babel city. Stretching before me, the troubled breast of the mighty +river, and, immediately below, the main whirlpool of the Thames—the +Maelstrom of the bulwarks of the middle arch—a grisly pool, which, +with its superabundance of horror, fascinated me. Who knows but +I should have leapt into its depths?—I have heard of such things—but +for a rather startling occurrence which broke the spell. As I +stood upon the bridge, gazing into the jaws of the <!-- page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>pool, +a small boat shot suddenly through the arch beneath my feet. There +were three persons in it; an oarsman in the middle, whilst a man and +woman sat at the stern. I shall never forget the thrill of horror +which went through me at this sudden apparition. What!—a +boat—a small boat—passing beneath that arch into yonder +roaring gulf! Yes, yes, down through that awful water-way, with +more than the swiftness of an arrow, shot the boat, or skiff, right +into the jaws of the pool. A monstrous breaker curls over the +prow—there is no hope; the boat is swamped, and all drowned in +that strangling vortex. No! the boat, which appeared to have the +buoyancy of a feather, skipped over the threatening horror, and the +next moment was out of danger, the boatman—a true boatman of Cockaigne, +that—elevating one of his skulls in sign of triumph, the man hallooing, +and the woman, a true Englishwoman that—of a certain class—waving +her shawl. Whether any one observed them save myself, or whether +the feat was a common one, I know not; but nobody appeared to take any +notice of them. As for myself, I was so excited, that I strove +to clamber up the balustrade of the bridge, in order to obtain a better +view of the daring adventurers. Before I could accomplish my design, +however, I felt myself seized by the body, and, turning my head, perceived +the old fruit-woman, who was clinging to me.”</p> +<p>On this very day, in his account, he first met the “fiery, +enthusiastic and open-hearted,” pleasure-loving young Irishman, +whom he calls Francis Ardry, who took him to the theatre and to “the +strange and eccentric places of London,” and no doubt helped to +give him the feeling of “a regular Arabian Nights’ entertainment.” +C. G. Leland <a name="citation87"></a><a href="#footnote87">{87}</a> +tells a story told to him by one who might have been the original of +Ardry. The story is the only independent <!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>evidence +of Borrow’s London life. This “old gentleman” +had been in youth for a long time the most intimate friend of George +Borrow, who was, he said, a very wild and eccentric youth. “One +night, when skylarking about London, Borrow was pursued by the police, +as he wished to be, even as Panurge so planned as to be chased by the +night-watch. He was very tall and strong in those days, a trained +shoulder-hitter, and could run like a deer. He was hunted to the +Thames, and there they thought they had him. But the Romany Rye +made for the edge, and leaping into the wan water, like the Squyre in +the old ballad, swam to the other side, and escaped.”</p> +<p>It is no wonder he “did not like reviewing at all,” especially +as he “never could understand why reviews were instituted; works +of merit do not require to be reviewed, they can speak for themselves, +and require no praising; works of no merit at all will die of themselves, +they require no killing.” He forgot “The Dairyman’s +Daughter,” and he could not foresee the early fate of “Lavengro” +itself. He preferred manlier crime and riskier deception to reviewing. +As he read over the tales of rogues, he says, he became again what he +had been as a boy, a necessitarian, and could not “imagine how, +taking all circumstances into consideration, these highwaymen, these +pickpockets, should have been anything else than highwaymen and pickpockets.”</p> +<p>These were the days of such books as “The Life and Extraordinary +Adventures of Samuel Denmore Hayward, denominated the Modern Macheath, +who suffered at the Old Bailey, on Tuesday, November 27, 1821, for the +Crime of Burglary,” by Pierce Egan, embellished with a highly-finished +miniature by Mr. Smart, etched by T. R. Cruikshank; and a facsimile +of his handwriting. London, 1822.”</p> +<p>It is a poor book, and now has descendants lower in the <!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>social +scale. It pretends to give “a most awful but useful lesson +to the rising generation” by an account of the criminal whose +appearance as a boy “was so superior to other boys of his class +in life as to have the look of a gentleman’s child.” +He naturally became a waiter, and “though the situation did not +exactly accord with his ambition, it answered his purpose, because it +afforded him an opportunity of studying <i>character</i>, and being +in the company of gentlemen.” He was “a generous high-minded +fellow towards the ladies,” and became the fancy man of someone +else’s mistress, living “in the style of a gentleman <i>solely</i> +at the expense of the beautiful Miss ---.” His “unembarrassed +and gentlemanly” behaviour survived even while he was being searched, +and he entered the chapel before execution “with a firm step, +accompanied with the most gentlemanly deportment.” The end +came nevertheless: “Bowing to the sheriffs and the few persons +around him with all the manners of an accomplished gentleman, he ascended +the drop with a firmness that astonished everyone present; and resigned +his eventful life without scarce a struggle.”</p> +<p>The moral was the obvious one. “His talents were his +misfortunes.” The biographer pretends to believe that, though +the fellow lived in luxury, he must always have had a harassed mind; +the truth being that he himself would have had a harassed mind if he +had played so distinguished a part. “The chequered life +of that young man,” he says, “abounding with incidents and +facts almost incredible, and scarcely ever before practised with so +much art and delusion in so short a period, impressively points out +the danger arising from the possession of <i>great talents</i> when +perverted or <i>misapplied</i>.”</p> +<p>He points out, furthermore, how vice sinks before virtue. “For +instance, view the countenances of thieves, who are regaling themselves +on the most expensive liquors, laughing <!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>and +singing, how they are changed in an instant by the appearance of police +officers entering a room in search of them. . . .”</p> +<p>Finally, “let the youth of London bear in mind that honesty +is the best policy. . . .</p> +<p>“In this happy country, where every individual has an opportunity +of raising himself to the highest office in the State, what might the +abilities of the unfortunate Hayward have accomplished for him if he +had not deviated from the paths of virtue? There is no place like +London in the world where a man of talents meets with so much encouragement +and liberality; his society is courted, and his presence gives a weight +to any company in which he appears; if supported by a good character.”</p> +<p>But the crime was the thing. Of a different class was John +Hamilton Reynolds’ “The Fancy.” This book, published +in 1820, would have wholly delighted Borrow. I will quote the +footnote to the “Lines to Philip Samson, the Brummagem Youth”:</p> +<p>“Of all the great men of this age, in poetry, philosophy, or +pugilism, there is no one of such transcendent talent as Randall;—no +one who combines the finest natural powers with the most elegant and +finished acquired ones. The late Professor Stewart (who has left +the learned ring) is acknowledged to be clever in philosophy, but he +is a left-handed metaphysical fighter at best, and cannot be relied +upon at closing with his subject. Lord Byron is a powerful poet, +with a mind weighing fourteen stone; but he is too sombre and bitter, +and is apt to lose his temper. Randall has no defect, or at best +he has not yet betrayed the appearance of one. His figure is remarkable, +when <i>peeled</i>, for its statue-like beauty, and nothing can equal +the alacrity with which he uses either hand, or the coolness with which +he <i>receives</i>. His goodness on his legs, Boxiana (a Lord +Eldon in the skill and caution of his judgments) assures us, <!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>is +unequalled. He doubles up an opponent, as a friend lately declared, +as easily as though he were picking a flower or pinching a girl’s +cheek. He is about to fight Jos. Hudson, who challenged +him lately at the Royal Tennis Court. Randall declared, that ‘though +he had declined fighting, he would <i>accommodate Joshua</i>’; +a kind and benevolent reply, which does equal honour to his head and +heart. The editor of this little volume, like Goldfinch in the +‘Road to Ruin,’ ‘would not stay away for a thousand +pounds.’ He has already looked about for a tall horse and +a taxed cart, and he has some hopes of compassing a drab coat and a +white hat, for he has no wish to appear singular at such scenes.”</p> +<p>Reynolds, like Borrow, was an admirer of Byron, and he anticipated +Borrow in the spirit of his remark to John Murray that the author’s +trade was contemptible compared with the jockey’s. At that +moment it was unquestionably so. Soon even reviewing failed. +The “Universal Review” died at the beginning of 1825, and +Borrow seems to have quarrelled with Phillips because some Germans had +found the German of his translation as unintelligible as he had found +the publisher’s English. He had nothing left but his physical +strength, his translations, and a very little money. When he had +come down to half-a-crown, he says, he thought of accepting a patriotic +Armenian’s invitation to translate an Armenian work into English; +only the Armenian went away.</p> +<h2><!-- page 92--><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>CHAPTER +XIII—“JOSEPH SELL”</h2> +<p>Then, on a fair day on Blackheath, he met Mr. Petulengro again who +said he looked ill and offered him the loan of £50, which he would +not accept, nor his invitation to join the band. Dr. Knapp confidently +gives the date of May 12 to this incident because that is the day of +the annual fair. Then seeing an advertisement: “A Novel +or Tale is much wanted,” outside a bookseller’s shop, Borrow +wrote “The Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller.” +Did he? Dr. Knapp thinks he did, but that the story had another +name, and is to be sought for in such collections of 1825 and 1826 as +“Watt’s Literary Souvenir.” As Borrow speaks +of the materials of it having come from his own brain, and as Dr. Knapp +says he could not invent, why not conclude that it was autobiographical?</p> +<p>There is no evidence except that the account sounds true, and might +very well be true. Dr. Knapp thinks that he wrote this book, and +that he did many other things which he said he did, because wherever +there is any evidence it corroborates Borrow’s statements except +in small matters of names and dates. In the earlier version of +“Lavengro,” represented by a manuscript and a proof, “Ardry” +is “Arden,” “Jasper” is “Ambrose,” +and the question “What is his name?” is answered by “Thurtell,” +instead of a blank. Now there was an Ambrose Smith whom Borrow +knew, and Thurtell was such a man as he describes in search of a place +for the fight. Therefore, Dr. Knapp would be inclined to say that +<!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>Borrow +did know a young man named Arden. And, furthermore, as Isopel +is called Elizabeth in that earlier version, Isopel did exist, but her +name was Elizabeth: she was, says Mr. Watts-Dunton, “really an +East Anglian road girl” (not a Gypsy) “of the finest type, +known to the Boswells and remembered not many years ago.” +And speaking of Isopel—there is a story still to be heard at Long +Melford of a girl “who lived on the green and ran away with the +Gypsy,” in about the year 1825. With this may possibly be +connected another story: of a young painter of dogs and horses who was +living at Melford in 1805 and seduced either one or two sisters of the +warden of the hospital or almshouse, and had two illegitimate children, +one at any rate a girl. The Great House was one used, but not +built, for a workhouse: it stood near the vicarage at Melford, but has +now disappeared, and apparently its records with it.</p> +<p>Borrow did not invent, says Knapp, which is absurd. Some of +his reappearances, recognitions and coincidences must be inventions. +The postillion’s tale must be largely invention. But it +is not fair or necessary to retort as Hindes Groome did: “Is the +Man in Black then also a reality, and the Reverend Mr. Platitude? +In other words, did Tractarianism exist in 1825, eight years before +it was engendered by Keble’s sermon?” For Borrow was +unscrupulous or careless about time and place. But it is fair +and necessary to say, as Hindes Groome did, that some of the unverities +in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” are “probably +due to forgetfulness,” the rest to “love of posing, but +much more to an honest desire to produce an amusing and interesting +book.” <a name="citation93a"></a><a href="#footnote93a">{93a}</a> +Borrow was a great admirer of the “Memoirs” <a name="citation93b"></a><a href="#footnote93b">{93b}</a> +of Vidocq,” principal agent of the French police till 1827—now +proprietor of the paper <!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>manufactory +at St. Maude,” and formerly showman, soldier, galley slave, and +highwayman. Of this book the editor says:</p> +<p>“It is not our province or intention to enter into a discussion +of the veracity of Vidocq’s “Memoirs”: be they true +or false, were they purely fiction from the first chapter to the last, +they would, from fertility of invention, knowledge of human nature, +and easy style, rank only second to the novels of Le Sage.”</p> +<p>It was certainly with books such as this in his mind that Borrow +composed his autobiography, but it goes so much deeper that it is at +every point a revelation, usually of actual events and emotions, always +of thought and taste. In these “Memoirs” of Vidocq +there is a man named Christian, or Caron, with a reputation for removing +charms cast on animals, and he takes Vidocq to his Gypsy friends at +Malines:</p> +<p>“Having traversed the city, we stopped in the Faubourg de Louvain, +before a wretched looking house with blackened walls, furrowed with +wide crevices, and many bundles of straw as substitutes for window glasses. +It was midnight, and I had time to make my observations by the moonlight, +for more than half an hour elapsed before the door was opened by one +of the most hideous old hags I ever saw in my life. We were then +introduced to a long room where thirty persons of both sexes were indiscriminately +smoking and drinking, mingling in strange and licentious positions. +Under their blue loose frocks, ornamented with red embroidery, the men +wore blue velvet waistcoats with silver buttons, like the Andalusian +muleteers; the clothing of the women was all of one bright colour; there +were some ferocious countenances amongst them, but yet they were all +feasting. The monotonous sound of a drum, mingled with the howling +of two dogs tied under the table, accompanied the strange songs, which +<!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>I +mistook for a funeral psalm. The smoke of tobacco and wood which +filled this den, scarcely allowed me to perceive in the midst of the +room a woman, who, adorned with a scarlet turban, was performing a wild +dance with the most wanton postures.”</p> +<p>Dr. Knapp, on insufficient evidence, attributes the translation to +Borrow. But certainly Borrow might have incorporated this passage +in his own work almost word for word without justifying a charge either +of plagiarism or untruth. Other men had written fiction as if +it were autobiography; he was writing autobiography as if it were fiction; +he used his own life as a subject for fiction. Ford crudely said +that Borrow “coloured up and poetised” his adventures.</p> +<h2><!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>CHAPTER +XIV—OUT OF LONDON</h2> +<p>If Borrow is taken literally, he was at Blackheath on May 12, 1825, +sold his “Life of Joseph Sell” on the 20th, and left London +on the 22nd. “For some months past I had been far from well, +and my original indisposition, brought on partly by the peculiar atmosphere +of the Big City, partly by anxiety of mind, had been much increased +by the exertions which I had been compelled to make during the last +few days. I felt that, were I to remain where I was, I should +die, or become a confirmed valetudinarian. I would go forth into +the country, travelling on foot, and, by exercise and inhaling pure +air, endeavour to recover my health, leaving my subsequent movements +to be determined by Providence.”</p> +<p>He says definitely in the appendix to “The Romany Rye,” +that he fled from London and hack-authorship for “fear of a consumption.” +Walking on an unknown road out of London the “poor thin lad” +felt tired at the ninth milestone, and thought of putting up at an inn +for the night, but instead took the coach to ---, <i>i.e.</i>, Amesbury.</p> +<p>The remaining ninety chapters of “Lavengro” and “The +Romany Rye” are filled by the story of the next four months of +Borrow’s life and by stories told to him during that period. +The preceding fifty-seven chapters had sufficed for twenty-two years. +“The novelty” of the new itinerant life, says Mr. Thomas +Seccombe, <a name="citation96"></a><a href="#footnote96">{96}</a> “graved +every <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>incident +in the most vivid possible manner upon the writer’s recollection.” +After walking for four days northwest from Salisbury he met an author, +a rich man who was continually touching things to avert the evil chance, +and with him he stayed the night. On the next day he bought a +pony and cart from the tinker, Jack Slingsby, with the purpose of working +on the tinker’s beat and making horse-shoes. After some +days he was visited down in a Shropshire dingle by a Gypsy girl, who +poisoned him at the instigation of his enemy, old Mrs. Herne. +Only the accidental appearance of the Welsh preacher, Peter Williams, +saved him. Years afterwards, in 1854, it may be mentioned here, +he told a friend in Cornwall that his fits of melancholy were due to +the poison of a Gypsy crone. He spent a week in the company of +the preacher and his wife, and was about to cross the Welsh border with +them when Jasper Petulengro reappeared, and he turned back. Jasper +told him that Mrs. Herne had hanged herself out of disappointment at +his escape from her poison. This made it a point of honour for +Jasper to fight Borrow, whose bloody face satisfied him in half an hour: +he even offered Borrow his sister Ursula for a wife. Borrow refused, +and settled alone in Mumper’s Dingle, which was perhaps Mumber +Lane, five miles from Willenhall in Staffordshire. <a name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97">{97}</a> +Here he fought the Flaming Tinman, who had driven Slingsby out of his +beat. The Tinman brought with him his wife and Isopel Berners, +the tall fair-haired girl who struck Borrow first with her beauty and +then with her right arm. Isopel stayed with Borrow after the defeat +of the Tinman, and their companionship in the dingle fills a very large +part of “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye,” with +interruptions and diversions from the Man in Black, the gin-drinking +priest, who was then at work undermining the Protestantism <!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>of +old England. Isopel stood by him when suffering from “indescribable +horror,” and recommended “ale, and let it be strong.” +Borrow makes her evidently inclined to marry him; for example, when +she says that if she goes to America she will go alone “unless—unless +that should happen which is not likely,” and when he says “. +. . If I had the power I would make you queen of something better than +the dingle—Queen of China. Come, let us have tea,” +and “‘Something less would content me,’ said Belle, +sighing, as she rose to prepare our evening meal”—and when +at the postillion’s suggestion of a love affair, she buries her +face in her hands. “She would sigh, too,” he says, +“as I recounted the many slights and degradations I had received +at the hands of ferocious publishers.” In one place Borrow +says: “I am, of course, nothing to her, but she is mistaken in +thinking she is nothing to me.” Borrow represents himself +as tyrannically imposing himself upon the girl as teacher of Armenian, +enlivening the instruction with the one mild <i>double entendre</i>, +of “I decline a mistress.” At times they seem on terms +of as perfect good fellowship as ever was, with a touch of post-matrimonial +indifference; but Isopel had fits of weeping and Borrow of listlessness. +Borrow was uncommonly fond of prophetic tragic irony. As he made +Thurtell unconsciously suggest to the reader his own execution, so he +makes Isopel say one day when she is going a journey: “I shall +return once more.” Lavengro starts but thinks no more of +it.</p> +<p>While she was away he began to think: “I began to think, ‘What +was likely to be the profit of my present way of life; the living in +dingles, making pony and donkey shoes, conversing with Gypsy-women under +hedges, and extracting from them their odd secrets?’ What +was likely to be the profit of such a kind of life, even should it continue +for a length of time?—a supposition not very probable, for I was +earning nothing to support me, and the funds with <!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>which +I had entered upon this life were gradually disappearing. I was +living, it is true, not unpleasantly, enjoying the healthy air of heaven; +but, upon the whole, was I not sadly misspending my time? Surely +I was; and, as I looked back, it appeared to me that I had always been +doing so. What had been the profit of the tongues which I had +learned? had they ever assisted me in the day of hunger? No, no! +it appeared to me that I had always misspent my time, save in one instance, +when by a desperate effort I had collected all the powers of my imagination, +and written the ‘Life of Joseph Sell’; but even when I wrote +the ‘Life of Sell,’ was I not in a false position? +Provided I had not misspent my time, would it have been necessary to +make that effort, which, after all, had only enabled me to leave London, +and wander about the country for a time? But could I, taking all +circumstances into consideration, have done better than I had? +With my peculiar temperament and ideas, could I have pursued with advantage +the profession to which my respectable parents had endeavoured to bring +me up? It appeared to me that I could not, and that the hand of +necessity had guided me from my earliest years, until the present night +in which I found myself seated in the dingle, staring on the brands +of the fire. But ceasing to think of the past which, as irrecoverably +gone, it was useless to regret, even were there cause to regret it, +what should I do in future? Should I write another book like the +‘Life of Joseph Sell;’ take it to London, and offer it to +a publisher? But when I reflected on the grisly sufferings which +I had undergone whilst engaged in writing the ‘Life of Sell,’ +I shrank from the idea of a similar attempt; moreover, I doubted whether +I possessed the power to write a similar work—whether the materials +for the life of another Sell lurked within the recesses of my brain? +Had I not better become in reality what I had hitherto been merely playing +at—a tinker or a Gypsy? <!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>But +I soon saw that I was not fitted to become either in reality. +It was much more agreeable to play the Gypsy or the tinker, than to +become either in reality. I had seen enough of gypsying and tinkering +to be convinced of that. All of a sudden the idea of tilling the +soil came into my head; tilling the soil was a healthful and noble pursuit! +but my idea of tilling the soil had no connection with Britain; for +I could only expect to till the soil in Britain as a serf. I thought +of tilling it in America, in which it was said there was plenty of wild, +unclaimed land, of which any one, who chose to clear it of its trees, +might take possession. I figured myself in America, in an immense +forest, clearing the land destined, by my exertions, to become a fruitful +and smiling plain. Methought I heard the crash of the huge trees +as they fell beneath my axe; and then I bethought me that a man was +intended to marry—I ought to marry; and if I married, where was +I likely to be more happy as a husband and a father than in America, +engaged in tilling the ground? I fancied myself in America, engaged +in tilling the ground, assisted by an enormous progeny. Well, +why not marry, and go and till the ground in America? I was young, +and youth was the time to marry in, and to labour in. I had the +use of all my faculties; my eyes, it is true, were rather dull from +early study, and from writing the ‘Life of Joseph Sell’; +but I could see tolerably well with them, and they were not bleared. +I felt my arms, and thighs, and teeth—they were strong and sound +enough; so now was the time to labour, to marry, eat strong flesh, and +beget strong children—the power of doing all this would pass away +with youth, which was terribly transitory. I bethought me that +a time would come when my eyes would be bleared, and perhaps, sightless; +my arms and thighs strengthless and sapless; when my teeth would shake +in my jaws, even supposing they did not drop out. No going a wooing +then—no labouring—<!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>no +eating strong flesh, and begetting lusty children then; and I bethought +me how, when all this should be, I should bewail the days of my youth +as misspent, provided I had not in them founded for myself a home, and +begotten strong children to take care of me in the days when I could +not take care of myself; and thinking of these things, I became sadder +and sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire till my eyes closed in +a doze.”</p> +<p>So, before going to bed, he filled the kettle in case Isopel should +return during the night. He fell asleep and was dreaming hard +and hearing the sound of wheels in his dream “grating amidst sand +and gravel,” when suddenly he awoke. “The next moment +I was awake, and found myself sitting up in my tent; there was a glimmer +of light through the canvas caused by the fire; a feeling of dread came +over me, which was perhaps natural, on starting suddenly from one’s +sleep in that wild lone place; I half imagined that some one was nigh +the tent; the idea made me rather uncomfortable, and to dissipate it +I lifted up the canvas of the door and peeped out, and, lo! I had an +indistinct view of a tall figure standing by the tent. ‘Who +is that?’ said I, whilst I felt my blood rush to my heart. +‘It is I,’ said the voice of Isopel Berners; ‘you +little expected me, I dare say; well, sleep on, I do not wish to disturb +you.’ ‘But I was expecting you,’ said I, recovering +myself, ‘as you may see by the fire and the kettle. I will +be with you in a moment.’</p> +<p>“Putting on in haste the articles of dress which I had flung +off, I came out of the tent, and addressing myself to Isopel, who was +standing beside her cart, I said—‘Just as I was about to +retire to rest I thought it possible that you might come to-night, and +got everything in readiness for you. Now, sit down by the fire +whilst I lead the donkey and cart to the place where you stay; I will +unharness the animal, and presently come and join you.’ +‘I need not <!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>trouble +you,’ said Isopel; ‘I will go myself and see after my things.’ +‘We will go together,’ said I, ‘and then return and +have some tea.’ Isopel made no objection, and in about half +an hour we had arranged everything at her quarters. I then hastened +and prepared tea. Presently Isopel rejoined me, bringing her stool; +she had divested herself of her bonnet, and her hair fell over her shoulders; +she sat down, and I poured out the beverage, handing her a cup. +‘Have you made a long journey to-night?’ said I. ‘A +very long one,’ replied Belle,’ I have come nearly twenty +miles since six o’clock.’ ‘I believe I heard +you coming in my sleep,’ said I; ‘did the dogs above bark +at you?’ ‘Yes,’ said Isopel, ‘very violently; +did you think of me in your sleep?’ ‘No,’ said +I, ‘I was thinking of Ursula and something she had told me.’ +‘When and where was that?’ said Isopel. ‘Yesterday +evening,’ said I, ‘beneath the dingle hedge.’ +‘Then you were talking with her beneath the hedge?’ +‘I was,’ said I, ‘but only upon Gypsy matters. +Do you know, Belle, that she has just been married to Sylvester, so +you need not think that she and I . . . ’ ‘She and +you are quite at liberty to sit where you please,’ said Isopel. +‘However, young man,’ she continued, dropping her tone, +which she had slightly raised, ‘I believe what you said, that +you were merely talking about Gypsy matters, and also what you were +going to say, if it was, as I suppose, that she and you had no particular +acquaintance.’ Isopel was now silent for some time. +‘What are you thinking of?’ said I. ‘I was thinking,’ +said Belle, ‘how exceedingly kind it was of you to get everything +in readiness for me, though you did not know that I should come.’ +‘I had a presentiment that you would come,’ said I; ‘but +you forget that I have prepared the kettle for you before, though it +was true I was then certain that you would come.’ ‘I +had not forgotten your doing so, young man,’ said Belle; ‘but +I was beginning to think that you <!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>were +utterly selfish, caring for nothing but the gratification of your own +strange whims.’ ‘I am very fond of having my own way,’ +said I, ‘but utterly selfish I am not, as I dare say I shall frequently +prove to you. You will often find the kettle boiling when you +come home.’ ‘Not heated by you,’ said Isopel, +with a sigh. ‘By whom else?’ said I; ‘surely +you are not thinking of driving me away?’ ‘You have +as much right here as myself,’ said Isopel, ‘as I have told +you before; but I must be going myself.’ ‘Well,’ +said I, ‘we can go together; to tell you the truth, I am rather +tired of this place.’ ‘Our paths must be separate,’ +said Belle. ‘Separate,’ said I, ‘what do you +mean? I shan’t let you go alone, I shall go with you; and +you know the road is as free to me as to you; besides, you can’t +think of parting company with me, considering how much you would lose +by doing so; remember that you scarcely know anything of the Armenian +language; now, to learn Armenian from me would take you twenty years.’</p> +<p>“Belle faintly smiled. ‘Come,’ said I, ‘take +another cup of tea.’ Belle took another cup of tea, and +yet another; we had some indifferent conversation, after which I arose +and gave her donkey a considerable feed of corn. Belle thanked +me, shook me by the hand, and then went to her own tabernacle, and I +returned to mine.”</p> +<p>He torments her once more with Armenian and makes her speak in such +a way that the reader sees—what he himself did not then see—that +she was too sick with love for banter. She bade him farewell with +the same transparent significance on the next day, when he was off early +to a fair. “I waved my hand towards her. She slowly +lifted up her right arm. I turned away and never saw Isopel Berners +again.” That night as he was going home he said: “Isopel +Berners is waiting for me, and the first word that I shall hear from +her lips is that she has made up her mind. We shall go to America, +and be so happy together.” She sent <!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>him +a letter of farewell, and he could not follow her, he would not try, +lest if he overtook her she should despise him for running after her.</p> +<p>I can only say that it is an extraordinary love-making, but then +all love-making, when truthfully reported, is extraordinary. There +can be little doubt, therefore, that this episode is truthfully reported. +Borrow himself has made a comment on himself and women through the mouth +of Jasper. The Gypsy had overheard him talking to his sister Ursula +for three hours under a hedge, and his opinion was: “I begin to +think you care for nothing in this world but old words and strange stories.” +When, afterwards, invited to kiss the same Ursula, he refused, “having,” +he says, “inherited from nature a considerable fund of modesty, +to which was added no slight store acquired in the course of my Irish +education,” <i>i.e.</i> at the age of twelve.</p> +<p>After Isopel had gone he bought a fine horse with the help of a loan +of £50 from Jasper, and travelled with it across England, meeting +adventures and hearing of others. He was for a time bookkeeper +at a coaching inn, still with some pounds in his purse. At Horncastle, +which he mentions more than once by name, he sold the horse for £150. +As the fair at Horncastle lasted from the 11th to the 21st of August, +the date of this last adventure is almost exactly fixed. Here +the book ends.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page104b.jpg"> +<img alt="Horncastle Horse Fair. (From an old print.)" src="images/page104s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>CHAPTER +XV—AN EARLY PORTRAIT</h2> +<p>At the end of these travels Borrow had turned twenty-two. His +brother John painted his portrait, but it has disappeared, and Borrow +himself, as if fearing lest no adequate picture of him should remain, +took pains to leave the material for one. It is a peculiarity +of his books that people whom he meets and converses with often remark +on his appearance. He must himself have been tolerably familiar +with it and used to comment on it. He told his father that a lady +thought him like Alfieri’s Saul; at a later date Haydon, the painter, +said he would “make a capital Pharaoh.” Years before, +when he was a boy, Petulengro recognised him after a long absence, because +there was something in his face to prevent people from forgetting him. +Mrs. Herne, his Gypsy enemy, praised him for his “singular and +outrageous ugliness.” He was lean, long-limbed and tall, +having reached his full height of six-feet-two probably before the end +of his teens; he had plenty of room to fill before becoming a big man, +and yet he was already powerful and clearly destined to be a big man. +His hair had for some time been rapidly becoming grey, and was soon +to be altogether white: it had once been black, and his strongly-marked +eyebrows were still dark brown. His face was oval and inclining +to olive in complexion; his nose rounded, but not too large; his mouth +good and well-moulded; his eyes dark brown and noticeable indescribably, +either through their light or through the curve of the eyelids across +them. “You have a flash about <!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>that +eye of yours,” says the old apple woman, and it is she that notices +the “blob of foam” on his lips, while he is musing aloud, +exclaiming “Necessity!” and cracking his finger-joints. +He had an Irish look, or so thought his London acquaintance, Ardry. +He looked “rather wild” at times and he had a way of clenching +his fist when he was determined not to be put upon, as the bullying +coachman found who had said: “One-and-ninepence, sir, or the things +which you have brought with you will be taken away from you.” +Yet he had small hands for his size and “long white fingers,” +which “would just serve for the business,” said the thimble-rigger. +Though ready to hit people when he is angry, “a more civil and +pleasant-spoken person than yourself,” says Ursula, “can’t +be found.” His own opinion was “that he was not altogether +deficient in courage and in propriety of behaviour. . . . That his appearance +was not particularly against him, his face not being like that of a +convicted pickpocket, nor his gait resembling that of a fox that has +lost his tail.” It is as a “poor thin lad” that +he commends himself to us, through the mouth of the old apple woman, +at his setting out from London, but as he gets on he shows himself “an +excellent pedestrian.”</p> +<p>Already in London he has made one or two favourable impressions, +as when he convinces the superb waiter that he is “accustomed +to claret.” But it is upon the roads that he wishes to shine. +When the Man in Black asks how he knows him, he answers that “Gypsies +have various ways of obtaining information.” Later on, he +makes the Man in Black address him as “Zingaro.” He +impresses the commercial traveller as “a confounded sensible young +fellow, and not at all opinionated,” and Lord Whitefeather as +a highwayman in disguise, and the Gypsies as one who never spoke a bad +word and never did a bad thing. This is his most impressive moment, +when the jockey discovers <!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>that +he is the Romany Rye and tells him there is scarcely a part of England +where he has not heard the name of the Romany Rye mentioned by the Gypsies. +Here he makes another praise him. Now let him mount the fine horse +he has bought with £50 borrowed from a Gypsy, and is about to +sell for £150 at Horncastle Fair.</p> +<p>“After a slight breakfast I mounted the horse, which, decked +out in his borrowed finery, really looked better by a large sum of money +than on any former occasion. Making my way out of the yard of +the inn, I was instantly in the principal street of the town, up and +down which an immense number of horses were being exhibited, some led, +and others with riders. ‘A wonderful small quantity of good +horses in the fair this time!’ I heard a stout jockey-looking +individual say, who was staring up the street with his side towards +me. ‘Halloo, young fellow!’ said he, a few moments +after I had passed, ‘whose horse is that? Stop! I +want to look at him!’ Though confident that he was addressing +himself to me, I took no notice, remembering the advice of the ostler, +and proceeded up the street. My horse possessed a good walking +step; but walking, as the reader knows, was not his best pace, which +was the long trot, at which I could not well exercise him in the street, +on account of the crowd of men and animals; however, as he walked along, +I could easily perceive that he attracted no slight attention amongst +those who, by their jockey dress and general appearance, I imagined +to be connoisseurs; I heard various calls to stop, to none of which +I paid the slightest attention. In a few minutes I found myself +out of the town, when, turning round for the purpose of returning, I +found I had been followed by several of the connoisseur-looking individuals, +whom I had observed in the fair. ‘Now would be the time +for a display,’ thought I; and looking around me I observed two +five-barred gates, one on each side of the road, and <!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>fronting +each other. Turning my horse’s head to one, I pressed my +heels to his sides, loosened the reins, and gave an encouraging cry, +whereupon the animal cleared the gate in a twinkling. Before he +had advanced ten yards in the field to which the gate opened, I had +turned him round, and again giving him cry and rein, I caused him to +leap back again into the road, and still allowing him head, I made him +leap the other gate; and forthwith turning him round, I caused him to +leap once more into the road, where he stood proudly tossing his head, +as much as to say, ‘What more?’ ‘A fine horse! +a capital horse!’ said several of the connoisseurs. ‘What +do you ask for him?’ ‘Too much for any of you to pay,’ +said I. ‘A horse like this is intended for other kind of +customers than any of you.’ ‘How do you know that?’ +said one; the very same person whom I had heard complaining in the street +of the paucity of good horses in the fair. ‘Come, let us +know what you ask for him?’ ‘A hundred and fifty pounds!’ +said I; ‘neither more nor less.’ ‘Do you call +that a great price?’ said the man. ‘Why, I thought +you would have asked double that amount! You do yourself injustice, +young man.’ ‘Perhaps I do,’ said I, ‘but +that’s my affair; I do not choose to take more.’ ‘I +wish you would let me get into the saddle,’ said the man; ‘the +horse knows you, and therefore shows to more advantage; but I should +like to see how he would move under me, who am a stranger. Will +you let me get into the saddle, young man?’ ‘No,’ +said I, ‘I will not let you get into the saddle.’ +‘Why not?’ said the man. ‘Lest you should be +a Yorkshireman,’ said I, ‘and should run away with the horse.’ +‘Yorkshire?’ said the man; ‘I am from Suffolk; silly +Suffolk—so you need not be afraid of my running away with the +horse.’ ‘Oh! if that’s the case,’ said +I, ‘I should be afraid that the horse would run away with you; +so I will by no means let you mount.’ ‘Will you let +me look in his mouth?’ said <!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>the +man. ‘If you please,’ said I; ‘but I tell you, +he’s apt to bite.’ ‘He can scarcely be a worse +bite than his master,’ said the man, looking into the horse’s +mouth; ‘he’s four off. I say, young man, will you +warrant this horse?’ ‘No,’ said I; ‘I +never warrant horses; the horses that I ride can always warrant themselves.’ +‘I wish you would let me speak a word to you,’ said he. +‘Just come aside. It’s a nice horse,’ said he, +in a half whisper, after I had ridden a few paces aside with him. +‘It’s a nice horse,’ said he, placing his hand upon +the pommel of the saddle and looking up in my face, ‘and I think +I can find you a customer. If you would take a hundred, I think +my lord would purchase it, for he has sent me about the fair to look +him up a horse, by which he could hope to make an honest penny.’ +‘Well,’ said I, ‘and could he not make an honest penny, +and yet give me the price I ask?’ ‘Why,’ said +the go-between, ‘a hundred and fifty pounds is as much as the +animal is worth, or nearly so; and my lord, do you see . . .’ +‘I see no reason at all,’ said I, ‘why I should sell +the animal for less than he is worth, in order that his lordship may +be benefited by him; so that if his lordship wants to make an honest +penny, he must find some person who would consider the disadvantage +of selling him a horse for less than it is worth, as counterbalanced +by the honour of dealing with a lord, which I should never do; but I +can’t be wasting my time here. I am going back to the . +. ., where if you, or any person, are desirous of purchasing the horse, +you must come within the next half-hour, or I shall probably not feel +disposed to sell him at all.’ ‘Another word, young +man,’ said the jockey; but without staying to hear what he had +to say, I put the horse to his best trot, and re-entering the town, +and threading my way as well as I could through the press, I returned +to the yard of the inn, where, dismounting, I stood still, holding the +horse by the bridle.”</p> +<p><!-- page 110--><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>As +no one else troubled to paint Borrow either at Horncastle or any other +place, and as he took advantage of the fact to such purpose, I must +leave this portrait as it is, only I shall remind the reader that it +is not a photograph but a portrait of the painter. A little time +ago this painter was a consumptive-looking literary hack, and is still +a philologist, with eyes a bit dim from too much reading, and subject +to frantic melancholy;—a liker of solitude and of men and women +who do not disturb it, but a man accustomed to men and very well able +to deal with them.</p> +<h2><!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 111</span>CHAPTER +XVI—THE VEILED PERIOD</h2> +<p>The last words of “The Romany Rye” narrative are: “I +shouldn’t wonder if Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno came originally +from India. I think I’ll go there.” This is +his way of giving impressiveness to the “veiled period” +of the following seven or eight years, for the benefit of those who +had read “The Zincali” and “The Bible in Spain,” +and had been allured by the hints of earlier travel. In “The +Zincali” he has spoken of seeing “Gypsies of various lands, +Russian, Hungarian and Turkish; and also the legitimate children of +most countries of the world”: of being “in the shop of an +Armenian at Constantinople,” and “lately at Janina in Albania.” +In “The Bible in Spain” he had spoken of “an acquaintance +of mine, a Tartar Khan.” He had described strange things, +and said: “This is not the first instance in which it has been +my lot to verify the wisdom of the saying, that truth is sometimes wilder +than fiction;” he had met Baron Taylor and reminded the reader +of other meetings “in the street or the desert, the brilliant +hall or amongst Bedouin haimas, at Novgorod or Stambul.” +Before 1833 he had been in Paris and Madrid. “I have been +everywhere,” he said to the simple company at a Welsh inn. +Speaking to Colonel Napier in 1839 at Seville, he said that he had picked +up the Gypsy tongue “some years ago in Moultan,” and he +gave the impression that he had visited most parts of the East.</p> +<p>A little too much has been made of this “veiled period,” +not by Borrow, but by others. It would have been fair to surmise +that if he chose not to write about this period of <!-- page 112--><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>his +life, either there was very little in it, or there was something in +it which he was unwilling—perhaps ashamed—to disclose; and +what has been discovered suggests that he was in an unsettled state—writing +to please himself and perhaps also the booksellers, travelling a little +and perhaps meeting some of the adventures which he crammed into those +few months of 1825, suffering from “the horrors” either +in solitude or with no confidant but his mother.</p> +<p>Borrow himself took no great pains to preserve the veil. For +instance, in the preface to his translation of “Y Bardd Cwsg” +in 1860, he says that it was made “in the year 1830 at the request +of a little Welsh bookseller of his acquaintance” in Smithfield.</p> +<p>In 1826 he was in Norwich: the “Romantic Ballads” were +published there, and in May he received a letter from Allan Cunningham, +whose cheery commendatory verses ushered in the book. The letter +suggests that Borrow was indolent from apathy. The book had no +success or notice, which Knapp puts down to his not sending out presentation +copies. “I judge, however,” says he, “that he +sent one to Walter Scott, and that that busy writer forgot to acknowledge +the courtesy. Borrow’s lifelong hostility to Scott would +thus be accounted for;” but the hostility is his reason for supposing +that the copy was sent. Some time afterwards, in 1826, he was +at 26, Bryanstone Street, Portman Square, and was to sit for the artist, +B. R. Haydon, before going off to the South of France. If he went, +he may have paid the visits to Paris, Bayonne, Italy and Spain, which +he alludes to in “The Bible in Spain”; he may, as Dr. Knapp +suggests, have covered the ground of Murtagh’s alleged travels +in “The Romany Rye,” and have been at Pau, with Quesada’s +army marching to Pamplona, at Torrelodones, and at Seville. But +in a letter to the Bible Society in 1838 he spoke of his earlier acquaintance +with Spain being confined almost entirely to Madrid. It may <!-- page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>be +true, as he says in “The Zincali,” that “once in the +south of France, when he was weary, hungry, and penniless, he observed +one of these patterans or Gypsy trails, and, following the direction +pointed out, arrived at the resting place of some Gypsies, who received +him with kindness and hospitality on the faith of no other word of recommendation +than patteran.” It may be true that he wandered in Italy, +and rested at nightfall by a kiln “about four leagues from Genoa.” +But by April, 1827, he must have been back in Norwich, according to +Knapp, to see Marshland Shales at the fair. Knapp gives certain +proof that he was there between September and December. Thereafter, +if Knapp was right, he was translating Vidocq’s “Memoirs.” +In 1829 again he was in London, at 17, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, +and was projecting with John Bowring a collection of “Songs of +Scandinavia.” He applied for work to the Highland Society +and to the British Museum, in 1830. In that summer he was at 7, +Museum Street, Bloomsbury. He was not satisfied with his work +or its remuneration. He thought of entering the French Army, of +going to Greece, of getting work, with Bowring’s help, under the +Belgian Government. His name “had been down for several +years” for the purchase of a commission in the English Army, and +Bowring offered to recommend him to “a corps in one of the Eastern +Colonies,” where he could perfect his Arabic and Persian. +In 1842 he wrote a letter to Bowring, printed by Mr. Walling, asking +for “as many of the papers and manuscripts which I left at yours +some twelve years ago, as you can find,” and for advice and a +loan of books, and promising that Murray will send a copy of “The +Bible in Spain” to “my oldest, I may say my <i>only</i> +friend.” But whatever Bowring’s help, Borrow was “drifting +on the sea of the world, and likely to be so,” and especially +hurt because of the figure he must cut in the eyes of his own people. +Was it now, or when he <!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>was +bookkeeper at the inn in 1825, that he saw so much of the ways of commercial +travellers? <a name="citation114"></a><a href="#footnote114">{114}</a></p> +<p>It is not necessary to quote from the metrical translations, probably +of this period, “selections from a huge, undigested mass of translation, +accumulated during several years devoted to philological pursuits,” +published in “The Targum” of 1835. They were made +from originals in the Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tartar, Tibetian, +Chinese, Mandchou, Russian, Malo-Russian, Polish, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, +Ancient Norse, Suabian, German, Dutch, Danish, Ancient Danish, Swedish, +Ancient Irish, Irish, Gaelic, Ancient British, Cambrian British, Greek, +Modern Greek, Latin, Provençal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, +French, Rommany.</p> +<p>I will, however, quote from “The Sleeping Bard, or Visions +of the World, Death and Hell,” his translation of Elis Wyn’s +“Y Bardd Cwsg.” The book would please Borrow, because +in the City of Perdition Rome stands at the gate of Pride, and the Pope +has palaces in the streets of Pleasure and of Lucre; because the Church +of England is the fairest part of the Catholic Church, surmounted by +“Queen Anne on the pinnacle of the building, with a sword in each +hand”; and because the Papist is turned away from the Catholic +Church by a porter with “an exceedingly large Bible.” +“One fair morning,” he begins:</p> +<p>“One fair morning of genial April, when the earth was green +and pregnant, and Britain, like a paradise, was wearing splendid liveries, +tokens of the smile of the summer sun, I was walking upon the bank of +the Severn, in the midst of the sweet notes of the little songsters +of the wood, who appeared to be striving to break through all the measures +of music, whilst pouring forth praise to the Creator. I, too, +occasionally raised my voice and warbled with the feathered <!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>choir, +though in a manner somewhat more restrained than that in which they +sang; and occasionally read a portion of the book of ‘The Practice +of Godliness.’”</p> +<p>And in his vision he saw fiends drive men and women through the foul +river of the Fiend to their eternal damnation, where</p> +<p>“I at the first glance saw more pains and torments than the +heart of man can imagine or the tongue relate; a single one of which +was sufficient to make the hair stand erect, the blood to freeze, the +flesh to melt, the bones to drop from their places—yea, the spirit +to faint. What is empaling or sawing men alive, tearing off the +flesh piecemeal with iron pincers, or broiling the flesh with candles, +collop fashion, or squeezing heads flat in a vice, and all the most +shocking devices which ever were upon earth, compared with one of these? +Mere pastime! There were a hundred thousand shoutings, hoarse +cries, and strong groans; yonder a boisterous wailing and horrible outcry +answering them, and the howling of a dog is sweet, delicious music when +compared with these sounds. When we had proceeded a little way +onward from the accursed beach, towards the wild place of Damnation, +I perceived, by their own light, innumerable men and women here and +there; and devils without number and without rest, incessantly employing +their strength in tormenting. Yes, there they were, devils and +damned, the devils roaring with their own torments, and making the damned +roar by means of the torments which they inflicted upon them. +I paid particular observation to the corner which was nearest me. +There I beheld the devils with pitchforks, tossing the damned up into +the air that they might fall headlong on poisoned hatchets or barbed +pikes, there to wriggle their bowels out. After a time the wretches +would crawl in multitudes, one upon another, to the top of one of the +burning crags, there to be broiled like mutton; from there they would +be <!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>snatched +afar, to the top of one of the mountains of eternal frost and snow, +where they would be allowed to shiver for a time; thence they would +be precipitated into a loathsome pool of boiling brimstone, to wallow +there in conflagration, smoke and the suffocation of horrible stench; +from the pool they would be driven to the marsh of Hell, that they might +embrace and be embraced by the reptiles, many times worse than serpents +and vipers; after allowing them half an hour’s dalliance with +these creatures the devils would seize a bundle of rods of steel, fiery +hot from the furnace, and would scourge them till their howling, caused +by the horrible inexpressible pain which they endured, would fill the +vast abode of darkness, and when the fiends deemed that they had scourged +them enough, they would take hot irons and sear their bloody wounds. +. . .”</p> +<p>And this would have particularly pleased Borrow, who disliked and +condemned smoking:</p> +<p>“For one of late origin I will not deny, O Cerberus, that thou +hast brought to us many a booty from the island of our enemies, by means +of tobacco, a weed the cause of much deceit; for how much deceit is +practised in carrying it about, in mixing it, and in weighing it: a +weed which entices some people to bib ale; others to curse, swear, and +to flatter in order to obtain it, and others to tell lies in denying +that they use it: a weed productive of maladies in various bodies, the +excess of which is injurious to every man’s body, without speaking +of his <i>soul</i>: a weed, moreover, by which we get multitudes of +the poor, whom we should never get did they not set their love on tobacco, +allow it to master them, and pull the bread from the mouths of their +children.”</p> +<p>In the preface to this book as it was finally published in 1860, +Borrow said that the little Welsh bookseller had rejected it for fear +of being ruined—“The terrible descriptions of vice and torment +would frighten the <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>genteel +part of the English public out of their wits. . . . I had no idea, till +I read him in English, that Elis Wyn had been such a terrible fellow.”</p> +<p>In September, 1830, Borrow left London and returned to Norwich, having +done nothing which attracted attention or deserved to. His brother’s +opinion was that his want of success in life was due chiefly to his +being unlike other people. So far as his failure in literature +went, it was due to the fact that he was doing either poorly or only +moderately well work that very few people wanted to read, viz., chiefly +verse translations from unfashionable languages. It may be also +that his health was partly the cause and was in turn lowered by the +long continued failure. When Borrow, at the age of forty or more, +came to write about the first twenty-two years of his life, he not only +described himself suffering from several attacks of “the horrors,” +but also with almost equal vividness three men suffering from mental +afflictions of different kinds: the author who lived alone and was continually +touching things to avert the evil chance; the old man who had saved +himself from being overwhelmed in his terrible misfortunes by studying +the inscriptions on Chinese pots, but could not tell the time; and the +Welshman who wandered over the country preaching and living piously, +but haunted by the knowledge that in his boyhood he had committed the +sin against the Holy Ghost. The most vivid description of his +“horrors,” which he said in 1834 always followed if they +did not result from weakness, is in the eighty-fourth chapter of “Lavengro”:</p> +<p>“Heaviness had suddenly come over me, heaviness of heart, and +of body also. I had accomplished the task which I had imposed +upon myself, and now that nothing more remained to do, my energies suddenly +deserted me, and I felt without strength, and without hope. Several +causes, perhaps, co-operated to bring about the state in which I <!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>then +felt myself. It is not improbable that my energies had been overstrained +during the work, the progress of which I have attempted to describe; +and every one is aware that the results of overstrained energies are +feebleness and lassitude—want of nourishment might likewise have +something to do with it. During my sojourn in the dingle my food +had been of the simplest and most unsatisfying description, by no means +calculated to support the exertions which the labour I had been engaged +upon required; it had consisted of coarse oaten cakes, and hard cheese, +and for beverage I had been indebted to a neighbouring pit, in which, +in the heat of the day, I frequently saw, not golden or silver fish, +but frogs and efts swimming about. I am, however, inclined to +believe that Mrs. Herne’s cake had quite as much to do with the +matter as insufficient nourishment. I had never entirely recovered +from the effects of its poison, but had occasionally, especially at +night, been visited by a grinding pain in the stomach, and my whole +body had been suffused with cold sweat; and indeed these memorials of +the drow have never entirely disappeared—even at the present time +they display themselves in my system, especially after much fatigue +of body, and excitement of mind. So there I sat in the dingle +upon my stone, nerveless and hopeless, by whatever cause or causes that +state had been produced—there I sat with my head leaning upon +my hand, and so I continued a long, long time. At last I lifted +my head from my hand, and began to cast anxious, unquiet looks about +the dingle—the entire hollow was now enveloped in deep shade—I +cast my eyes up; there was a golden gleam on the tops of the trees which +grew towards the upper parts of the dingle; but lower down, all was +gloom and twilight—yet, when I first sat down on my stone, the +sun was right above the dingle, illuminating all its depths by the rays +which it cast perpendicularly down—so I must have sat a long, +long <!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>time +upon my stone. And now, once more, I rested my head upon my hand, +but almost instantly lifted it again in a kind of fear, and began looking +at the objects before me, the forge, the tools, the branches of the +trees, endeavouring to follow their rows, till they were lost in the +darkness of the dingle; and now I found my right hand grasping convulsively +the three forefingers of the left, first collectively, and then successively, +wringing them till the joints cracked; then I became quiet, but not +for long.</p> +<p>“Suddenly I started up, and could scarcely repress the shriek +which was rising to my lips. Was it possible? Yes, all too +certain; the evil one was upon me; the inscrutable horror which I had +felt in my boyhood had once more taken possession of me. I had +thought that it had forsaken me; that it would never visit me again; +that I had outgrown it; that I might almost bid defiance to it; and +I had even begun to think of it without horror, as we are in the habit +of doing of horrors of which we conceive we run no danger; and lo! when +least thought of, it had seized me again. Every moment I felt +it gathering force, and making me more wholly its own. What should +I do?—resist, of course; and I did resist. I grasped, I +tore, and strove to fling it from me; but of what avail were my efforts? +I could only have got rid of it by getting rid of myself; it was a part +of myself, or rather it was all myself. I rushed among the trees, +and struck at them with my bare fists, and dashed my head against them, +but I felt no pain. How could I feel pain with that horror upon +me! and then I flung myself on the ground, gnawed the earth, and swallowed +it; and then I looked round; it was almost total darkness in the dingle, +and the darkness added to my horror. I could no longer stay there; +up I rose from the ground, and attempted to escape; at the bottom of +the winding path which led up the acclivity I fell over something which +was lying on the ground; the <!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>something +moved, and gave a kind of whine. It was my little horse, which +had made that place its lair; my little horse; my only companion and +friend, in that now awful solitude. I reached the mouth of the +dingle; the sun was just sinking in the far west, behind me; the fields +were flooded with his last gleams. How beautiful everything looked +in the last gleams of the sun! I felt relieved for a moment; I +was no longer in the horrid dingle; in another minute the sun was gone, +and a big cloud occupied the place where he had been; in a little time +it was almost as dark as it had previously been in the open part of +the dingle. My horror increased; what was I to do?—it was +of no use fighting against the horror; that I saw; the more I fought +against it, the stronger it became. What should I do: say my prayers? +Ah! why not? So I knelt down under the hedge, and said, ‘Our +father’; but that was of no use; and now I could no longer repress +cries; the horror was too great to be borne. What should I do: +run to the nearest town or village, and request the assistance of my +fellow-men? No! that I was ashamed to do; notwithstanding the +horror was upon me, I was ashamed to do that. I knew they would +consider me a maniac, if I went screaming amongst them; and I did not +wish to be considered a maniac. Moreover, I knew that I was not +a maniac, for I possessed all my reasoning powers, only the horror was +upon me—the screaming horror! But how were indifferent people +to distinguish between madness and this screaming horror? So I +thought and reasoned; and at last I determined not to go amongst my +fellow men, whatever the result might be. I went to the mouth +of the dingle, and there, placing myself on my knees, I again said the +Lord’s Prayer; but it was of no use; praying seemed to have no +effect over the horror; the unutterable fear appeared rather to increase +than diminish; and I again uttered wild cries, so loud that <!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>I +was apprehensive they would be heard by some chance passenger on the +neighbouring road; I therefore went deeper into the dingle; I sat down +with my back against a thorn bush; the thorns entered my flesh, and +when I felt them, I pressed harder against the bush; I thought the pain +of the flesh might in some degree counteract the mental agony; presently +I felt them no longer; the power of the mental horror was so great that +it was impossible, with that upon me, to feel any pain from the thorns. +I continued in this posture a long time, undergoing what I cannot describe, +and would not attempt if I were able. Several times I was on the +point of starting up and rushing anywhere; but I restrained myself, +for I knew I could not escape from myself, so why should I not remain +in the dingle? So I thought and said to myself, for my reasoning +powers were still uninjured. At last it appeared to me that the +horror was not so strong, not quite so strong upon me. Was it +possible that it was relaxing its grasp, releasing its prey? O +what a mercy! but it could not be—and yet I looked up to heaven, +and clasped my hands, and said ‘Our Father.’ I said +no more; I was too agitated; and now I was almost sure that the horror +had done its worst.</p> +<p>“After a little time I arose, and staggered down yet farther +into the dingle. I again found my little horse on the same spot +as before, I put my hand to his mouth; he licked my hand. I flung +myself down by him and put my arms round his neck, the creature whinnied, +and appeared to sympathise with me; what a comfort to have any one, +even a dumb brute, to sympathise with me at such a moment! I clung +to my little horse, as if for safety and protection. I laid my +head on his neck, and felt almost calm; presently the fear returned, +but not so wild as before; it subsided, came again, again subsided; +then drowsiness came over me, and at last I fell asleep, my head <!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>supported +on the neck of the little horse. I awoke; it was dark, dark night—not +a star was to be seen—but I felt no fear, the horror had left +me. I arose from the side of the little horse, and went into my +tent, lay down, and again went to sleep. . . .”</p> +<p>It may be said that the man who had gone through this, and could +describe it, would find it easy enough to depict other sufferings of +the same kind, though in later or less violent stages. It is certain, +however, that for such a one to acquire the habit of touching was easy. +He says himself, that after the night with the author who had this habit +and who feared ideas more than thunder and lightning, he himself touched +things and wondered if “the long-forgotten influence” had +returned. Mr. Walling says that “he has been informed” +that Borrow “suffered in his youth from the touching mania,” +and like many other readers probably, I had concluded the same. +But Mr. Watts-Dunton had already told us that “in walking through +Richmond Park,” when an old man, Borrow “would step out +of his way constantly to touch a tree and was offended if observed.” +The old man diverting himself with Chinese inscriptions on teapots would +be an easy invention for Borrow; he may not have done this very thing, +but he had done similar things. Here again, Mr. Walling says that +“he has been told” the incident was drawn from Borrow’s +own experience. As to Peter Williams and the sin against the Holy +Ghost, Borrow hinted to him that his case was not exceptional:</p> +<p>“‘Dost thou then imagine,’ said Peter, ‘the +sin against the Holy Ghost to be so common an occurrence?’</p> +<p>“‘As you have described it,’ said I, ‘of +very common occurrence, especially amongst children, who are, indeed, +the only beings likely to commit it.’</p> +<p>“‘Truly,’ said Winifred, ‘the young man talks +wisely.’</p> +<p><!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>“Peter +was silent for some moments, and appeared to be reflecting; at last, +suddenly raising his head, he looked me full in the face, and, grasping +my hand with vehemence, he said, ‘Tell me, young man, only one +thing, hast thou, too, committed the sin against the Holy Ghost?’</p> +<p>“‘I am neither Papist nor Methodist,’ said I, ‘but +of the Church, and, being so, confess myself to no one, but keep my +own counsel; I will tell thee, however, had I committed at the same +age, twenty such sins as that which you committed, I should feel no +uneasiness at these years—but I am sleepy, and must go to rest.’”</p> +<p>This is due to probably something more than a desire to make himself +and his past impressive. The man’s story in several places +reminds me of Borrow, where, for instance, after he has realised his +unpardonable sin, he runs wild through Wales, “climbing mountains +and wading streams, burnt by the sun, drenched by the rain,” so +that for three years he hardly knew what befel him, living with robbers +and Gypsies, and once about to fling himself into the sea from a lofty +rock.</p> +<p>If it be true, as it is likely, that Borrow suffered in a more extended +manner than he showed in his accounts of the horrors, the time of the +suffering is still uncertain. Was it before his first escape from +London, as he says in “Lavengro”? Was it during his +second long stay in London or after his second escape? Or was +it really not long before the actual narrative was written in the ’forties? +There is some reason for thinking so. The most vivid description +of “the horrors,” and the account of the touching gentleman +and of Peter Williams, together with a second reference to “the +horrors” or the “evil one,” all occur in a section +of “Lavengro” equal to hardly more than a sixth of the whole. +And further, when Borrow was writing “Wild Wales,” or when +he met the sickly young man at <!-- page 124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>the +“Castle Inn” of Caernarvon, he thought of himself as always +having had “the health of an elephant.” I should be +inclined to conclude at least that when he was forty great mental suffering +was still fresh in his mind, something worse than the heavy melancholy +which returned now and then when he was past fifty.</p> +<h2><!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>CHAPTER +XVII—THE BIBLE SOCIETY: RUSSIA</h2> +<p>From the phrase, “He said in ’32,” which Borrow +uses of himself in Chapter X. of the Appendix to “The Romany Rye,” +it was to be concluded that he was writing political articles in 1832; +and Dr. Knapp was able to quote a manuscript of the time where he says +that “there is no Radical who would not rejoice to see his native +land invaded by the bitterest of her foreign enemies,” etc., and +also a letter, printed in the “Norfolk Chronicle,” on August +18, 1832, on the origin of the word “Tory.”</p> +<p>At the end of this year he became friendly with the family of Skepper, +including the widowed Mrs. Mary Clarke, then 36 years old, who lived +at Oulton Hall, near Lowestoft, in Suffolk. With or through them +he met the Rev. Francis Cunningham, Vicar of St. Margaret’s, Lowestoft, +who had married a sister of the Quaker banker, Joseph John Gurney, and +through the offices of these two, Borrow was invited to go before the +British and Foreign Bible Society, as a candidate for employment in +some branch of the Society’s work where his knowledge of languages +would be useful. He walked to London for the purpose in December, +1832. The Society was satisfied and sent him back to Norwich to +learn the Manchu-Tartar language. There he wrote a letter, which, +if we take Dr. Knapp’s word for it, was “a sort of recantation +of the Taylorism of 1824.” Being now near thirty, and perhaps +having his worst “horrors” behind him, or at least having +reason to think so if he was already fond of Mrs. Clarke, whom he afterwards +married, it was easy for him to fall into the <!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>same +way of speaking as these good and kindly people, and to abuse Buddhism, +which he did not understand, for their delectation. Mrs. Clarke +had four or five hundred pounds a year of her own, and one child, a +daughter, then about fourteen years old. Perhaps it was natural +that he should remember then, as he did later, the words of the cheerful +and forgetful wise man: “I have been young and now am grown old, +yet never have I seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread.”</p> +<p>From a gloomily fanatical atheist Borrow changed to a cheerfully +fanatical Protestant, described as “of the middle order in society, +and a very produceable person.” <a name="citation126"></a><a href="#footnote126">{126}</a> +He was probably never a good atheist of the reasonable critical type +like William Taylor, whose thinking was too dull and too difficult for +him. Above all it was too negative and unrelated to anything but +the brain for the man who wrote “Lines to Six-foot-three” +and consorted with Gypsies. He had taken atheism along with Taylor’s +literary and linguistic teaching, perhaps with some eagerness at first +as a form of protest against conventionally pious and respectable Norwich +life. The Bible Society and Mrs. Clarke and her friends came radiant +and benevolent to his “looped and windowed” atheism. +They gave him friends and money: they gave him an occupation on which +he felt, and afterwards found, that he could spend his hesitating energies. +He gathered up all his powers to serve the Bible Society. He suffered +hunger, cold, imprisonment, wounded feet, long hours of indoor labour +and long hours of dismal attendance upon inexorable official delay. +Personally he irritated Mr. Brandram, the secretary, and his bold and +unexpected ways gave the Society something to put up with, but he was +always a faithful and enthusiastic servant. He had many reasons +for being <!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>grateful +to them. He, who was going to get himself imprisoned for atheism, +had already become, as Mr. Cunningham thought, a man “of certain +Christian principle,” if “of no very exactly defined denomination +of Christians.” He certainly did become an unquestioning +wild missionary—though not merely wild, for he was discreet in +his boldness; he was careful to save the Society money; he made himself +respected by the highest English and Spanish officials in Spain; so +that in 1837, for the first time in the Society’s history, an +English ambassador made their cause a national one. He wanted +to shout and the Bible Society gave him something to shout for. +He wanted to fight and they gave him something to fight for. Twenty +years afterwards, in writing the Appendix to “The Romany Rye,” +he looked back on his travels in Spain as on a campaign:</p> +<p>“It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that Society +on his hat—oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow awakes +in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in Spain in +the cause of religion and civilisation with the colours of that Society +on his hat, and its weapon in his hand, even the sword of the word of +God; how with that weapon he hewed left and right, making the priests +fly before him, and run away squeaking: ‘Vaya! que demonio es +este!’ Ay, and when he thinks of the plenty of bible swords +which he left behind him, destined to prove, and which have already +proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of Popery. ‘Hallo! +Batuschca,’ he exclaimed the other night, on reading an article +in a newspaper; ‘what do you think of the present doings in Spain? +Your old friend the zingaro, the gitano who rode about Spain, to say +nothing of Galicia, with the Greek Buchini behind him as his squire, +had a hand in bringing them about; there are many brave Spaniards connected +with <!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>the +present movement who took Bibles from his hands, and read them and profited +by them.”</p> +<p>He was as sure in 1839 as in 1857 of the diabolic power and intention +of Popery, that “unrelenting fiend,” whose secrets few, +he said, knew more than himself. <a name="citation128a"></a><a href="#footnote128a">{128a}</a></p> +<p>In the gladness of his now fully exerted powers of body and mind, +travelling in wild country and observing and conflicting with men, he +adopted not merely the unctuous phraseology of “I am at present, +thanks be to the Lord, comfortable and happy,” <a name="citation128b"></a><a href="#footnote128b">{128b}</a> +but a more attractive religious arrogance. “That I am an +associate of Gypsies and fortune-tellers I do not deny,” he says, +“and why should I be ashamed of their company when my Master mingled +with publicans and thieves.” <a name="citation128c"></a><a href="#footnote128c">{128c}</a> +He painted himself as a possible martyr among the wild Catholics, a +St. Stephen. When he suffered at the same time from hardship and +the Society’s disfavour, he exclaimed: “It was God’s +will that I, who have risked all and lost almost all in the cause, be +taunted, suspected, and the sweat of agony and tears which I have poured +out be estimated at the value of the water of the ditch or the moisture +which exudes from rotten dung. But I murmur not, and hope I shall +at all times be willing to bow to the dispensations of the Almighty.” +<a name="citation128d"></a><a href="#footnote128d">{128d}</a> +He exulted in melodramatic nature, in the sublime of Salvator Rosa, +in the desperate, wild, and strange. His very prayers, as reported +by himself to the Secretary, distressed the Society because they were +“passionate.” True, he could sometimes, under the +inspiration of the respectable Secretary, write like a perfect middle-class +English Christian. He condemned the Sunday amusements of Hamburg, +for example, remarking that “England, with all her faults, has +still some regard to decency, and <!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>will +not tolerate such a shameful display of vice” (as rope-dancing) +“in so sacred a season, when a decent cheerfulness is the freest +form in which the mind or countenance ought to invest themselves.” +<a name="citation129a"></a><a href="#footnote129a">{129a}</a> +He argued against the translator of the Bible into Manchu that concessions +should not be made to a Chinese way of thought, because it was the object +of the Society to wean the Chinese from their own customs and observances, +not to encourage them. But the opposite extreme was more congenial +to Borrow. He would go to the market place in a remote Spanish +village and display his Testaments on the outspread horsecloth, crying: +“Peasants, peasants, I bring you the Word of God at a cheap price.” +<a name="citation129b"></a><a href="#footnote129b">{129b}</a> +He would disguise himself, travelling with a sack of Testaments on his +donkey; and when a woman asked if it was soap he had, he answered: “Yes; +it is soap to wash souls clean.” This was the man to understand +Peter Williams, the Welsh preacher who had committed the sin against +the Holy Ghost and wandered about preaching and refusing a roof. +Neither must it be forgotten that this was the man who, in a conversation +not reported to the Bible Society, said: “What befalls my body +or soul was written in a <i>gabicote</i> a thousand years before the +foundation of the world.”</p> +<p>Borrow was only seven weeks in getting so far as to be able to translate +from Manchu, though it had been said, as he pointed out, that the language +took five or six years to acquire. It cost him an even shorter +time to acquire the dialect of his employers, for in less than a month +after he had retired to Norwich to learn Manchu, he was writing thus:</p> +<p>“Revd. and Dear Sir,—I have just received your communication, +and notwithstanding it is Sunday morning, <!-- page 130--><a name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>and +the bells with their loud and clear voices are calling me to church, +I have sat down to answer it by return of post. . . .</p> +<p>“Return my kind and respected friend, Mr. Brandram, my best +thanks for his present of ‘The Gypsies’ Advocate,’ +and assure him that, next to the acquirement of Mandchou, the conversion +and enlightening of those interesting people occupy the principal place +in my mind. . . . <a name="citation130"></a><a href="#footnote130">{130}</a></p> +<p>Never had his linguistic power a greater or more profitable triumph +than in this acquisition. As this was probably a dialect not unknown +at Earlham, Norwich, and Oulton, among people whom he loved, respected, +or beheld successful, the difficulty of the task was a little decreased. +Thurtell and Haggart had passed away, Petulengro had not yet reappeared. +There was no one to tell him that he was living in a country and an +age that were afterwards to appear among the most ignorant and cruel +on record. He himself had not yet discovered the “gentility-nonsense,” +nor did he ever discover that gentility was of the same family, if it +was not an albinism of the same species, as pious and oily respectability. +So delighted was he with the new dialect that he rolled it on his tongue +to the confusion of habitués, who had to rap him over the knuckles +for speaking of becoming “useful to the Deity, to man, and to +himself.”</p> +<p>In July, 1833, Borrow was appointed, with a salary of £200 +a year and expenses, to go to St. Petersburg, to help in editing a Manchu +translation of the New Testament, or transcribing and collating a translation +of the Old, accompanied by a warning against “a tone of confidence +in speaking of yourself” in such a phrase as “useful to +the Deity, to man, and to yourself.” Borrow accepted the +correction, and Norwich laughed at him in his new suit. <!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>At +the end of July he sailed, and as at this time he had no objection to +gentility he regretted the end of his passage with so many “genteel, +well-bred and intelligent passengers,” though he had suffered +from sea-sickness, followed by “the horrors.”</p> +<p>St. Petersburg he thought the finest of the many capitals he had +seen. He made the acquaintance of several men who could help him +with their learning and their books, and above all he gained the friendship +of John P. Hasfeldt, a Dane, a little older than himself, who was interpreter +to the Danish Legation and teacher of European languages, evidently +a man after Borrow’s own heart, with his opinion that “The +greater part of those products of art, called ‘the learned,’ +would not be able to earn a living if our Lord were not a guardian of +fools.” The copying of the Old Testament was finished by +the end of the year, without having prevented Borrow from profiting +by his unusual facilities for the acquisition of languages. He +had then to superintend, or as it fell out, to help largely with his +own hands, the printing of the first Manchu translation of the New Testament, +with type which had first to be cleansed of ten years’ rust and +with compositors who knew nothing of Manchu. Lacking almost in +time to eat or to sleep he impressed the Bible Society by his prodigious +labours under “the blessing of a kind and gracious Providence +watching over the execution of a work in which the wide extension of +the Saviour’s glory is involved.”</p> +<p>He was living cheaply, suffering sometimes from “the horrors,” +and curing them with port wine—sending money home to his mother, +bidding her to employ a maid and to read and “think as much of +God as possible.” Nor was he doing merely what he was bound +to do. For example, he translated some of the “Homilies +of the Church of England” into Russian and into Manchu. +He also published in St. Petersburg his “Targum” and “Talisman,” +<!-- page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>a +short further collection of translations from Pushkin, Mickiewicz, and +from Russian national songs. The work was finished and formally +and kindly approved by the Bible Society. He had proposed long +before that he should distribute the books himself, wandering overland +with them by Lake Baïkal and Kiakhta right to Pekin; but the Russian +Government refused a passport. Dr. Knapp believes that this intention +of going among the Tartars and overland from Russia to Pekin was the +sole ground for his crediting himself with travels in the Far East. +In the flesh he had to content himself with a journey to Novgorod and +Moscow. As he had visited the Jews at Hamburg so he did the Gypsies +at Moscow. This adventure moved him to his first characteristic +piece of prose, in a letter to the Society. This letter, which +was afterwards printed in the “Athenæum,” <a name="citation132"></a><a href="#footnote132">{132}</a> +and incorporated in “The Zincali,” mentions the Gypsies +who have become successful singers and married noblemen, but continues:</p> +<p>“It is not, however, to be supposed that all the female Gypsies +are of this high, talented and respectable order: amongst them are many +low and profligate females, who sing at taverns or at the various gardens +in the neighbourhood, and whose husbands and male connexions subsist +by horse jobbing and like kinds of traffic. The principal place +of resort of this class is Marina Rotche, lying about two versts from +Moscow, and thither I drove, attended by a <i>valet de place</i>. +Upon my arriving there, the Gypsies swarmed out from their tents, and +from the little tradeer, or tavern, and surrounded me; standing on the +seat of the calèche, I addressed them in a loud voice in the +dialect of the English Gypsies, with which I have some slight acquaintance. +A scream of wonder instantly arose, and welcomes and greetings were +poured forth in torrents of <!-- page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>musical +Rommany, amongst which, however, the most prominent air was, ‘Ah +kak mi toute karmama,’ ‘Oh, how we love you’; for +at first they supposed me to be one of their brothers, who they said, +were wandering about in Turkey, China, and other parts, and that I had +come over the great pawnee, or water, to visit them. . . . I visited +this place several times during my sojourn at Moscow, and spoke to them +upon their sinful manner of living, upon the advent and suffering of +Christ Jesus, and expressed, upon my taking leave of them, a hope that +they would be in a short period furnished with the word of eternal life +in their own language, which they seemed to value and esteem much higher +than the Russian.”</p> +<p>The tone of this letter suggests that it was meant for the Bible +Society—and a copy was addressed to them—but at this date +it is possible to see in it an outline of the Gypsy gentleman, very +much the gentleman, the “colossal clergyman” of later days.</p> +<p>Borrow liked the Russians, and for some reasons was sorry to leave +them and Hasfeldt in September, 1835. But for other reasons he +was glad. He would see his mother and comfort her for the loss +of her elder son in November, 1833, as he had already done to some extent +by telling her that he would “endeavour to get ordained.” +He also would see Mrs. Clarke, with whom he had been corresponding for +the past two years. Both she and his mother had been unwilling +for him to go to Pekin.</p> +<h2><!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>CHAPTER +XVIII—THE BIBLE SOCIETY: SPAIN</h2> +<p>Borrow’s chief regret at leaving Russia was that his active +life was interrupted, perhaps at an end. He was dreading the old +life of unprofitable study with no complete friends. But luckily, +when he had only been a month in England, the Bible Society resolved +to send him to Lisbon and Oporto, to look for openings for circulating +the Bible in Portugal and perhaps in Spain. After this they had +thoughts of sending him to China by sea. In November, 1835, he +sailed for Lisbon.</p> +<p>Spain was at this time the victim of private quarrels which had been +allowed to assume public importance. King Ferdinand VII. had twice +been restored to an unloving people by foreign, especially English, +aid. This King had for heir his brother Carlos, until his fourth +wife, Maria Christina, bore him a daughter, Isabella, in 1830; and to +secure her succession he set aside the Salic law. In 1833 he died. +Isabella II. was proclaimed Queen, and Christina Regent. Christinists +and Carlists were soon at war, and very bloody war. The English +intervened, once diplomatically, once with a foreign legion. The +war wavered, with success now to the Carlist Generals Zumalacarregui +and Cabrera and now to the Christinist Espartero. There were new +Prime Ministers about twice yearly. The parties were divided amongst +themselves, and treachery was common. The only result that could +always be foreseen was that the people and the country would suffer. +Not until 1841 did Espartero finally defeat Cabrera.</p> +<p>Portugal, in 1835, had just had its eight years of civil <!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>war +between the partisans of a child—Maria II.—aged seven, and +her uncle, Miguel, ending in the departure of Miguel. Borrow made +a preliminary journey in the forlorn country and decided for Spain instead. +Escaping the bullets of Portuguese soldiers, he crossed the boundary +at the beginning of 1836 and entered Badajoz. There he met the +Gypsies, and put off his journey to Madrid to see more of them and translate +the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke into their tongue. At Merida +he stopped again for a Gypsy wedding. His guide was the Gypsy, +Antonio Lopez, who sold him the donkey which he rode as far as Talavera. +At Madrid his business was to print the New Testament in a Spanish Catholic +translation. He had to wait; but with a new Cabinet permission +was obtained and arrangements for the printing were made. The +Revolution of La Granja, which he describes in “The Bible in Spain,” +caused another delay. Then, in October, after a visit to the Gypsies +of Granada, he returned to London.</p> +<p>He had written long letters to the Bible Society, and one which was +combined and published in the “Athenæum” with that +written from Moscow. It is dated, Madrid, July 19, 1836, but describes +his visit to Badajoz on January 6. He says, on entering Badajoz:</p> +<p>“I instantly returned thanks to God, who had protected me during +a journey of five days through the wilds of the Alemtejo, the province +of Portugal the most infested by robbers and desperate characters, and +which I had traversed with no other human companion than a lad, nearly +idiotic, who was to convey back the mules which carried myself and luggage.”</p> +<p>Two men were passing him in the street, and seeing the face of one +he touched his arm: “I said a certain word, to which, after an +exclamation of surprise, he responded in the manner I expected.” +They were Gypsies. He continues:</p> +<p><!-- page 136--><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>“They +left me in haste and went about the town informing the rest that a stranger +had arrived who spoke Rommany as well as themselves, who had the eyes +and face of a Gitano, and seemed to be of the ‘cratti’ or +blood. In less than half an hour the street before the inn was +filled with the men, women and children of Egypt. I went out amongst +them, and my heart sank within me as I surveyed them; so much squalidness, +dirt and misery I had never before seen amongst a similar number of +human beings; but the worst of all was the evil expression of their +countenances, denoting that they were familiar with every species of +crime, and it was not long before I found that their countenances did +not belie them. After they had asked me an infinity of questions, +and felt my hands, face, and clothes, they returned to their homes.”</p> +<p>He stayed with them nearly three weeks, he says; about ten days, +says Dr. Knapp. Borrow continues:</p> +<p>“The result of my observations was a firm belief that the Spanish +Gitanos are the most vile, degraded and wretched people upon the earth. +The great wickedness of these outcasts may, perhaps, be attributed to +their having abandoned their wandering life and become inmates of the +towns, where, to the original bad traits of their character, they have +superadded the evil and vicious habits of the rabble. . . . They listened +with admiration, but alas, not of the truths, the eternal truths I was +telling them, but at finding that their broken jargon could be written +and read; the only words of assent to the heavenly doctrine which I +ever obtained, and which were rather of the negative kind, were the +following, from a woman—‘Brother! you tell us strange things, +though perhaps you do not lie; a month since I would sooner have believed +these tales than that I should this day have seen one who could write +Rommany.’ . . .”</p> +<p><!-- page 137--><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 137</span>He +preserves the clergyman, but deepens the Gypsy stain. The “Athenæum” +was “not at liberty on this occasion” to publish the name +of this man whom Gypsies called “Brother,” but apparently +it would not be the name of any writer hitherto known to readers of +the “Athenæum.”</p> +<p>He was a month in England, and then left for Spain to print and distribute +Testaments. He had hardly put his feet on Spanish soil than, said +the Marquis of Santa Colona, <a name="citation137"></a><a href="#footnote137">{137}</a> +he “looked round, saw some Gypsies lounging there, said something +that the Marquis could not understand, and immediately ‘that man +became <i>une grappe de Gitanos</i>.’ They hung round his +neck, clung to his knees, seized his hands, kissed his feet, so that +the Marquis hardly liked to join his comrade again, after such close +embraces by so dirty a company.” At Cordova he was very +well received by the Gypsies “on the supposition that he was one +of their own race.” He says in “The Gypsies of Spain”:</p> +<p>“As for myself, I was admitted without scruple to their private +meetings, and was made a participator of their most secret thoughts. +During our intercourse, some remarkable scenes occurred: one night more +than twenty of us, men and women, were assembled in a long low room +on the ground floor, in a dark alley or court in the old gloomy town +of Cordova. After the Gitanos had discussed several jockey plans, +and settled some private bargains amongst themselves, we all gathered +round a huge brasero of flaming charcoal, and began conversing <i>sobre +las cosas de Egypto</i>, when I proposed that, as we had no better means +of amusing ourselves, we should endeavour to turn into the Calo language +some piece of devotion, that we might see whether this language, the +gradual decay of which I had frequently heard them lament, was capable +<!-- page 138--><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>of +expressing any other matters than those which related to horses, mules, +and Gypsy traffic. It was in this cautious manner that I first +endeavoured to divert the attention of these singular people to matters +of eternal importance. My suggestion was received with acclamations, +and we forthwith proceeded to the translation of the Apostle’s +Creed. I first recited in Spanish, in the usual manner and without +pausing, this noble confession, and then repeated it again, sentence +by sentence, the Gitanos translating as I proceeded. They exhibited +the greatest eagerness and interest in their unwonted occupation, and +frequently broke into loud disputes as to the best rendering—many +being offered at the same time. In the meanwhile, I wrote down +from their dictation, and at the conclusion I read aloud the translation, +the result of the united wisdom of the assembly, whereupon they all +raised a shout of exultation, and appeared not a little proud of the +composition.”</p> +<p>In his desire to see the Gypsies and the ways of the people he more +than doubled his difficulties, and suffered from cold and the rudeness +of the roads and of the people. But in spite of the internecine +civil war he got safe to Madrid. Printing was begun in 1837, and +when copies were ready Borrow advertised them and arranged for their +distribution. He himself set out with his servant, Antonio Buchini, +a Greek of Constantinople, who had served an infinity of masters, and +once been a cook to the overbearing General Cordova, and answered the +General’s sword with a pistol. They travelled to Salamanca, +Valladolid, Leon, Astorga, Villafranca, Lugo, Coruña, to Santiago, +Vigo, and again to Coruña, to Ferrol, Oviedo, Santander, Burgos, +Valladolid, and so back to Madrid in October. He had suffered +from fever, dysentery and ophthalmia on the journey. According +to Dr. Knapp it was the most unpropitious country possible. If +chosen by anything but ignorance, it must have been by whim and the +unconscious <!-- page 139--><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>desire +to delight posterity and amaze Dr. Knapp. Borrow had met, among +others, Benedict Mol, the Swiss seeker after treasure hidden in the +earth under the Church of San Roque at St. James’ of Compostella. +This traveller was not his only acquaintance. He formed a friendship +at Madrid with the Spanish scholar, Luis de Usoz, afterwards editor +of “The Early Spanish Reformers,” who became a member of +the Bible Society, helped Borrow in editing the Spanish Testament, and +looked after his interests while he was away from Madrid. At St. +James’ itself he made a friend and a co-operator of the old bookseller, +Rey Romero, who knew Benedict Moll.</p> +<p>Borrow returned to the sale of Testaments at Madrid, and to his own +favourite project of printing his Spanish Gypsy translation of the Gospel +of St. Luke. To advertise his Testaments he posted up and sent +about flaming tricoloured placards. This was too much for the +Moderate Government which had followed the Liberals: the sale of Testaments +was stopped, and that for thirty years after. The officials had +been irritated by the far graver indiscretions of another but irregular +agent of the Bible Society, Lieutenant Graydon, R.N., “a fervid +Irish Protestant.” <a name="citation139"></a><a href="#footnote139">{139}</a> +Apparently this man had advertised Bibles in Valencia as to be sold +at very low prices and even given away; had printed abuse of the Spanish +clergy and Government, and had described himself as co-operating with +Borrow. Except at Madrid, the Bibles and Testaments in Borrow’s +depôts throughout Spain were seized by the Government. The +books had at last to be sent out of the country, British Consuls were +forbidden to countenance religious agents; and in the opinion of the +Consul at Seville, J. M. Brackenbury, this was directly due to Graydon’s +indiscretions. The Society were kind to him. They cautioned +him not to attack Popery, but to leave the Bible to speak <!-- page 140--><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>for +itself. The caution was vain, but in spite of the harm done to +Borrow and themselves they recalled Graydon with but a qualified disavowal +of his conduct. Borrow did not conceal from the Society his opinion +that this man, with his “lunatic vagaries,” had been the +“evil genius” of the Bible cause and of himself. The +incident did no good to the already bickering relations between Borrow +and the Rev. A. Brandram, the Secretary. Evidently Borrow’s +character jarred upon Brandram, who took revenge by a tone of facetious +cavil and several criticisms upon Borrow’s ways, upon his confident +masculine tone, for example, his “passionate” prayer, and +his confession of superstitious obedience to an ominous dream. +Brandram even took the trouble to remind Borrow that when it came to +distribution in Russia his success had ended: which was true but not +through any fault of his. Borrow took the criticism as if applied +to his Spanish work also, saying: “It was unkind and unjust to +taunt me with having been unsuccessful in distributing the Scriptures. +Allow me to state that no other person under the same circumstances +would have distributed the tenth part. Yet had I been utterly +unsuccessful, it would have been wrong to charge me with being so, after +all I have undergone—and with how little of that are you acquainted.” +<a name="citation140"></a><a href="#footnote140">{140}</a> If +Borrow had been as revengeful as Dr. Knapp believed him, he would not +have allowed Brandram to escape an immortality of hate in “Lavengro” +or “The Romany Rye.”</p> +<p>Borrow irritated the Spanish Government yet a little more by issuing +his Gypsy “Luke,” and in May, 1838, he was illegally imprisoned +in the <i>Carcel de Corte</i>, where he insisted upon staying until +he was set free with honour and the payment of his expenses. He +vindicated his position by a letter to a newspaper, pointing out that +his Society was neither sectarian nor political, and that he was their +<!-- page 141--><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>sole +authorised agent. This led directly to the breaking of his connection +with the Bible Society, who reprimanded him for his letter and virtually +recalled him from Spain.</p> +<p>Nevertheless Borrow made a series of excursions into the country +to sell his Testaments, until in August he was definitely recalled. +He returned to England, as he says himself, for “change of scene +and air” after an attack of fever. He obtained a new lease +from the Bible Society and was back in Spain at the end of 1838. +Early in 1839 he made further excursions with Antonio Lopez to sell +his Testaments, until he had to stop. Thereupon he went to Seville. +He was still forming plans on behalf of the Society. He wished +to go to La Mancha, the worst part of Spain, then through Saragossa +and into France.</p> +<p>At Seville it was, in May, 1839, that Colonel Napier met him. +Nobody knew who, or of what nationality, he was—this “mysterious +Unknown,” the white-haired young man, with dark eyes of almost +supernatural penetration and lustre, who gave himself out to be thirty +instead of thirty-five, who spoke English, French, Italian, Spanish, +German, and Romaic to those who best understood these languages. +Borrow and Napier rode out together to the ruins of Italica:</p> +<p>“We sat down,” he says, “on a fragment of the walls; +the “Unknown” began to feel the vein of poetry creeping +through his inward soul, and gave vent to it by reciting, with great +emphasis and effect, the following well-known and beautiful lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower, grown<br /> +Matted and massed together, hillocks heap’d<br /> +On what were chambers, arch crush’d, column strown<br /> +In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steep’d<br /> +In subterranean damps, where the owl peep’d,<br /> +Deeming it midnight:—Temples, baths, or halls—<br /> +Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap’d<br /> +From her research hath been, that these are walls.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“I had been too much taken up with the scene, the <!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 142</span>verses, +and the strange being who was repeating them with so much feeling, to +notice the approach of a slight female figure, beautiful in the extreme, +but whose tattered garments, raven hair, swarthy complexion, and flashing +eyes, proclaimed her to be of the wandering tribe of Gitanos. +From an intuitive sense of politeness she stood with crossed arms and +a slight smile on her dark and handsome countenance, until my companion +had ceased, and then addressed us in the usual whining tone of supplication—‘Gentlemen, +a little charity; God will repay it to you!’ The Gypsy girl +was so pretty and her voice so sweet, that I involuntarily put my hand +in my pocket.</p> +<p>“‘Stop!’ said the ‘Unknown.’ +‘Do you remember what I told you of the Eastern origin of these +people? You shall see I am correct.’ ‘Come here, +my pretty child,’ said he in Moultanee, ‘and tell me where +are the rest of your tribe.’ The girl looked astounded, +and replied in the same tongue, but in broken language; when, taking +him by the arm, she said in Spanish: ‘Come, Caballero, come to +one who will be able to answer you’; and she led the way down +among the ruins towards one of the dens formerly occupied by the wild +beasts, and disclosed to us a set of beings scarcely less savage. +The sombre walls of this gloomy abode were illumined by a fire, the +smoke from which escaped through a deep fissure in the mossy roof, whilst +the flickering flames threw a blood-red glare on the bronzed features +of a group of children, two men, and a decrepit old hag who appeared +busily engaged in some culinary operations.</p> +<p>“On our entrance, the scowling glance of the males of the party, +and a quick motion of the hand towards the folds of the faja (where +the clasp-knife is concealed), caused in me, at least, anything but +a comfortable sensation; but their hostile intentions were immediately +removed by a wave of the hand from our conductress, who, leading my +<!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>companion +towards the sibyl, whispered something in her ear. The old crone +appeared incredulous. The ‘Unknown’ uttered one word; +but that word had the effect of magic. She prostrated herself +at his feet, and in an instant, from an object of suspicion, he became +one of worship to the whole family, to whom on taking leave he made +a handsome present, and departed with their united blessings.</p> +<p>“I was, as the phrase goes, dying with curiosity, and as soon +as we mounted our horses, exclaimed: ‘Where, in the name of goodness, +did you pick up your acquaintance with the language of these extraordinary +people?’ ‘Some years ago, in Moultan,’ he replied. +‘And by what means do you possess such apparent influence over +them?’ But the ‘Unknown’ had already said more +than he perhaps wished on the subject. He dryly replied that he +had more than once owed his life to Gypsies and had reason to know them +well; but this was said in a tone which precluded all further queries +on my part.”</p> +<p>This report is a wonderful testimony to Borrow’s power, for +he seems to have made the Colonel write almost like himself and produce +a picture exactly like those which he so often draws of himself.</p> +<p>From Seville Borrow took a journey of a few weeks to Tangier and +Barbary. There he met the strongest man in Tangier, one of the +old Moors of Granada, who waved a barrel of water over his head as if +it had been a quart pot. There he and his Jewish servant, Hayim +Ben Attar, sold Testaments, and, says he, “with humble gratitude +to the Lord,” the blessed Book was soon in the hands of most of +the Christians in Tangier. But with an account of his first day +in the city he concluded “The Bible in Spain.”</p> +<p>When he was back again in Seville he had the society of Mrs. Clarke +and her daughter; Henrietta, who had come to Spain to avoid some legal +difficulties and presumably <!-- page 144--><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>to +see Borrow. Before the end of 1839 the engagement of Borrow and +Mrs. Clarke was announced without surprising old Mrs. Borrow at Norwich. +In November Borrow wrote almost his last long letter to the Bible Society. +He had the advantage of a singular address, being for the moment in +the prison of Seville, where he had been illegally thrown, after a quarrel +with the Alcalde over the matter of a passport. He told them how +this “ruffian” quailed before his gaze of defiance. +He told them how well he was treated by his fellow prisoners:</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page145b.jpg"> +<img alt="The Summer House, Oulton Cottage. Photo: C. Wilson, Lowestoft" src="images/page145s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“The black-haired man who is now looking over my shoulder is +the celebrated thief Palacio, the most expert housebreaker and dexterous +swindler in Spain—in a word, the modern Guzman Dalfarache. +The brawny man who sits by the brasero of charcoal, is Salvador, the +highwayman of Ronda, who has committed a hundred murders. A fashionably +dressed man, short and slight in person, is walking about the room: +he wears immense whiskers and mustachios; he is one of that most singular +race of Jews of Spain; he is imprisoned for counterfeiting money. +He is an atheist, but like a true Jew, the name which he most hates +is that of Christ: . . .” <a name="citation144"></a><a href="#footnote144">{144}</a> +So well did Borrow choose his company, even in prison. Some of +his letters to the Society went astray at this time and he was vainly +expected in England. He was able to send them a very high testimony +to his discretion from the English Consul at Seville, and he himself +reminded them that he had been “fighting with wild beasts” +during this last visit. The Society several times repeated his +recall, but he did not return, apparently because he wished to remain +with Mrs. Clarke in Seville, and because he no longer felt himself at +their beck and call. He was also at work on “The Gypsies +of Spain.” Nevertheless he wrote to the Society in March, +<!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 145</span>1840, +a letter which would have been remarkable from another man about to +marry a wife, for he said that he wished to spend the remaining years +of his life in the northern parts of China, as he thought he had a call, +and still hoped “to die in the cause of my Redeemer.” +In April he left Spain with Mrs. and Miss Clarke. Fifty or sixty +years later Mrs. Joseph Pennell “saw the sign, ‘G. Borrow, +Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society,’ high upon a house +in the Plaza de la Constitucion, in Seville.” Borrow was +never again in Spain. After reporting himself for the last time +to the Society, and making a suggestion which Brandram answered by saying, +“the door seems shut,” he married Mrs. Clarke on April 23, +1840. She had £450 a year and a home at Oulton. Fifteen +or sixteen years later he spoke of his wife and daughter thus: “Of +my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of wives—can +make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the best woman of +business in Eastern Anglia—of my step daughter—for such +she is, though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason, +seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me—that +she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing +something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch +style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery +German thing so called—but the real Spanish guitar.” +His wife wrote letters for him, copied his manuscripts, and helped to +correct his proofs. She remained at Oulton, or Yarmouth, while +he went about; if he went to Wales or Ireland she sometimes accompanied +him to a convenient centre and there remained while he did as he pleased. +She admired him, and she appears to have become essential to his life, +apart from her income, and not to have resented her position at any +time, though grieved by his unconcealed melancholy.</p> +<p><!-- page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>A +second time he praised her in print, saying that he had an exceedingly +clever wife, and allowed her “to buy and sell, carry money to +the bank, draw cheques, inspect and pay tradesmen’s bills, and +transact all my real business, whilst I myself pore over old books, +walk about the shires, discoursing with Gypsies, under hedgerows, or +with sober bards—in hedge alehouses.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>CHAPTER +XIX—“THE ZINCALI”</h2> +<p>Borrow and his wife and stepdaughter settled at Oulton Cottage before +the spring of 1840 was over. This house, the property of Mrs. +Borrow, was separated from Oulton Broad only by a slope of lawn, at +the foot of which was a private boat. Away from the house, but +equally near lawn and water stood Borrow’s library—a little +peaked octagonal summer house, with toplights and windows. The +cottage is gone, but the summer house, now mantled with ivy, where he +wrote “The Bible in Spain” and “Lavengro,” is +still to be seen. Here, too, he arranged and completed the book +written “at considerable intervals during a period of nearly five +years passed in Spain—in moments snatched from more important +pursuits—chiefly in ventas and posádas (inns), whilst wandering +through the country in the arduous and unthankful task of distributing +the Gospel among its children,”—“The Zincali: or the +Gypsies of Spain.” It was published in April, 1841.</p> +<p>This book is a description of Gypsies in Spain and wherever else +he has met them, with some history, and, as Borrow says himself, with +“more facts than theories.” It abounds in quotations +from out of the way Spanish books, but was by far “less the result +of reading than of close observation.” It is patched together +from scattered notes with little order or proportion, and cannot be +regarded as a whole either in intention or effect. Nor is this +wholly due to the odd times and places in which it was written. +Borrow had never before written a continuous original work of any length. +He had formed no clear idea of <!-- page 148--><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>himself, +his public, or his purpose. Personality was strong in him and +it had to be expressed. He was full also of extraordinary observation, +and this he could not afford to conceal. It was not easy to satisfy +the two needs in one coherent book; he hardly tried, and he certainly +did not succeed. Ford described it well in his review of “The +Bible in Spain”: <a name="citation148"></a><a href="#footnote148">{148}</a></p> +<p>“‘The Gypsies of Spain’ was a Spanish olla—a +hotchpotch of the jockey tramper, philologist, and missionary. +It was a thing of shreds and patches—a true book of Spain; the +chapters, like her bundle of unamalgamating provinces, were just held +together, and no more, by the common tie of religion; yet it was strange +and richly flavoured with genuine <i>borracha</i>. It was the +first work of a diffident, inexperienced man, who, mistrusting his own +powers, hoped to conciliate critics by leaning on Spanish historians +and Gypsy poets.”</p> +<p>Nevertheless, “The Zincali” is a book that is still valuable +for these two separate elements of personality and extraordinary observation. +Probably Borrow, his publisher, and the public, regarded it chiefly +as a work of information, picturesquely diversified, and this it still +is, though the increase and systematization of Gypsy studies are said +to have superseded it. A book of spirit cannot be superseded. +But pure information does not live long, and the fact that its information +is inaccurate or incomplete does not rot a book like “The Compleat +Angler” or the “Georgics.” Thus it may happen +that the first book on a subject is the best, and its successors mere +treatises destined to pave the way for other treatises. “The +Gypsies of Spain” is still read as no other book on the Gypsy +is read. It is still read, not only by those just infected with +Gypsy fever, but by men as men. It does not, indeed, <!-- page 149--><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>survive +as a whole, because it never was a whole, but there is a spirit in the +best parts sufficiently strong to carry the reader on over the rest.</p> +<p>To-day very few will do more than smile when Borrow says of the Gypsies, +that there can be no doubt “they are human beings and have immortal +souls,” and that the chief object of his book is to “draw +the attention of the Christian philanthropist towards them, especially +that degraded and unhappy portion of them, the Gitanos of Spain.” +In 1841 many of the Christian public probably felt a slight glow of +satisfaction at starting on a book that brought the then certain millenium, +of a Christian and English cast, definitely nearer. Probably they +liked to know that this missionary called pugilistic combats “disgraceful +and brutalising exhibitions”; and they were almost as certainly, +as we are to-day, delighted with the descriptions that followed, because +it brought for the first time clearly before them a real prize-fighting +scene, and the author, a terrible child of fourteen, looking on—“why +should I hide the truth?” says he. This excellent moral +tone accompanied the reader of 1841 with satisfaction to the end. +For example, Borrow describes the Gypsies at Tarifa swindling a country +man and woman out of their donkey. When he sees them being treated +and fondled by their intending robbers, he exclaims: “Behold, +poor humanity, thought I to myself, in the hands of devils; in this +manner are human souls ensnared to destruction by the fiends of the +pit.” When he sees them departing penniless and without +their donkey, the woman bitterly lamenting it, he comments: “Upon +the whole, however, I did not much pity them. The woman was certainly +not the man’s wife. The labourer had probably left his village +with some strolling harlot, bringing with him the animal which had previously +served to support himself and a family.” Borrow was a man +who pronounced the Bible to be “the wonderful Book which <!-- page 150--><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>is +capable of resolving every mystery.” He was a man, furthermore, +who called sorcery simply “a thing impossible,” and thus +addressed a writer on chiromancy: “We . . . believe that the lines +of the hand have as little connection with the events of life as with +the liver and stomach, notwithstanding Aristotle, who you forget was +a heathen and cared as little for the Scriptures as the Gitanos, whether +male or female.”</p> +<p>Another satisfactory side to Borrow’s public character, as +revealed in “The Zincali,” was his contempt for “other +nations,” such as Spain—“a country whose name has +long and justly been considered as synonymous with every species of +ignorance and barbarism.” His voice rises when he says that +“avarice has always been the dominant passion in Spanish minds, +their rage for money being only to be compared to the wild hunger of +wolves for horseflesh in the time of winter; next to avarice, envy of +superior talent and accomplishment is the prevailing passion.” +These were the people whom he had gone to convert. His contempt +for those who were not middle-class Englishmen seemed unmitigated. +Speaking of the Gypsies, to whom the schools were open and the laws +kinder, he points out that, nevertheless, they remain jockeys and blacksmiths, +though it is true they have in part given up their wandering life. +But “much,” he says, “will have been accomplished +if, after the lapse of a hundred years, one hundred human beings shall +have been evolved from the Gypsy stock who shall prove sober, honest, +and useful members of society,” <i>i.e.</i>, resembling the Spaniards +whom he so condemned.</p> +<p>But if men love a big fellow at the street corner bellowing about +sin and the wrath to come, they love him better if he was a black sinner +before he became white as the driven snow. Borrow reprimanded +Spaniard and Gypsy, but he also knew them: there is even a suspicion +that he <!-- page 151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>liked +them, though in his public black-coated capacity he had to condemn them +and regret that their destiny was perdition. Had he not said, +in his preface, that he had known the Gypsies for twenty years and that +they treated him well because they thought him a Gypsy? and in another +place referred to the time when he lived with the English Gypsies? +Had he not, in his introductions, spoken of “my brethren, the +Smiths,” a phrase then cryptic and only to be explained by revealing +his sworn brotherhood with Ambrose Smith, the Jasper Petulengro of later +books? He had said, moreover, in a perfectly genuine tone, with +no trace of missionary declamation:</p> +<p>“After the days of the great persecution in England against +the Gypsies, there can be little doubt that they lived a right merry +and tranquil life, wandering about and pitching their tents wherever +inclination led them: indeed, I can scarcely conceive any human condition +more enviable than Gypsy life must have been in England during the latter +part of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth century, which +were likewise the happy days for Englishmen in general; there was peace +and plenty in the land, a contented population, and everything went +well.”</p> +<p>If a man wishes to condemn the seven deadly sins we tolerate him +if in the process they are sufficiently well described. If Borrow +described the tinker family as wretched, and their donkey as miserable, +he added, “though life, seemingly so wretched, has its charms +for these outcasts, who live without care and anxiety, without a thought +beyond the present hour, and who sleep as sound in ruined posadas and +ventas, or in ravines amongst rocks and pines, as the proudest grandee +in his palace at Seville or Madrid.” If he condemned superstition, +he yet thought it possibly “founded on a physical reality”; +he regarded the moon as the true “evil eye,” and bade men +“not sleep <!-- page 152--><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 152</span>uncovered +beneath the smile of the moon, for her glance is poisonous, and produces +insupportable itching in the eye, and not infrequently blindness.” +If he believed in the immortality of the soul, he did not disdain to +know the vendor of poisons who was a Gypsy. If he stayed three +weeks in Badajoz because he knew he should never meet any people “more +in need of a little Christian exhortation” than the Gypsies, he +did not fill his pages with three weeks of Christian exhortation, but +told the story of the Gypsy soldier, Antonio—how he recognised +as a Gypsy the enemy who was about to kill him, and saved himself from +the uplifted bayonet by crying “Zincalo, Zincalo!” and then, +having been revived by him, sat for hours with his late enemy, who said: +“Let the dogs fight and tear each other’s throats till they +are all destroyed, what matters it to the Zincali? they are not of our +blood, and shall that be shed for them?” This man who, if +he had his way, would have washed his face in the blood of the Busné +(those who are not Gypsies), this man called Borrow “brother!” +If Borrow distributed Testaments, he knew little more of the recipients +than a bolt from the blue, or if he did he cared to tell but little. +That little is the story of the Gypsy soldier, Chaléco, who came +to him at Madrid in 1838 with a copy of the Testament. He told +his story from his cradle up; he imposed himself on Borrow’s hospitality, +eating “like a wolf of the Sierra,” and drinking in proportion. +Borrow could only escape from him by dining out. When Borrow was +imprisoned the fellow drew his sword at the news and vowed to murder +the Prime Minister “for having dared to imprison his brother.” +In what follows, Borrow reveals in a consummate manner his power of +drawing into his vicinity extraordinary events:</p> +<p>“On my release, I did not revisit my lodgings for some days, +but lived at an hotel. I returned late one afternoon, with my +servant Francisco, a Basque of Hernáni, who had <!-- page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>served +me with the utmost fidelity during my imprisonment, which he had voluntarily +shared with me. The first person I saw on entering was the Gypsy +soldier, seated by the table, whereon were several bottles of wine which +he had ordered from the tavern, of course on my account. He was +smoking, and looked savage and sullen; perhaps he was not much pleased +with the reception he had experienced. He had forced himself in, +and the woman of the house sat in a corner looking upon him with dread. +I addressed him, but he would scarcely return an answer. At last +he commenced discoursing with great volubility in Gypsy and Latin. +I did not understand much of what he said. His words were wild +and incoherent, but he repeatedly threatened some person. The +last bottle was now exhausted—he demanded more. I told him +in a gentle manner that he had drunk enough. He looked on the +ground for some time, then slowly, and somewhat hesitatingly, drew his +sword and laid it on the table. It was become dark. I was +not afraid of the fellow, but I wished to avoid any thing unpleasant. +I called to Francisco to bring lights, and obeying a sign which I made +him, he sat down at the table. The Gypsy glared fiercely upon +him—Francisco laughed, and began with great glee to talk in Basque, +of which the Gypsy understood not a word. The Basques, like all +Tartars, and such they are, are paragons of fidelity and good nature; +they are only dangerous when outraged, when they are terrible indeed. +Francisco to the strength of a giant joined the disposition of a lamb. +He was beloved even in the patio of the prison, where he used to pitch +the bar and wrestle with the murderers and felons, always coming off +victor. He continued speaking Basque. The Gypsy was incensed; +and, forgetting the languages in which, for the last hour, he had been +speaking, complained to Francisco of his rudeness in speaking any tongue +but Castilian. The Basque <!-- page 154--><a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>replied +by a loud carcajáda, and slightly touched the Gypsy on the knee. +The latter sprang up like a mine discharged, seized his sword, and, +retreating a few steps, made a desperate lunge at Francisco.</p> +<p>“The Basques, next to the Pasiegos, are the best cudgel-players +in Spain, and in the world. Francisco held in his hand part of +a broomstick, which he had broken in the stable, whence he had just +ascended. With the swiftness of lightning he foiled the stroke +of Chaléco, and, in another moment, with a dexterous blow, struck +the sword out of his hand, sending it ringing against the wall.</p> +<p>“The Gypsy resumed his seat and his cigar. He occasionally +looked at the Basque. His glances were at first atrocious, but +presently changed their expression, and appeared to me to become prying +and eagerly curious. He at last arose, picked up his sword, sheathed +it, and walked slowly to the door, when there he stopped, turned round, +advanced close to Francisco, and looked him steadfastly in the face. +‘My good fellow,’ said he, ‘I am a Gypsy, and can +read baji. Do you know where you will be this time to-morrow?’ +<a name="citation154"></a><a href="#footnote154">{154}</a> Then +laughing like a hyena, he departed, and I never saw him again.</p> +<p>“At that time on the morrow, Francisco was on his death-bed. +He had caught the jail fever, which had long raged in the Carcel de +la Corte, where I was imprisoned. In a few days he was buried, +a mass of corruption, in the Campo Santo of Madrid.”</p> +<p>Having attracted the event, he recorded it with a vividness well +set off by his own nonchalance. Again and again he was to repeat +this triumph of depicting the wild, and the wild in a condition of activity +and often fury.</p> +<p>His success is all the greater because it is unexpected. He +sets out “to direct the attention of the public towards <!-- page 155--><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>the +Gypsies; but he hopes to be able to do so without any romantic appeals +on their behalf.” He is far from having a romantic tone. +He wields, as a rule, with any amount of dignity the massive style of +the early Victorian “Quarterly Review” and Lane’s +so-called “Arabian Nights.” Thus, speaking of Gypsy +fortune-tellers, he says: “Their practice chiefly lies among females, +the portion of the human race most given to curiosity and credulity.” +Sentences like this always remind me of Lord Melbourne’s indignation +at the thought of religion intruding on private life. His indignation +is obviously of the same period as the sentence: “Among the Zingari +are not a few who deal in precious stones, and some who vend poisons; +and the most remarkable individual whom it has been my fortune to encounter +amongst the Gypsies, whether of the Eastern or Western world, was a +person who dealt in both these articles.” A style like this +resembles a paunchy man who can be relied on not to pick the daisies. +At times Borrow writes as if he were translating, as in “The anvil +rings beneath the thundering stroke, hour succeeds hour, and still endures +the hard sullen toil.” He adds a little vanity of no value +by a Biblical echo now and again, as in the clause: “And it came +to pass, moreover, that the said Fajardo . . . ” or in “And +the chief of that camp, even Mr. Petulengro, stood before the encampment. +. . .”</p> +<p>This is a style for information, instruction, edification, and intervals +of sleep. It is the style of an age, a class, a sect, not of an +individual. Deeds and not words are what count in it. Only +by big, wild, or extraordinary things can it be compelled to a semblance +of life. Borrow gives it such things a hundred times, and they +help one another to be effective. The reader does not forget the +Gypsies of Granada:</p> +<p>“Many of them reside in caves scooped in the sides of <!-- page 156--><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 156</span>the +ravines which lead to the higher regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt +of which stands Granada. A common occupation of the Gitanos of +Granada is working in iron, and it is not infrequent to find these caves +tenanted by Gypsy smiths and their families, who ply the hammer and +forge in the bowels of the earth. To one standing at the mouth +of the cave, especially at night, they afford a picturesque spectacle. +Gathered round the forge, their bronzed and naked bodies, illuminated +by the flame, appear like figures of demons; while the cave, with its +flinty sides and uneven roof, blackened by the charcoal vapours which +hover about it in festoons, seems to offer no inadequate representation +of fabled purgatory.”</p> +<p>The picture of the Gitana of Seville hands on some of its own power +to the quieter pages, and at length, with a score of other achievements +of the same solid kind, kindles well-nigh every part of the shapeless +book. I shall quote it at length:</p> +<p>“If there be one being in the world who, more than another, +deserves the title of sorceress (and where do you find a word of greater +romance and more thrilling interest?), it is the Gypsy female in the +prime and vigour of her age and ripeness of her understanding—the +Gipsy wife, the mother of two or three children. Mention to me +a point of devilry with which that woman is not acquainted. She +can at any time, when it suits her, show herself as expert a jockey +as her husband, and he appears to advantage in no other character, and +is only eloquent when descanting on the merits of some particular animal; +but she can do much more; she is a prophetess, though she believes not +in prophecy; she is a physician, though she will not taste her own philters; +she is a procuress, though she is not to be procured; she is a singer +of obscene songs, though she will suffer no obscene hands to touch her; +and though no one is more tenacious of the little she possesses, <!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 157</span>she +is a cutpurse and a shoplifter whenever opportunity shall offer. . . +. Observe, for example, the Gitana, even her of Seville.</p> +<p>“She is standing before the portals of a large house in one +of the narrow Moorish streets of the capital of Andalusia; through the +grated iron door, she looks in upon the court; it is paved with small +marble slabs of almost snowy whiteness; in the middle is a fountain +distilling limpid water, and all around there is a profusion of macetas, +in which flowering plants and aromatic shrubs are growing, and at each +corner there is an orange tree, and the perfume of the azahár +may be distinguished; you hear the melody of birds from a small aviary +beneath the piazza which surrounds the court, which is surrounded by +a toldo or linen awning, for it is the commencement of May, and the +glorious sun of Andalusia is burning with a splendour too intense for +its rays to be borne with impunity. It is a fairy scene such as +nowhere meets the eye but at Seville, or perhaps at Fez and Shiraz, +in the palaces of the Sultan and the Shah. The Gypsy looks through +the iron-grated door, and beholds, seated near the fountain, a richly +dressed dame and two lovely delicate maidens; they are busied at their +morning’s occupation, intertwining with their sharp needles the +gold and silk on the tambour; several female attendants are seated behind. +The Gypsy pulls the bell, when is heard the soft cry of ‘Quien +es’; the door, unlocked by means of a string, recedes upon its +hinges, when in walks the Gitana, the witch-wife of Multan, with a look +such as the tiger-cat casts when she stealeth from her jungle into the +plain.</p> +<p>“Yes, well may you exclaim, ‘Ave Maria purissima,’ +ye dames and maidens of Seville, as she advances towards you; she is +not of yourselves, she is not of your blood, she or her fathers have +walked to your clime from a distance of three thousand leagues. +She has come from the far <!-- page 158--><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>East, +like the three enchanted kings to Cologne; but unlike them she and her +race have come with hate and not with love. She comes to flatter, +and to deceive, and to rob, for she is a lying prophetess, and a she-Thug; +she will greet you with blessings which will make your heart rejoice, +but your heart’s blood would freeze, could you hear the curses +which to herself she murmurs against you; for she says, that in her +children’s veins flows the dark blood of the ‘husbands,’ +whilst in those of yours flows the pale tide of the ‘savages,’ +and therefore she would gladly set her foot on all your corses first +poisoned by her hands. For all her love—and she can love—is +for the Romas; and all her hate—and who can hate like her?—is +for the Busnees; for she says that the world would be a fair world were +there no Busnees, and if the Romamiks could heat their kettles undisturbed +at the foot of the olive trees; and therefore she would kill them all +if she could and if she dared. She never seeks the houses of the +Busnees but for the purpose of prey; for the wild animals of the sierra +do not more abhor the sight of man than she abhors the countenances +of the Busnees. She now comes to prey upon you and to scoff at +you. Will you believe her words? Fools! do you think that +the being before ye has any sympathy for the like of you?</p> +<p>“She is of the middle stature, neither strongly nor slightly +built, and yet her every movement denotes agility and vigour. +As she stands erect before you, she appears like a falcon about to soar, +and you are almost tempted to believe that the power of volation is +hers; and were you to stretch forth your hand to seize her, she would +spring above the house-tops like a bird. Her face is oval, and +her features are regular but somewhat hard and coarse, for she was born +amongst rocks in a thicket, and she has been wind-beaten and sun-scorched +for many a year, even like her parents before her; there is many a speck +upon her cheek, and <!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>perhaps +a scar, but no dimples of love; and her brow is wrinkled over, though +she is yet young. Her complexion is more than dark, for it is +almost that of a Mulatto; and her hair, which hangs in long locks on +either side of her face, is black as coal, and coarse as the tail of +a horse, from which it seems to have been gathered.</p> +<p>“There is no female eye in Seville can support the glance of +hers, so fierce and penetrating, and yet so artful and sly, is the expression +of their dark orbs; her mouth is fine and almost delicate, and there +is not a queen on the proudest throne between Madrid and Moscow who +might not, and would not, envy the white and even rows of teeth which +adorn it, which seem not of pearl but of the purest elephant’s +bone of Multan. She comes not alone; a swarthy two-year old bantling +clasps her neck with one arm, its naked body half extant from the coarse +blanket which, drawn round her shoulders, is secured at her bosom by +a skewer. Though tender of age it looks wicked and sly, like a +veritable imp of Roma. Huge rings of false gold dangle from wide +slits in the lobes of her ears; her nether garments are rags, and her +feet are cased in hempen sandals. Such is the wandering Gitana, +such is the witch-wife of Multan, who has come to spae the fortune of +the Sevillian countess and her daughters.</p> +<p>“‘O may the blessing of Egypt light upon your head, you +high-born Lady! (May an evil end overtake your body, daughter +of a Busnee harlot!) and may the same blessing await the two fair roses +of the Nile here flowering by your side! (May evil Moors seize +them and carry them across the water!) O listen to the words of +the poor woman who is come from a distant country; she is of a wise +people, though it has pleased the God of the sky to punish them for +their sins by sending them to wander through the world. They denied +shelter to the Majari, whom you call the queen of heaven, and to the +Son of God, <!-- page 160--><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>when +they flew to the land of Egypt, before the wrath of the wicked king; +it is said that they even refused them a draught of the sweet waters +of the great river when the blessed two were athirst. O you will +say that it was a heavy crime; and truly so it was, and heavily has +the Lord punished the Egyptians. He has sent us a-wandering, poor +as you see, with scarcely a blanket to cover us. O blessed lady +(accursed be thy dead as many as thou mayest have), we have no money +to purchase us bread; we have only our wisdom with which to support +ourselves and our poor hungry babes; when God took away their silks +from the Egyptians, and their gold from the Egyptians, he left them +their wisdom as a resource that they might not starve. O who can +read the stars like the Egyptians? and who can read the lines of the +palm like the Egyptians? The poor woman read in the stars that +there was a rich ventura for all of this goodly house, so she followed +the bidding of the stars and came to declare it. O blessed lady +(I defile thy dead corse), your husband is at Granada, fighting with +King Ferdinand against the wild Corahai! (May an evil ball smite +him and split his head!) Within three months he shall return with +twenty captive Moors, round the neck of each a chain of gold. +(God grant that when he enter the house a beam may fall upon him and +crush him!) And within nine months after his return God shall +bless you with a fair chabo, the pledge for which you have sighed so +long! (Accursed be the salt placed in its mouth in the church +when it is baptized!) Your palm, blessed lady, your palm, and +the palms of all I see here, that I may tell you all the rich ventura +which is hanging over this good house; (May evil lightning fall upon +it and consume it!) but first let me sing you a song of Egypt, that +the spirit of the Chowahanee may descend more plenteously upon the poor +woman.’</p> +<p>“Her demeanour now instantly undergoes a change. Hitherto +she has been pouring forth a lying and wild <!-- page 161--><a name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>harangue, +without much flurry or agitation of manner. Her speech, it is +true, has been rapid, but her voice has never been raised to a very +high key; but she now stamps on the ground, and placing her hands on +her hips, she moves quickly to the right and left, advancing and retreating +in a sidelong direction. Her glances become more fierce and fiery, +and her coarse hair stands erect on her head, stiff as the prickles +of the hedgehog; and now she commences clapping her hands, and uttering +words of an unknown tongue, to a strange and uncouth tune. The +tawny bantling seems inspired with the same fiend, and, foaming at the +mouth, utters wild sounds, in imitation of its dam. Still more +rapid become the sidelong movements of the Gitana. Movements! +she springs, she bounds, and at every bound she is a yard above the +ground. She no longer bears the child in her bosom; she plucks +it from thence, and fiercely brandishes it aloft, till at last, with +a yell, she tosses it high into the air, like a ball, and then, with +neck and head thrown back, receives it, as it falls, on her hands and +breast, extracting a cry from the terrified beholders. Is it possible +she can be singing? Yes, in the wildest style of her people; and +here is a snatch of the song, in the language of Roma, which she occasionally +screams:</p> +<blockquote><p>“En los sastos de yesque plai me diquélo,<br /> +Doscusañas de sonacai terélo,—<br /> +Corojai diquélo abillar,<br /> +Y ne asislo chapescar, chapescar.”</p> +<p>“On the top of a mountain I stand,<br /> +With a crown of red gold in my hand,—<br /> +Wild Moors come trooping o’er the lea,<br /> +O how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee?<br /> +O how from their fury shall I flee?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Such was the Gitana in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella, and much +the same is she now in the days of Isabel and Christina. . . .”</p> +<p>Here, it is true, there is a substantial richly-coloured and <!-- page 162--><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>strange +subject matter, such as could hardly be set down in any way or by anyone +without attracting the attention. Borrow makes it do more than +this. The word “extant” may offend a little, but the +writer can afford many such blemishes, for he has life in his pen. +He is, as it were himself substantial, richly-coloured, strange and +with big strokes and splashes he suggests the thing itself. There +have been writers since Borrow’s day who have thought to use words +so subtly that they are equivalent to things, but in the end their words +remain nothing but words. Borrow uses language like a man, and +we forget his words on account of the vividness of the things which +they do not so much create as evoke. I do not mean that it can +be called unconscious art, for it is naively conscious and delighting +in itself. The language is that of an orator, a man standing up +and addressing a mass in large and emphatic terms. He succeeds +not only in evoking things that are very much alive, but in suggesting +an artist that is their equal, instead of one, who like so many more +refined writers, is a more or less pathetic admirer of living things. +In this he resembles Byron. It may not be the highest form of +art, but it is the most immediate and disturbing and genial in its effect. +Finally, the whole book has body. It can be browsed on. +It does not ask a particular mood, being itself the result of no one +mood, but of a great part of one man’s life. Turn over half +a dozen pages and a story, or a picture, or a bit of costume, or of +superstition, will invariably be the reward. It reads already +like a book rather older than it really is, but not because it has faded. +There was nothing in it to fade, being too hard, massive and unvarnished. +It remains alive, capable of surviving the Gypsies except in so far +as they live within it and its fellow books.</p> +<h2><!-- page 163--><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>CHAPTER +XX—“THE BIBLE IN SPAIN”</h2> +<p>In “The Zincali” Borrow used some of his private notes +and others supplied by Spanish friends, together with parts of letters +to the Bible Society. It used to be supposed that “The Bible +in Spain” was made up almost entirely from these letters. +But this has now been disproved by the newly published “Letters +of George Borrow to the Bible Society.” <a name="citation163a"></a><a href="#footnote163a">{163a}</a> +These letters are about half the length of “The Bible in Spain,” +and yet only about a third part of them was used by Borrow in writing +that book. Some of his letters were never received by the Society +and had probably been lost on the way. But this was more of a +disaster to the Society than to Borrow. He kept journals <a name="citation163b"></a><a href="#footnote163b">{163b}</a> +from which his letters were probably copied or composed; and he was +able, for example, in July, 1836, to send the Society a detailed and +dated account of his entry into Spain in January, and his intercourse +with the Gypsies of Badajoz. It is also possible that the letters +lent to him by the Society were far more numerous than those returned +by him. He missed little that could have been turned to account, +unless it was the suggestion that if he knew the country his safest +way from Seville to Madrid was to go afoot in the dress of beggar or +Gypsy, and the remark that in Tangier one of his principal associates +was a black slave, whose country was only three days journey from Timbuctoo. +<a name="citation163c"></a><a href="#footnote163c">{163c}</a> +He had already in 1835 <!-- page 164--><a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>planned +to write “a small volume” on what he was about to see and +hear in Spain, and it must have been from notes or full journals kept +with this view that he drew for “The Zincali” and still +more for “The Bible in Spain.” He wrote his journals +and letters very much as Cobbett his “Rural Rides,” straight +after days in the saddle. Except when he was presenting a matter +of pure business he was not much troubled by the fact that he was addressing +his employers, the Bible Society. He did not always begin “Bible” +with a capital B, an error corrected by Mr. Darlow, his editor. +He prefixed “Revd. and dear sir,” and thought little more +about them unless to add such a phrase as: “A fact which I hope +I may be permitted to mention with gladness and with decent triumph +in the Lord.” He did not, however, scorn to make a favourable +misrepresentation of his success, as for example in the interview with +Mendizabal, which was reduced probably to the level of the facts in +its book form. The Society were not always pleased with his frankness +and confidence, and the Secretary complained of things which were inconvenient +to be read aloud in a pious assembly, less concerned with sinners than +with repentance, and not easily convinced by the improbable. He +sent them, for example, after a specimen Gypsy translation of the Gospel +of St. Luke and of the Lord’s Prayer, “sixteen specimens +of the horrid curses in use amongst the Spanish Gypsies,” with +translations into English. These do not re-appear either in “The +Bible in Spain” or in the edition of Borrow’s letters to +the Society. He spared them, apparently, the story of Benedict +Moll and many another good thing that was meant for mankind.</p> +<p>I should be inclined to think that a very great part of “The +Bible in Spain” was written as the letters were, on the spot. +Either it was not sent to the Society for fear of loss, or if copied +and sent to them, it was lost on the way or never returned by Borrow +after he had used it in writing the <!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 165</span>book, +for the letters are just as careful in most parts as the book, and the +book is just as fresh as the letters. When he wrote to the Society, +he said that he told the schoolmaster “the Almighty would never +have inspired His saints with a desire to write what was unintelligible +to the great mass of mankind”; in “The Bible in Spain” +he said: “It [<i>i.e.</i>, the Bible] would never have been written +if not calculated by itself to illume the minds of all classes of mankind.” +Continuous letters or journals would be more likely to suit Borrow’s +purpose than notes such as he took in his second tour to Wales and never +used. Notes made on the spot are very likely to be disproportionate, +to lay undue stress on something that should be allowed to recede, and +would do so if left to memory; and once made they are liable to misinterpretation +if used after intervals of any length. But the flow and continuity +of letters insist on some proportion and on truth at least to the impression +of the day, and a balance is ensured between the scene or the experience +on the one hand and the observer on the other.</p> +<p>“The Zincali” was not published before Borrow realised +what a treasure he had deposited with the Bible Society, and not long +afterwards he obtained the loan of his letters to make a new book on +his travels in Spain. Borrow’s own account, in his preface +to the second edition of “The Zincali,” is that the success +of that book, and “the voice not only of England but of the greater +part of Europe” proclaiming it, astonished him in his “humble +retreat” at Oulton. He was, he implies, inclined to be too +much elated. Then the voice of a critic—whom we know to +have been Richard Ford—told him not to believe all he heard, but +to try again and avoid all his second hand stuff, his “Gypsy poetry, +dry laws, and compilations from dull Spanish authors.” And +so, he says, he began work in the winter, but slowly, and on through +summer and autumn and another <!-- page 166--><a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>winter, +and into another spring and summer, loitering and being completely idle +at times, until at last he went to his summer house daily and finished +the book. But as a matter of fact “The Zincali” had +no great success in either public or literary esteem, and Ford’s +criticism was passed on the manuscript, not the printed book.</p> +<p>Borrow and his wife took about six months to prepare the letters +for publication as a book. He took great pains with the writing +and only worked when he was in the mood. His health was not quite +good, as he implies in the preface to “The Zincali,” and +he tried “the water system” and also “lessons in singing,” +to cure his indigestion and sleeplessness. He had the advantage +of Ford’s advice, to avoid fine writing, mere description, poetry +and learned books, and to give plenty of “racy, real, genuine +scenes, and the more out of the way the better,” stories of adventure, +extraordinary things, prisons, low life, Gypsies, and so on. He +was now drawing entirely from “his own well,” and when the +book was out Ford took care to remark that the author had cast aside +the learned books which he had used as swimming corks in the “Zincali,” +and now “leaped boldly into the tide” unaided. John +Murray’s reader sent back the manuscript to be revised and augmented, +and after this was done, “The Bible in Spain” was published, +at the end of 1842, when Borrow was thirty-nine.</p> +<p>“The Bible in Spain” was praised and moreover purchased +by everyone. It was translated into French, American, Russian, +and printed in America. The “Athenæum” found +it a “genuine book”; the “Examiner” said that +“apart from its adventurous interest, its literary merit is extraordinary.” +Ford compared it with an old Spanish ballad, “going from incident +to incident, bang, bang, bang!” and with Gil Blas, and with Bunyan. +Ford, it must be remembered, had ridden over the same tracks as Borrow +in Spain, but before him, and had written his own <!-- page 167--><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>book +with a combination of learning and gusto that is one of the rarest of +literary virtues. Like Borrow he wrote fresh from the thing itself +when possible, asserting for example that the fat of the hams of Montanches, +when boiled, “looked like melted topazes, and the flavour defies +language, although we have dined on one this very day, in order to secure +accuracy and undeniable prose.” For the benefit of the public +Ford pointed out that “the Bible and its distribution have been +<i>the</i> business of his existence; whenever moral darkness brooded, +there, the Bible in his hand, he forced his way.”</p> +<p>When Borrow was actually in Spain he was much influenced by the conditions +of the moment. The sun of Spain would shine so that he prized +it above English civilization. The anarchy and wildness of Spain +at another time would make him hate both men and land. But more +lasting than joy in the sun and misery at the sight of misery was the +feeling that he was “adrift in Spain, the land of old renown, +the land of wonder and mystery, with better opportunities of becoming +acquainted with its strange secrets and peculiarities than, perhaps, +ever yet were afforded to any individual, certainly to a foreigner.” +When he entered it, by crossing a brook, out of Portugal, he shouted +the Spanish battle-cry in ecstasy, and in the end he described his five +years in Spain as, “if not the most eventful”—he cannot +refrain from that vainglorious dark hint—yet “the most happy +years” of his existence. Spain was to him “the most +magnificent country in the world”: it was also “one of the +few countries in Europe where poverty is not treated with contempt, +and I may add, where the wealthy are not blindly idolized.” +His book is a song of wild Spain when Spain <i>was</i> Spain.</p> +<p>Borrow, as we already know, had in him many of the powers that go +to make a great book, yet “The Zincali” was not a great +book. The important power developed <!-- page 168--><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>or +employed later which made “The Bible in Spain” a great book +was the power of narrative. The writing of those letters from +Spain to the Bible Society had taught him or discovered in him the instinct +for proportion and connection which is the simplest, most inexplicable +and most essential of literary gifts. With the help of this he +could write narrative that should suggest and represent the continuity +of life. He could pause for description or dialogue or reflection +without interrupting this stream of life. Nothing need be, and +nothing was, alien to the narrator with this gift; for his writing would +now assimilate everything and enrich itself continually.</p> +<p>The reader could follow, as he preferred, the Bible distribution +in particular, or the Gypsies, or Borrow himself, through the long ways +and dense forests of the book, and through the moral darkness of Spain. +It could be treated as a pious book, and as such it was attacked by +Catholics, as “Lavengro” still is. For certainly Borrow +made no secret of his piety. When “a fine young man of twenty-seven, +the only son of a widowed mother . . . the best sailor on board, and +beloved by all who were acquainted with him” was swept off the +ship in which Borrow was sailing, and drowned, as he had dreamed he +would be, the author exclaimed: “Truly wonderful are the ways +of Providence!” When a Spanish schoolmaster suggested that +the Testament was unintelligible without notes, Borrow informed him +that on the contrary the notes were far more difficult, and “it +would never have been written if not calculated of itself to illume +the minds of all classes of mankind.” The Bible was, in +his published words, “the well-head of all that is useful and +conducive to the happiness of society”; and he told the poor Catalans +that their souls’ welfare depended on their being acquainted with +the book he was selling at half the cost price. He could write +not unlike the author of “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” +<!-- page 169--><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>as +when he exclaimed: “Oh man, man, seek not to dive into the mystery +of moral good and evil; confess thyself a worm, cast thyself on the +earth, and murmur with thy lips in the dust, Jesus, Jesus!” +He thought the Pope “the head minister of Satan here on earth,” +and inspired partly by contempt of Catholics, he declared that “no +people in the world entertain sublimer notions of the uncreated eternal +God than the Moors . . . and with respect to Christ, their ideas even +of Him are much more just than those of the Papists.” And +he said to the face of the Spanish Prime Minister: “It is a pleasant +thing to be persecuted for the Gospel’s sake.” Nor +was this pure cant; for he meant at least this, that he loved conflict +and would be fearless and stubborn in battle; and, as he puts it, he +was “cast into prison for the Gospel’s sake.”</p> +<p>In 1843, no doubt, what first recommended this book to so many thousands +was the Protestant fervour and purpose of the book, and the romantic +reputation of Spain. At this day Borrow’s Bible distribution +is mainly of antiquarian and sectarian interest. We should not +estimate the darkness of Madrid by the number of Testaments there in +circulation and daily use, nor on the other hand should we fear, like +Borrow, to bring them into contempt by making them too common. +Yet his missionary work makes the necessary backbone of the book. +He was, as he justly said, “no tourist, no writer of books of +travels.” His work brought him adventure as no mere wandering +could have done. What is more, the man’s methods are still +entertaining to those who care nothing about the distribution itself. +Where he found the remains of a robber’s camp he left a New Testament +and some tracts. To carry the Bibles over the flinty hills of +Galicia and the Asturias he bought “a black Andalusian stallion +of great power and strength, . . . unbroke, savage and furious”: +the cargo, he says, would tame the animal. He fixed his advertisement +on the <!-- page 170--><a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>church +porch at Pitiegua, announcing the sale of Testaments at Salamanca. +He had the courage without the ferocity of enthusiasm, and in the cause +of the Bible Society he saw and did things which little concerned it, +which in fact displeased it, but keep this book alive with a great stir +and shout of life, with a hundred pages where we are shown what the +poet meant by “forms more real than living men.” We +are shown the unrighteous to the very life. What matters it then +if the author professes the opinion that “the friendship of the +unrighteous is never of long duration”? Nevertheless, these +pious ejaculations are not without their value in the composition of +the author’s amazing character.</p> +<p>Borrow came near to being a perfect traveller. For he was, +on the one hand, a man whose individuality was carved in clear bold +lines, who had a manner and a set of opinions as remarkable as his appearance. +Thus he was bound to come into conflict with men wherever he went: he +would bring out their manners and opinions, if they had any. But +on the other hand he had abounding curiosity. He was bold but +not rude: on the contrary he was most vigilantly polite. He took +snuff, though he detested it; he avoided politics as much as possible: +“No, no!” he said, “I have lived too long with <i>Romany +chals and Petulengres</i> to be of any politics save Gypsy politics,” +in spite of what he had said in ’32 and was to say again in ’57. +When he and the Gypsy Antonio came to Jaraicejo they separated by Antonio’s +advice. The Gypsy got through the town unchallenged by the guard, +though not unnoticed by the townspeople. But Borrow was stopped +and asked by a man of the National Guard whether he came with the Gypsy, +to which he answered, “Do I look a person likely to keep company +with Gypsies?” though, says he, he probably did. Then the +National asked for his passport:</p> +<p><!-- page 171--><a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>“I +remembered having read that the best way to win a Spaniard’s heart +is to treat him with ceremonious civility. I therefore dismounted, +and taking off my hat, made a low bow to the constitutional soldier, +saying, ‘Señor Nacional, you must know that I am an English +gentleman travelling in this country for my pleasure. I bear a +passport, which on inspecting you will find to be perfectly regular. +It was given me by the great Lord Palmerston, Minister of England, whom +you of course have heard of here. At the bottom you will see his +own handwriting. Look at it and rejoice; perhaps you will never +have another opportunity. As I put unbounded confidence in the +honour of every gentleman, I leave the passport in your hands whilst +I repair to the posada to refresh myself. When you have inspected +it, you will perhaps oblige me so far as to bring it to me. Cavalier, +I kiss your hands.’</p> +<p>“I then made him another low bow, which he returned with one +still lower, and leaving him now staring at the passport and now looking +at myself, I went into a posada, to which I was directed by a beggar +whom I met.</p> +<p>“I fed the horse, and procured some bread and barley, as the +Gypsy had directed me. I likewise purchased three fine partridges +of a fowler, who was drinking wine in the posada. He was satisfied +with the price I gave him, and offered to treat me with a copita, to +which I made no objection. As we sat discoursing at the table, +the National entered with the passport in his hand, and sat down by +us.</p> +<p>“<i>National</i>.—‘Caballero, I return you your +passport; it is quite in form. I rejoice much to have made your +acquaintance. I have no doubt that you can give me some information +respecting the present war.’</p> +<p>“<i>Myself</i>.—‘I shall be very happy to afford +so polite and honourable a gentleman any information in my power.’”</p> +<p>He won the hearts of the people of Villa Seca by the “formality” +of his behaviour and language; for he tells us <!-- page 172--><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>that +in such remote places might still be found the gravity of deportment +and the grandiose expressions which are scoffed at as exaggerations +in the romances. He speaks of himself in one place as strolling +about a town or neighbourhood, entering into conversation with several +people whom he met, shopkeepers, professional men, and others. +Near Evora he sat down daily at a fountain and talked with everyone +who came to it. He visited the College of the English Catholics +at Lisbon, excusing himself, indeed, by saying that his favourite or +his only study was man. His knowledge of languages and his un-English +appearance made it easier for him to become familiar with many kinds +of men. He introduced himself among some Jews of Lisbon, and pronounced +a blessing: they took him for a powerful rabbi, and he favoured their +mistake so that in a few days he knew all that related to these people +and their traffic. On his journey in Galicia, when he was nearing +Finisterra, the men of the cabin where he rested took him for a Catalan, +and “he favoured their mistake and began with a harsh Catalan +accent to talk of the fish of Galicia, and the high duties on salt.” +When at this same cabin he found there was no bed, he went up into the +loft and lay down on the boards’ without complaint. So in +the prison at Madrid he got on so well with the prisoners that on the +third day he spoke their language as if he were “a son of the +prison.” At Gibraltar he talked to the man of Mogador in +Arabic and was taken for “a holy man from the kingdoms of the +East,” especially when he produced the shekel which had been given +him by Hasfeldt: a Jew there believed him to be a Salamancan Jew. +At Villafranca a woman mistook his voice in the dark for that of “the +German clockmaker from Pontevedra.” For some time in 1839 +he went among the villages dressed in a peasant’s leather helmet, +jacket and trousers, and resembling “a person between sixty and +<!-- page 173--><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>seventy +years of age,” so that people addressed him as Uncle, and bought +his Testaments, though the Bible Society, on hearing it, “began +to inquire whether, if the old man were laid up in prison, they could +very conveniently apply for his release in the proper quarter.” +<a name="citation173"></a><a href="#footnote173">{173}</a></p> +<p>He saw men and places, and with his pen he created a land as distinct, +as wild, as vast, and as wonderful as the Spain of Cervantes. +He did this with no conscious preconceived design. His creation +was the effect of a multitude of impressions, all contributory because +all genuine and true to the depth of Borrow’s own nature. +He had seen and felt Spain, and “The Bible in Spain” shows +how; nor probably could he have shown it in any other way. Not +but what he could speak of Spain as the land of old renown, and of himself—in +a letter to the Bible Society in 1837—as an errant knight, and +of his servant Francisco as his squire. He did not see himself +as he was, or he would have seen both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in +one, now riding a black Andalusian stallion, now driving an ass before +him.</p> +<p>Only a power as great as Borrow’s own could show how this wild +Spain was built up. For it was not done by this and that, but +by a great man and a noble country in a state of accord continually +vibrating.</p> +<p>Thus he drew near to Finisterra with his wild Gallegan guide:</p> +<p>“It was a beautiful autumnal morning when we left the choza +and pursued our way to Corcuvion. I satisfied our host by presenting +him with a couple of pesetas; and he requested as a favour that if on +our return we passed that way, and were overtaken by the night, we would +again take up our abode beneath his roof. This I promised, at +the same time determining to do my best to guard against <!-- page 174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>the +contingency, as sleeping in the loft of a Gallegan hut, though preferable +to passing the night on a moor or mountain, is anything but desirable.</p> +<p>“So we again started at a rapid pace along rough bridleways +and footpaths, amidst furze and brushwood. In about an hour we +obtained a view of the sea, and directed by a lad, whom we found on +the moor employed in tending a few miserable sheep, we bent our course +to the north-west, and at length reached the brow of an eminence, where +we stopped for some time to survey the prospect which opened before +us.</p> +<p>“It was not without reason that the Latins gave the name of +Finisterræ to this district. We had arrived exactly at such +a place as in my boyhood I had pictured to myself as the termination +of the world, beyond which there was a wild sea, or abyss, or chaos. +I now saw far before me an immense ocean, and below me a long and irregular +line of lofty and precipitous coast. Certainly in the whole world +there is no bolder coast than the Gallegan shore, from the <i>débouchement</i> +of the Minho to Cape Finisterra. It consists of a granite wall +of savage mountains, for the most part serrated at the top, and occasionally +broken, where bays and firths like those of Vigo and Pontevedra intervene, +running deep into the land. These bays and firths are invariably +of an immense depth, and sufficiently capacious to shelter the navies +of the proudest maritime nations.</p> +<p>“There is an air of stern and savage grandeur in everything +around which strongly captivates the imagination. This savage +coast is the first glimpse of Spain which the voyager from the north +catches, or he who has ploughed his way across the wide Atlantic; and +well does it seem to realize all his visions of this strange land. +‘Yes,’ he exclaims, ‘this is indeed Spain—stern, +flinty Spain—land emblematic of those spirits to which she has +given birth. From what land but that before me could have proceeded +<!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>those +portentous beings who astounded the Old World and filled the New with +horror and blood—Alba and Philip, Cortez and Pizarro—stern +colossal spectres looming through the gloom of bygone years, like yonder +granite mountains through the haze, upon the eye of the mariner? +Yes, yonder is indeed Spain—flinty, indomitable Spain—land +emblematic of its sons!’</p> +<p>“As for myself, when I viewed that wide ocean and its savage +shore, I cried, ‘Such is the grave, and such are its terrific +sides; those moors and wilds over which I have passed are the rough +and dreary journey of life. Cheered with hope, we struggle along +through all the difficulties of moor, bog, and mountain, to arrive at—what? +The grave and its dreary sides. Oh, may hope not desert us in +the last hour—hope in the Redeemer and in God!’</p> +<p>“We descended from the eminence, and again lost sight of the +sea amidst ravines and dingles, amongst which patches of pine were occasionally +seen. Continuing to descend, we at last came, not to the sea, +but to the extremity of a long, narrow firth, where stood a village +or hamlet; whilst at a small distance, on the western side of the firth, +appeared one considerably larger, which was indeed almost entitled to +the appellation of town. This last was Corcuvion; the first, if +I forget not, was called Ria de Silla. We hastened on to Corcuvion, +where I bade my guide make inquiries respecting Finisterra. He +entered the door of a wine-house, from which proceeded much noise and +vociferation, and presently returned, informing me that the village +of Finisterra was distant about a league and a half. A man, evidently +in a state of intoxication, followed him to the door. ‘Are +you bound for Finisterra, cavalheiros?’ he shouted.</p> +<p>“‘Yes, my friend,’ I replied; ‘we are going +thither.’</p> +<p>“‘Then you are going amongst a flock of drunkards’ +<!-- page 176--><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>(<i>fato +de borrachos</i>), he answered. ‘Take care that they do +not play you a trick.’</p> +<p>“We passed on, and striking across a sandy peninsula at the +back of the town, soon reached the shore of an immense bay, the north-westernmost +end of which was formed by the far-famed cape of Finisterra, which we +now saw before us stretching far into the sea.</p> +<p>“Along the beach of dazzling white sand we advanced towards +the cape, the bourne of our journey. The sun was shining brightly, +and every object was illumined by his beams. The sea lay before +us like a vast mirror, and the waves which broke upon the shore were +so tiny as scarcely to produce a murmur. On we sped along the +deep winding bay, overhung by gigantic hills and mountains. Strange +recollections began to throng upon my mind. It was upon this beach +that, according to the tradition of all ancient Christendom, St. James, +the patron saint of Spain, preached the gospel to the heathen Spaniards. +Upon this beach had once stood an immense commercial city, the proudest +in all Spain. This now desolate bay had once resounded with the +voices of myriads, when the keels and commerce of all the then known +world were wafted to Duyo.</p> +<p>“‘What is the name of this village?’ said I to +a woman, as we passed by five or six ruinous houses at the bend of the +bay, ere we entered upon the peninsula of Finisterra.</p> +<p>“‘This is no village,’ said the Gallegan—‘this +is no village, Sir Cavalier; this is a city—this is Duyo.’</p> +<p>“So much for the glory of the world! These huts were +all that the roaring sea and the tooth of time had left of Duyo, the +great city! Onward now to Finisterra.”</p> +<p>He spends little time on such declamatory description, but it is +essential to the whole effect. This particular piece is followed +by the difficulty of a long ascent, by a sleep of exhaustion on a rude +and dirty bed, by Borrow’s arrest as the Pretender, Don Carlos, +in disguise, by an escape from <!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>immediate +execution into the hands of an Alcalde who read “Jeremy Bentham” +day and night; all this in one short chapter.</p> +<p>Equally essential is the type of landscape represented by the solitary +ruined fort in the monotonous waste between Estremoz and Elvas, which +he climbed to over stones that cut his feet:</p> +<p>“Being about to leave the place, I heard a strange cry behind +a part of the wall which I had not visited; and hastening thither, I +found a miserable object in rags seated upon a stone. It was a +maniac—a man about thirty years of age, and I believe deaf and +dumb. There he sat, gibbering and mowing, and distorting his wild +features into various dreadful appearances. There wanted nothing +but this object to render the scene complete; banditti amongst such +melancholy desolation would have been by no means so much in keeping. +But the manaic on his stone, in the rear of the wind-beaten ruin overlooking +the blasted heath, above which scowled the leaden heaven, presented +such a picture of gloom and misery as I believe neither painter nor +poet ever conceived in the saddest of their musings. This is not +the first instance in which it has been my lot to verify the wisdom +of the saying that truth is sometimes wilder than fiction.”</p> +<p>At Oropesa he heard from the barber-surgeon of the mysterious Guadarrama +mountains, and of the valley that lay undiscovered and unknown for thousands +of years until a hunter found there a tribe of people speaking a language +unknown to anyone else and ignorant of the rest of men. Rough +wild ways intersect the book. Thunder storms overhang it. +Immense caverns echo beneath it. The travellers left behind a +mill which “stood at the bottom of a valley shaded by large trees, +and its wheels were turning with a dismal and monotonous noise,” +and they emerged, by the light of “a corner of the moon,” +on <!-- page 178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>to +the wildest heath of the wildest province of Spain, ignorant of their +way, making for a place which the guide believed not to exist. +They passed a defile where the carrier had been attacked on his last +journey by robbers, who burnt the coach by means of the letters in it, +and butchered all except the carrier, who had formerly been the master +of one of the gang: as they passed, the ground was still saturated with +the blood of one of the murdered soldiers and a dog was gnawing a piece +of his skull. Borrow was told of an old viper catcher caught by +the robbers, who plundered and stripped him and then tied his hands +behind him and thrust his head into his sack, “which contained +several of these horrible reptiles alive,” and so he ran mad through +the villages until he fell dead. As a background, he had again +and again a scene like that one, whose wild waters and mountains, and +the “Convent of the Precipices” standing out against the +summit, reminded him at once of Salvator Rosa and of Stolberg’s +lines to a mountain torrent: “The pine trees are shaken. . . .” +Describing the cave at Gibraltar, he spoke of it as always having been +“a den for foul night birds, reptiles, and beasts of prey,” +of precipice after precipice, abyss after abyss, in apparently endless +succession, and of an explorer who perished there and lay “even +now rotting in the bowels of the mountain, preyed upon by its blind +and noisome worms.”</p> +<p>When he saw a peaceful rich landscape in a bright sunny hour, as +at Monte Moro, he shed tears of rapture, sitting on and on in those +reveries which, as he well knew, only enervate the mind: or he felt +that he would have desired “no better fate than that of a shepherd +on the prairies or a hunter on the hills of Bembibre”: or looking +through an iron-grated door at a garden court in Seville he sighed that +his fate did not permit him to reside in such an Eden for the remainder +of his days. For as he delights in the <!-- page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>dismal, +grand, or wild, so he does with equal intensity in the sweetness of +loveliness, as in the country about Seville: “Oh how pleasant +it is, especially in springtide, to stray along the shores of the Guadalquivir! +Not far from the city, down the river, lies a grove called Las Delicias, +or the Delights. It consists of trees of various kinds, but more +especially of poplars and elms, and is traversed by long, shady walks. +This grove is the favourite promenade of the Sevillians, and there one +occasionally sees assembled whatever the town produces of beauty or +gallantry. There wander the black-eyed Andalusian dames and damsels, +clad in their graceful silken mantillas; and there gallops the Andalusian +cavalier on his long-tailed, thick-maned steed of Moorish ancestry. +As the sun is descending, it is enchanting to glance back from this +place in the direction of the city; the prospect is inexpressibly beautiful. +Yonder in the distance, high and enormous, stands the Golden Tower, +now used as a toll-house, but the principal bulwark of the city in the +time of the Moors. It stands on the shore of the river, like a +giant keeping watch, and is the first edifice which attracts the eye +of the voyager as he moves up the stream to Seville. On the other +side, opposite the tower, stands the noble Augustine Convent, the ornament +of the faubourg of Triana; whilst between the two edifices rolls the +broad Guadalquivir, bearing on its bosom a flotilla of barks from Catalonia +and Valencia. Farther up is seen the bridge of boats which traverses +the water. The principal object of this prospect, however, is +the Golden Tower, where the beams of the setting sun seem to be concentrated +as in the focus, so that it appears built of pure gold, and probably +from that circumstance received the name which it now bears. Cold, +cold must the heart be which can remain insensible to the beauties of +this magic scene, to do justice to which the pencil of Claude himself +were barely equal. Often have I shed tears of rapture <!-- page 180--><a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>whilst +I beheld it, and listened to the thrush and the nightingale piping forth +their melodious songs in the woods, and inhaled the breeze laden with +the perfume of the thousand orange gardens of Seville.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Kennst du das land wo die citronen bluhen?’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If a scene was not in fact superlative his creative memory would +furnish it with what it lacked, giving the cathedral of Palencia, for +example, windows painted by Murillo.</p> +<h2><!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>CHAPTER +XXI—“THE BIBLE IN SPAIN”: THE CHARACTERS</h2> +<p>In such scenes, naturally, Borrow placed nothing common and nothing +mean. He must have a madman among the ruins, or by a pool a peasant +woman sitting, who has been mad ever since her child was drowned there, +or a mule and a stallion fighting with hoofs and teeth. The clergy, +in their ugly shovel hats and long cloaks, glared at him askance as +he passed by their whispering groups in Salamanca: at the English College +in Valladolid, he thought of “those pale, smiling, half-foreign +priests who, like stealthy grimalkins, traversed green England in all +directions” under the persecution of Elizabeth. If he painted +an archbishop plainly dressed in black cassock and silken cap, stooping, +feeble, pale and emaciated, he set upon his finger a superb amethyst +of a dazzling lustre—Borrow never saw a finer, except one belonging +to an acquaintance of his own, a Tartar Khan.</p> +<p>The day after his interview with the archbishop he had a visit from +Benedict Mol. This man is proved to have existed by a letter from +Rey Romero to Borrow mentioning “The German of the Treasure.” +<a name="citation181"></a><a href="#footnote181">{181}</a> “True, +every word of it!” says Knapp: “Remember our artist never +created; he painted from models.” Because he existed, therefore +every word of Borrow’s concerning him is true. As Borrow +made him, “He is a bulky old man, somewhat above the middle height, +and with white hair and ruddy features; his eyes were large and blue, +and, whenever he fixed them <!-- page 182--><a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>on +anyone’s countenance, were full of an expression of great eagerness, +as if he were expecting the communication of some important tidings. +He was dressed commonly enough, in a jacket and trousers of coarse cloth +of a russet colour; on his head was an immense sombrero, the brim of +which had been much cut and mutilated, so as in some places to resemble +the jags or denticles of a saw.”</p> +<p>And thus, at Madrid in 1836, he told his story on the first meeting, +as men had to do when they were interrogated by Borrow:</p> +<p>“Upon my asking him who he was, the following conversation +ensued between us:</p> +<p>“‘I am a Swiss of Lucerne, Benedict Mol by name, once +a soldier in the Walloon Guard, and now a soap-boiler, <i>para servir +usted</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘You speak the language of Spain very imperfectly,’ +said I; ‘how long have you been in the country?’</p> +<p>“‘Forty-five years,’ replied Benedict. ‘But +when the guard was broken up I went to Minorca, where I lost the Spanish +language without acquiring the Catalan.’</p> +<p>“‘You have been a soldier of the King of Spain,’ +said I; ‘how did you like the service?’</p> +<p>“‘Not so well but that I should have been glad to leave +it forty years ago; the pay was bad, and the treatment worse. +I will now speak Swiss to you; for, if I am not much mistaken, you are +a German man, and understand the speech of Lucerne. I should soon +have deserted from the service of Spain, as I did from that of the Pope, +whose soldier I was in my early youth before I came here; but I had +married a woman of Minorca, by whom I had two children: it was this +that detained me in these parts so long. Before, however, I left +Minorca, my wife died; and as for my children, one went east, the other +west, and I know not what became of them. I intend shortly to +return to Lucerne, and live there like a duke.’</p> +<p><!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>“‘Have +you then realized a large capital in Spain?’ said I, glancing +at his hat and the rest of his apparel.</p> +<p>“‘Not a cuart, not a cuart; these two wash-balls are +all that I possess.’</p> +<p>“‘Perhaps you are the son of good parents, and have lands +and money in your own country wherewith to support yourself.’</p> +<p>“‘Not a heller, not a heller. My father was hangman +of Lucerne, and when he died, his body was seized to pay his debts.’</p> +<p>“‘Then doubtless,’ said I, ‘you intend to +ply your trade of soap-boiling at Lucerne. You are quite right, +my friend; I know of no occupation more honourable or useful.’</p> +<p>“‘I have no thoughts of plying my trade at Lucerne,’ +replied Benedict. ‘And now, as I see you are a German man, +Lieber Herr, and as I like your countenance and your manner of speaking, +I will tell you in confidence that I know very little of my trade, and +have already been turned out of several fabriques as an evil workman; +the two wash-balls that I carry in my pocket are not of my own making. +<i>In kurtzen</i>, I know little more of soap-boiling than I do of tailoring, +horse-farriery, or shoe-making, all of which I have practised.’</p> +<p>“‘Then I know not how you can hope to live like a hertzog +in your native canton, unless you expect that the men of Lucerne, in +consideration of your services to the Pope and to the King of Spain, +will maintain you in splendour at the public expense.’</p> +<p>“‘Lieber Herr,’ said Benedict, ‘the men of +Lucerne are by no means fond of maintaining the soldiers of the Pope +and the King of Spain at their own expense; many of the guard who have +returned thither beg their bread in the streets: but when I go, it shall +be in a coach drawn by six mules with a treasure, a mighty schatz which +lies in the church of St. James of Compostella, in Galicia.’</p> +<p><!-- page 184--><a name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>“‘I +hope you do not intend to rob the church,’ said I. ‘If +you do, however, I believe you will be disappointed. Mendizabal +and the Liberals have been beforehand with you. I am informed +that at present no other treasure is to be found in the cathedrals of +Spain than a few paltry ornaments and plated utensils.’</p> +<p>“‘My good German Herr,’ said Benedict, ‘it +is no church schatz; and no person living, save myself, knows of its +existence. Nearly thirty years ago, amongst the sick soldiers +who were brought to Madrid, was one of my comrades of the Walloon Guard, +who had accompanied the French to Portugal; he was very sick, and shortly +died. Before, however, he breathed his last, he sent for me, and +upon his death-bed told me that himself and two other soldiers, both +of whom had since been killed, had buried in a certain church in Compostella +a great booty which they had made in Portugal; it consisted of gold +moidores and of a packet of huge diamonds from the Brazils: the whole +was contained in a large copper kettle. I listened with greedy +ears, and from that moment, I may say, I have known no rest, neither +by day nor night, thinking of the schatz. It is very easy to find, +for the dying man was so exact in his description of the place where +it lies, that were I once at Compostella I should have no difficulty +in putting my hand upon it. Several times I have been on the point +of setting out on the journey, but something has always happened to +stop me. When my wife died, I left Minorca with a determination +to go to St. James; but on reaching Madrid, I fell into the hands of +a Basque woman, who persuaded me to live with her, which I have done +for several years. She is a great hax, <a name="citation184"></a><a href="#footnote184">{184}</a> +and says that if I desert her she will breathe a spell which shall cling +to me for ever. <i>Dem Got sey dank</i>, she is now in the hospital, +<!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>and +daily expected to die. This is my history, Lieber Herr.’”</p> +<p>Notice that Borrow continues:</p> +<p>“I have been the more careful in relating the above conversation, +as I shall have frequent occasion to mention the Swiss in the course +of these journals.”</p> +<p>Benedict Mol had the faculty of re-appearance. In the next +year at Compostella the moonlight fell on his grey locks and weatherbeaten +face and Borrow recognised him. “<i>Och</i>,” said +the man, “<i>mein Gott</i>, <i>es ist der Herr</i>!” (it +is that gentleman). “Och, what good fortune, that the <i>Herr</i> +is the first person I meet in Compostella.” Even Borrow +could scarcely believe his eyes. Benedict had come to dig for +the treasure, and in the meantime proposed to live at the best hotel +and pay his score when the digging was done. Borrow gave him a +dollar, which he paid to a witch for telling him where exactly the treasure +lay. A third time, to his own satisfaction and Borrow’s +astonishment, he re-appeared at Oviedo. He had, in fact, followed +Borrow to Corunna, having been despitefully used at Compostella, met +highwaymen on the road, and suffered hunger so that he slaughtered a +stray kid and devoured it raw. From Oviedo he trod in Borrow’s +footsteps, which was “a great comfort in his horrible journeys.” +“A strange life has he led,” said Borrow’s Greek servant, +“and a strange death he will die—it is written on his countenance.” +He re-appeared a fourth time at Madrid, in light green coat and pantaloons +that were almost new, and a glossy Andalusian hat “of immense +altitude of cone,” and leaning not on a ragged staff but “a +huge bamboo rattan, surmounted by the grim head of either a bear or +lion, curiously cut out of pewter.” He had been wandering +after Borrow in misery that almost sent him mad:</p> +<p>“Oh, the horror of wandering about the savage hills and wide +plains of Spain without money and without hope! <!-- page 186--><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>Sometimes +I became desperate, when I found myself amongst rocks and barrancos, +perhaps after having tasted no food from sunrise to sunset, and then +I would raise my staff towards the sky and shake it, crying, Lieber +herr Gott, ach lieber herr Gott, you must help me now or never. +If you tarry, I am lost. You must help me now, now! And +once when I was raving in this manner, methought I heard a voice—nay, +I am sure I heard it—sounding from the hollow of a rock, clear +and strong; and it cried, ‘Der schatz, der schatz, it is not yet +dug up. To Madrid, to Madrid! The way to the schatz is through +Madrid.’”</p> +<p>But now he had met people who supported him with an eye to the treasure. +Borrow tried to persuade him to circulate the Gospel instead of risking +failure and the anger of his clients. Luckily Benedict went on +to Compostella:</p> +<p>“He went, and I never saw him more. What I heard, however, +was extraordinary enough. It appeared that the government had +listened to his tale, and had been so struck with Benedict’s exaggerated +description of the buried treasure, that they imagined that, by a little +trouble and outlay, gold and diamonds might be dug up at St. James sufficient +to enrich themselves and to pay off the national debt of Spain. +The Swiss returned to Compostella ‘like a duke,’ to use +his own words. The affair, which had at first been kept a profound +secret, was speedily divulged. It was, indeed, resolved that the +investigation, which involved consequences of so much importance, should +take place in a manner the most public and imposing. A solemn +festival was drawing nigh, and it was deemed expedient that the search +should take place upon that day. The day arrived. All the +bells in Compostella pealed. The whole populace thronged from +their houses; a thousand troops were drawn up in a square; the expectation +of all was wound up to the highest pitch. A procession directed +its course to the church of San Roque. At its head were <!-- page 187--><a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>the +captain-general and the Swiss, brandishing in his hand the magic rattan; +close behind walked the <i>meiga</i>, the Gallegan witch-wife, by whom +the treasure-seeker had been originally guided in the search; numerous +masons brought up the rear, bearing implements to break up the ground. +The procession enters the church; they pass through it in solemn march; +they find themselves in a vaulted passage. The Swiss looks around. +‘Dig here,’ said he suddenly. ‘Yes, dig here,’ +said the meiga. The masons labour; the floor is broken up—a +horrible and fetid odour arises. . .</p> +<p>“Enough, no treasure was found, and my warning to the unfortunate +Swiss turned out but too prophetic. He was forthwith seized and +flung into the horrid prison of St. James, amidst the execrations of +thousands, who would have gladly torn him limb from limb.</p> +<p>“The affair did not terminate here. The political opponents +of the government did not allow so favourable an opportunity to escape +for launching the shafts of ridicule. The Moderados were taunted +in the cortes for their avarice and credulity, whilst the Liberal press +wafted on its wings through Spain the story of the treasure-hunt at +St. James.</p> +<p>“‘After all, it was a <i>trampa</i> <a name="citation187"></a><a href="#footnote187">{187}</a> +of Don Jorge’s,’ said one of my enemies. ‘That +fellow is at the bottom of half the picardias which happen in Spain.’</p> +<p>“Eager to learn the fate of the Swiss, I wrote to my old friend +Rey Romero, at Compostella. In his answer he states: ‘I +saw the Swiss in prison, to which place he sent for me, craving my assistance, +for the sake of the friendship which I bore to you. But how could +I help him? He was speedily after removed from St. James, I know +not whither. It is said that he disappeared on the road.’</p> +<p>“Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Where in the +<!-- page 188--><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>whole +cycle of romance shall we find anything more wild, grotesque, and sad +than the easily authenticated history of Benedict Mol, the treasure-digger +of St. James?”</p> +<p>Knapp, by the way, prints this very letter from Rey Romero. +It was his son who saw Benedict in prison, and he simply says that he +does not know what has become of him.</p> +<p>As Dr. Knapp says, Borrow painted from a model. That is to +say, he did like everybody else. Of course he did not invent. +Why should a man with such a life invent for the purpose of only five +books? But there is no such thing as invention (in the popular +sense), except in the making of <i>bad</i> nonsense rhymes or novels. +A writer composes out of his experience, inward, outward and histrionic, +or along the protracted lines of his experience. Borrow felt that +adventures and unusual scenes were his due, and when they were not forthcoming +he revived an old one or revised the present in the weird light of the +past. Is this invention?</p> +<p>Pictures like that of Benedict Mol are not made out of nothing by +Borrow or anybody else. Nor are they copies. The man who +could merely copy nature would never have the eyes to see such beauties +as Benedict Mol. It must be noticed how effective is the re-appearance, +the intermingling of such a man with “ordinary life,” and +then finally the suggestion of one of Borrow’s enemies that he +was put up to it by <i>Don Jorge</i>—“That fellow is at +the bottom of half the <i>picardias</i> which happen in Spain.” +What glory for <i>Don Jorge</i>. The story would have been entertaining +enough as a mere isolated short story: thus scattered, it is twice as +effective as if it were a mere fiction, whether labelled “a true +story” or introduced by an ingenious variation of the same. +It is one of Borrow’s triumphs never to let us escape from the +spell of actuality into a languid acquiescence in what is “only +pretending.” The <!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>form +never becomes a fiction, even to the same extent as that of Turgenev’s +“Sportsman’s Sketches”; for Borrow is always faithful +to the form of a book of travel in Spain during the ’thirties. +In “Don Quixote” and “Gil Blas,” the lesser +narratives are as a rule introduced without much attempt at probability, +but as mere diversions. They are never such in “The Bible +in Spain,” though they are in “Lavengro” and “The +Romany Rye.” The Gypsy hag of Badajoz, who proposed to poison +all the <i>Busné</i> in Madrid, and then away with the London +Caloro to the land of the Moor—his Greek servant Antonio, even +though he begins with “Je vais vous raconter mon histoire du commencement +jusqu’içi.”—the Italian whom he had met as +a boy and who now regretted leaving England, the toasted cheese and +bread, the Suffolk ale, the roaring song and merry jests of the labourers,—and +Antonio again, telling him “the history of the young man of the +inn,”—these story-tellers are not merely consummate variations +upon those of the “Decameron” and “Gil Blas.” +The book never ceases to be a book of travel by an agent of the Bible +Society. It is to its very great advantage that it was not written +all of a piece with one conscious aim. The roughness, the merely +accurate irrelevant detail here and there, the mention of his journal, +and the references to well-known and substantial people, win from us +an openness and simplicity of reception which ensure a success for it +beyond that of most fictions. I cannot refuse complete belief +in the gigantic Jew, Abarbanel, for example, when Borrow has said: “I +had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge featured +and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. +I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his +deep calm eyes.” I do not feel bound to believe that he +had met the Italian of Corunna twenty years before at Norwich, though +to a man with his memory for faces such re-appearances are <!-- page 190--><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>likely +to happen many times as often as to an ordinary man. But I feel +no doubt about Judah Lib, who spoke to him at Gibraltar: he was “about +to exclaim, ‘I know you not,’ when one or two lineaments +struck him, and he cried, though somewhat hesitatingly, ‘surely +this is Judah Lib.’” He continues: “It was in +a steamer in the Baltic in the year ’34, if I mistake not.” +That he had this strong memory is certain; but that he knew it, and +was proud of it, and likely to exaggerate it, is almost equally certain.</p> +<p>It was natural that such a knight should have squires of high degree, +as Francisco the Basque and the two Antonios, Gypsy and Greek. +Antonio the Greek left Borrow to serve a count as cook, but the count +attacked him with a rapier, whereupon he gave notice in the following +manner:</p> +<p>“Suddenly I took a large casserole from the fire in which various +eggs were frying; this I held out at arm’s length, peering at +it along my arm as if I were curiously inspecting it—my right +foot advanced, and the other thrown back as far as possible. All +stood still, imagining, doubtless, that I was about to perform some +grand operation; and so I was: for suddenly the sinister leg advancing, +with one rapid <i>coup de pied</i> I sent the casserole and its contents +flying over my head, so that they struck the wall far behind me. +This was to let them know that I had broken my staff and had shaken +the dust off my feet. So casting upon the count the peculiar glance +of the Sceirote cooks when they feel themselves insulted, and extending +my mouth on either side nearly as far as the ears, I took down my haversack +and departed, singing as I went the song of the ancient Demos, who, +when dying, asked for his supper, and water wherewith to lave his hands:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Ο ηλιος +εβασιλενε, κι +ο Δημος διαταζει. +<br /> +Συρτε, παιδια, +μου, ’σ το νερον +ψωμι να φατ' αποψε.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And in this manner, mon maître, I left the house of the Count +of ---.”</p> +<p><!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>The +morning after Francisco died, when Borrow was lying in bed ruminating +on his loss, he heard someone cleaning boots and singing in an unknown +tongue, so he rang the bell. Antonio appeared. He had, he +said, engaged himself to the Prime Minister at a high salary, but on +hearing of Borrow’s loss, he “told the Duke, though it was +late at night, that he would not suit me; and here I am.” +Again he left Borrow. When he returned it was in obedience to +a dream, in which he saw his master ride on a black horse up to his +inn—yet this was immediately after Borrow’s landing on his +third visit to Spain, of which “only two individuals in Madrid +were aware.” This Greek was acquainted with all the cutthroats +in Galicia; he could tell a story like Sterne, and in every way was +a servant who deserved no less a master than <i>Monsieur Georges</i>.</p> +<p>Francisco has already sufficiently adorned these pages. As +for the other Antonio, the Gypsy, he guided Borrow through the worst +of Spain on his way to Madrid. This he offered to do in such terms +that Borrow’s hint at the possible danger of accepting it falls +flat. He was as mysterious as Borrow himself, and being asked +why he was taking this particular road, he answered: “It is an +affair of Egypt, brother, and I shall not acquaint you with it; peradventure +it relates to a horse or an ass, or peradventure it relates to a mule +or a <i>macho</i>; it does not relate to yourself, therefore I advise +you not to inquire about it—<i>Dosta</i>. . . .” He +carried a loadstone in his bosom and swallowed some of the dust of it, +and it served both for passport and for prayers. When he had to +leave Borrow he sold him a savage and vicious she ass, recommending +her for the same reason as he bought her, because “a savage and +vicious beast has generally four excellent legs.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 192--><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>CHAPTER +XXII—“THE BIBLE IN SPAIN”: STYLE</h2> +<p>Borrow’s Spanish portrait of himself was worthy of its background. +Much was required of him in a world where a high fantastical acrobatic +mountebankery was almost a matter of ceremony, where riders stand on +their heads in passing their rivals and cooks punt a casserole over +their heads to the wall behind by way of giving notice: much was required +of him and he proved worthy. He saw himself, I suppose, as a great +imaginative master of fiction sees a hero. His attitude cannot +be called vanity: it is too consistent and continuous and its effect +by far too powerful. He puts his own name into the speeches of +other men in a manner that is very rare: he does not start at the sound +of <i>Don Jorge</i>. He said to the silent archbishop: “I +suppose your lordship knows who I am? . . . I am he whom the <i>Manolos</i> +of Madrid call <i>Don Jorgito el Ingles</i>; I am just come out of prison, +whither I was sent for circulating my Lord’s Gospel in this Kingdom +of Spain.” He allows the archbishop to put this celebrity +on horseback: “<i>Vaya</i>! how you ride! It is dangerous +to be in your way.” His horses are magnificent: “What,” +he asks, “what is a missionary in the heart of Spain without a +horse? Which consideration induced me now to purchase an Arabian +of high caste, which had been brought from Algiers by an officer of +the French legion. The name of this steed, the best I believe +that ever issued from the desert, was Sidi Habismilk.”</p> +<p>Who can forget Quesada and his two friends lording it on horseback +over the crowd, and Borrow shouting “<i>Viva</i> <!-- page 193--><a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span><i>Quesada</i>,” +or forget the old Moor of Tangier talking of horses?—</p> +<p>“‘Good are the horses of the Moslems,’ said my +old friend; ‘where will you find such? They will descend +rocky mountains at full speed and neither trip nor fall; but you must +be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, +for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. +When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your +bit, for be sure if you do they will kill you—sooner or later +you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses, and good +our riders—yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; +who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider compete with a Moslem +on this beach, and at first the Frank rider had it all his own way, +and he passed the Moslem. But the course was long, very long, +and the horse of the Frank rider, which was a Frank also, panted; but +the horse of the Moslem panted not, for he was a Moslem also, and the +Moslem rider at last gave a cry, and the horse sprang forward, and he +overtook the Frank horse, and then the Moslem rider stood up in his +saddle. How did he stand? Truly he stood on his head, and +these eyes saw him. He stood on his head in the saddle as he passed +the Frank rider, and he cried, Ha, ha! as he passed the Frank rider; +and the Moslem horse cried, Ha, ha! as he passed the Frank breed, and +the Frank lost by a far distance. Good are the Franks, good their +horses; but better are the Moslems, and better the horses of the Moslems.’”</p> +<p>It is said that he used to ride his black Andalusian horse in Madrid +with a Russian skin for a saddle and without stirrups. He had, +he says, been accustomed from childhood to ride without a saddle. +Yet Borrow could do without a horse. He never fails to make himself +impressive. He stoops to his knee to scare a huge and ferocious +dog <!-- page 194--><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>by +looking him full in the eyes. The spies, as he sat waiting for +the magistrate at Madrid, whisper, “He understands the seven Gypsy +jargons,” or “He can ride a horse and dart a knife full +as well as if he came from my own country.” The captain +of the ship tells a friend in a low voice, overheard by Borrow: “That +fellow who is lying on the deck can speak Christian, too, when it serves +his purpose; but he speaks others which are by no means Christian. +He can talk English, and I myself have heard him chatter in Gitano with +the Gypsies of Triana. He is now going amongst the Moors; and +when he arrives in their country, you will hear him, should you be there, +converse as fluently in their gibberish as in Christiano—nay, +better, for he is no Christian himself. He has been several times +on board my vessel already; but I do not like him, as I consider that +he carries something about with him which is not good.”</p> +<p>The American at Tangier is perplexed by his speaking both Moorish +and Gaelic, by hearing from an Irish woman that he is “a fairy +man.”</p> +<p>He does not confine himself to the mysterious sublime. He tells +us, for example, that Mendizabal, the Prime Minister, was a huge athletic +man, “somewhat taller than myself, who measure six-feet-two without +my shoes.” Several times he was mistaken for a Jew, and +once for a Rabbi, by the Jews themselves. Add to this the expression +that he put on for the benefit of the farrier at Betanzos: he was stooping +to close the vein that had been opened in the leg of his horse, and +he “looked up into the farrier’s face, arching his eyebrows. +‘<i>Carracho</i>! what an evil wizard!’ muttered the farrier, +as he walked away.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page194.jpg"> +<img alt="Mendizabal, The Spanish Minister" src="images/page194.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In the wilds he grew a beard—he had one at Jaraicejo—and +it is perhaps worth noticing this, to rebut the opinion that he could +not grow a beard, and that he was therefore as other men are with the +same disability. He speaks more <!-- page 195--><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>than +once of his shedding tears, and at Lisbon he kissed the stone above +Fielding’s grave. But these are little things of little +importance in the landscape portrait which emerges from the whole of +the book, of the grave adventurer, all but always equal in his boldness +and his discretion, the lord of those wild ways and wild men, who “rides +in the whirlwind and directs the storm” all over Spain.</p> +<p>In brief, he is the very hero that a wondering and waiting audience +would be satisfied to see appearing upon such a stage. Except +Dante on his background of Heaven and Hell, and Byron on his background +of Europe and Time, no writer had in one book placed himself with greater +distinction before the world. His glory was threefold. He +was the man who was a Gypsy in politics, because he had lived with Gypsies +so long. He was the man who said to the Spanish Prime Minister: +“It is a pleasant thing to be persecuted for the Gospel’s +sake.” He was the man of whom it was said <i>by an enemy</i>, +after the affair of Benedict Mol, that <i>Don Jorge</i> was at the bottom +of half the knavish farces in Spain.</p> +<p>Very little of Borrow’s effectiveness can seriously be attributed +to this or that quality of style, for it will all amount to saying that +he had an effective style. But it may be permissible to point +out that it is also a style that is unnoticeable except for what it +effects. It runs at times to rotten Victorianism, both heavy and +vague, as when he calls <i>El Greco</i> or Domenico “a most extraordinary +genius, some of whose productions possess merit of a very high order.” +He is capable of calling the eye the “orb of vision,” and +the moon “the beauteous luminary.” I quote a passage +lest it should seem incredible:</p> +<p>“The moon had arisen when we mounted our horses to return to +the village, and the rays of the beauteous luminary danced merrily on +the rushing waters of the Tagus, silvered the plain over which we were +passing, and bathed in a flood <!-- page 196--><a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>of +brightness the bold sides of the calcareous hill of Villaluengo, the +antique ruins which crowned its brow. . . .”</p> +<p>Description, taking him away from men and from his active self, often +lured him into this kind of thing. And, nevertheless, such is +Borrow that I should by no means employ a gentleman of refinement to +go over “The Bible in Spain” and cross out the like. +It all helps in the total of half theatrical and wholly wild exuberance +and robustness. Another minute contributory element of style is +the Biblical phrasing. His home and certainly his work for the +Society had made him familiar with the Bible. He quotes it several +times in passages which bring him into comparison, if not equality, +with Jesus and with Paul. A little after quoting, “Ride +on, because of the word of righteousness,” he writes: “I +repaired to the aqueduct, and sat down beneath the hundred and seventh +arch, where I waited the greater part of the day, <i>but he came not</i>, +<i>whereupon I arose and went into the city</i>.” He is +fond of “even,” saying, for example, or making Judah Lib +say, “He bent his way unto the East, <i>even to Jerusalem</i>.” +The “beauteous luminary” vein and the Biblical vein may +be said to be inseparable from the long cloak, the sombrero, the picturesque +romance and mystery of Spain, as they appeared to one for whom romance +and mystery alike were never without pomp. But with all his rant +he is invariably substantial, never aerial, and he chequers it in a +Byronic manner with a sudden prose reference to bugs, or a question, +or a piece of dialogue.</p> +<p>His dialogue can hardly be over-praised. It is life-like in +its effect, though not in its actual phrases, and it breaks up the narrative +and description over and over again at the right time. What he +puts into the mouth of shepherds with whom he sits round the fire is +more than twice as potent as if it were in his own narrative; he varies +the point of view, and yet always without allowing himself to <!-- page 197--><a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 197</span>disappear +from the scene—he, the <i>señor</i> traveller. These +spoken words are, it is true, in Borrow’s own style, with little +or no colloquialism, but they are simpler. They also, in their +turn, are broken up by words or phrases from the language of the speaker. +The effect of this must vary with the reader. The learned will +not pause, some of the unlearned will be impatient. But as a glossary +was afterwards granted at Ford’s suggestion, and is now to be +had in the cheapest editions of “The Bible in Spain,” these +few hundred Spanish or Gypsy words are at least no serious stumbling +block. I find them a very distinct additional flavour in the style. +A good writer can afford these mysteries. Children do not boggle +at the unpronounceable names of a good book like “The Arabian +Nights,” but rather use them as charms, like Izaak Walton’s +marrow of the thighbone of a heron or a piece of mummy. The bullfighter +speaks:</p> +<p>“‘Cavaliers and strong men, this cavalier is the friend +of a friend of mine. <i>Es mucho hombre</i>. There is none +like him in Spain. He speaks the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>, though +he is an <i>Inglesito</i>.’</p> +<p>“‘We do not believe it,’ replied several grave +voices. ‘It is not possible.’</p> +<p>“‘It is not possible, say you? I tell you it is.—Come +forward, Balseiro, you who have been in prison all your life, and are +always boasting that you can speak the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>, though +I say you know nothing of it—come forward and speak to his worship +in the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>.’</p> +<p>“A low, slight, but active figure stepped forward. He +was in his shirt sleeves, and wore a <i>montero</i> cap; his features +were handsome, but they were those of a demon.</p> +<p>“He spoke a few words in the broken Gypsy slang of the prison, +inquiring of me whether I had ever been in <!-- page 198--><a name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>the +condemned cell, and whether I knew what a <i>gitana</i> was.</p> +<p>“‘<i>Vamos Inglesito</i>,’ shouted Sevilla, in +a voice of thunder, ‘answer the <i>monro</i> in the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>.’</p> +<p>“I answered the robber, for such he was, and one, too, whose +name will live for many years in the ruffian histories of Madrid—I +answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect of the Estremenian +Gypsies.</p> +<p>“‘I believe it is the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>,’ muttered +Balseiro. ‘It is either that or English, for I understand +not a word of it.’</p> +<p>“‘Did I not say to you,’ cried the bullfighter, +‘that you knew nothing of the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>? But +this <i>Inglesito</i> does. I understood all he said. <i>Vaya</i>, +there is none like him for the crabbed <i>Gitano</i>. He is a +good <i>ginete</i>, too; next to myself, there is none like him, only +he rides with stirrup leathers too short.—<i>Inglesito</i>, if +you have need of money, I will lend you my purse. All I have is +at your service, and that is not a little; I have just gained four thousand +<i>chulés</i> by the lottery. Courage, Englishman! +Another cup. I will pay all—I, Sevilla!’</p> +<p>“And he clapped his hand repeatedly on his breast, reiterating, +‘I, Sevilla! I—’”</p> +<p>Borrow breaks up his own style in the same way with foreign words. +As Ford said in his “Edinburgh Review” criticism:</p> +<p>“To use a Gypsy term for a linguist, ‘he knows the seven +jargons’; his conversations and his writings resemble an intricate +mosiac, of which we see the rich effect, without comprehending the design. +. . . Mr. Borrow, in whose mouth are the tongues of Babel, selects, +as he dashes along <i>currente calamo</i>, the exact word for any idiom +which best expresses the precise idea which sparkles in his mind.”</p> +<p>This habit of Borrow’s should be compared with Lamb’s +archaisms, but, better still, with Robert Burton’s interlardation +<!-- page 199--><a name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>of +English and Latin in “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”</p> +<p>Here again what I may call his spotted dog style is only a part of +the whole, and as the whole is effective, we solemnly conclude that +this is due in part to the spotted dog. My last word is that here, +as always in a good writer, the whole is greater than the mere sum of +the parts, just as with a bad writer the part is always greater than +the whole. Or a truer way of saying this is that many elements +elude discovery, and therefore the whole exceeds the discoverable parts. +Nor is this the whole truth, for the mixing is much if not all, and +neither Borrow nor any critic knows anything about the mixing, save +that the drink is good that comes of it.</p> +<h2><!-- page 200--><a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>CHAPTER +XXIII—BETWEEN THE ACTS</h2> +<p>Six three-volume editions of “The Bible in Spain” were +issued within the first twelve months: ten thousand copies of a cheap +edition were sold in four months. In America it was sold rapidly +without benefit to Borrow. It was translated into German in 1844 +and French in 1845. Borrow came up to town and did not refuse +to meet princes, bishops, ambassadors, and members of Parliament. +He was pleased and flattered by the sales and the reviews, and declared +that he had known it would succeed. He did not quite know what +to say to an invitation from the Royal Institution, but as to the Royal +Academy, it would “just suit him,” because he was a safe +man, he said, fitted by nature for an Academician. He did not +think much of episcopal food, wine, or cigars. He was careful +of his hero and disliked hearing him abused or treated indifferently. +If he had many letters, he answered but few. He had made nothing +yet out of literature because the getting about to receive homage, etc., +had been so expensive: he did not care, for he hated to speak of money +matters, yet he could not but mention the fact. When the money +began to arrive he did not resent it by any means, as he was to buy +a blood horse with it—no less. His letters have a jolly, +bullying, but offhand and jerky tone, and they are very short. +He gives Murray advice on publishing and is willing to advise the Government +how to manage the Irish—“the blackguards.”</p> +<p>He was now, by virtue of his wife, a “landed proprietor,” +and filled the part with unction, though but little satisfaction. +<!-- page 201--><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 201</span>For +he was not a magistrate, and he had to get up in the middle of the night +to look after “poachers and thieves,” as he says in giving +a reason for an illness. In the summer-house at Oulton hung his +father’s coat and sword, but it is to be noticed that to the end +of his life an old friend held it “doubtful whether his father +commenced his military career with a commission.” Borrow +probably realised the importance of belonging to the ruling classes +and having a long steady pedigree. “If report be true,” +says the same friend, <a name="citation201"></a><a href="#footnote201">{201}</a> +“his mother was of French origin, and in early life an actress.” +The foreignness as an asset overcame his objection to the French, and +“an actress” also sounded unconventional. The friend +continues: “But the subject of his family was one on which Borrow +never touched. He would allude to Borrowdale as the country whence +they came, and then would make mysterious allusions to his father’s +pugilistic triumphs. But this is certain, that he has not left +a single relation behind him.” Yet he had many relatives +in Cornwall and did not scorn to visit their houses. He would +only talk of his works to intimate friends, and “when he went +into company it was as a gentleman, not because he was an author.”</p> +<p>Lady Eastlake, in March, 1844, calls him “a fine man, but a +most disagreeable one; a kind of character that would be most dangerous +in rebellious times—one that would suffer or persecute to the +utmost. His face is expressive of wrong-headed determination.”</p> +<p>A little earlier than this, in October, 1843, Caroline Fox saw him +“sitting on one side of the fire and his old mother on the other.” +It was known to her that “his spirits always sink in wet weather, +and to-day was very rainy, but he was courteous and not displeased to +be a little lionised, for his delicacy is not of the most susceptible.” +He was “a tall, <!-- page 202--><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>ungainly, +uncouth man,” in her opinion, “with great physical strength, +a quick penetrating eye, a confident manner, and a disagreeable tone +and pronunciation.” In no place does he make anyone praise +his voice, and, as he said, it reminded one Spanish woman of a German +clockmaker’s.</p> +<p>But Borrow was not happy or at ease. He took a riding tour +in the east of England; he walked, rowed and fished; but that was not +enough. He was restless, and yet did not get away. Evidently +he did not conceal the fact that he thought of travelling again. +He had talked about Africa and China: he was now talking about Constantinople +and Africa. He was often miserable, though he had, so far as he +knew, “no particular disorder.” If at such times he +was away from Oulton, he thought of his home as his only refuge in this +world; if he was at home he thought of travel or foreign employment. +His disease was, perhaps, now middle age, and too good a memory in his +blood and in his bones. Whatever it was it was apparently not +curable by his kind of Christianity, nor by a visit from the genial +Ford, and a present of caviare and pheasant; nor by the never-out-of-date +reminder from friends that he was very well off, etc. If he had +been caught by Dissenters, as he should have been, he might by this +time have had salvation, and an occupation for life, in founding a new +truculent sect of Borrovians. As the Rev. the Romany Rye he might +have blazed in an entertaining and becoming manner. As “a +sincere member of the old-fashioned Church of England, in which he believes +there is more religion, and consequently less cant, than in any other +Church in the world,” there was nothing for him to do but sit +down at Oulton and contemplate the fact. This and the other fact +that “he eats his own bread, and is one of the very few men in +England who are independent in every sense of the word,” were +afterwards to be made subjects for public rejoicing in the Appendix +to “The Romany Rye.”</p> +<p><!-- page 203--><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>But +in his discontent at the age of forty it cannot have been entirely satisfactory, +however flattering, to hear Ford, in the “Edinburgh,” saying:</p> +<p>“We wish he would, on some leisure day, draw up the curtain +of his own eventful biography. We collected from his former work +that he was not always what he now is. The pursuits and society +of his youth scarcely could be denominated, in Troloppian euphemism, +<i>la crême de la crême</i>; but they stood him in good +stead; then and there was he trained for the encounter of Spain . . +. whilst sowing his wild oats, he became passionately fond of horseflesh. +. . .</p> +<p>“How much has Mr. Borrow yet to remember, yet to tell! let +him not delay. His has been a life, one day of which is more crowded +than is the fourscore-year vegetation of a squire or alderman. . . . +Everything seems sealed on a memory, wax to receive and marble to retain. +He is not subjective. He has the new fault of not talking about +self. We vainly want to know what sort of person must be the pilgrim +in whose wanderings we have been interested. That he has left +to other pens. . . .”</p> +<p>Then Ford went on to identify Borrow with the mysterious Unknown +of Colonel Napier’s newly-published book.</p> +<p>He began to write his autobiography to fulfil the expectations of +Ford and his own public. It was not until 1844, exactly four years +after his return from Spain, that he set out again on foreign travel. +He made stops at Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, Venice, and Rome, but +spent most of his time in Hungary and Roumania, visiting the Gypsies +and compiling a “vocabulary of the Gypsy language as spoken in +Hungary and Transylvania,” which still exists in manuscript. +He was seven months away altogether.</p> +<p>Knapp possessed documents proving that Borrow was at this and that +place, and the Gypsy vocabulary is in the <!-- page 204--><a name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>British +Museum, but little other record of these seven months remains. +Knapp, indeed, takes it for granted that the historical conversation +between Borrow and the Magyar in “The Romany Rye” was drawn +from his experiences in Hungary and Transylvania in the year 1844; but +that is absurd, as the chapter might have been written by a man born +and bred in the reading room of the British Museum who had never met +any but similar unfortunates. It is very likely that the journey +was a failure, and if it had been a success, an account of it would +have interrupted the progress of the autobiography, as Ford expected +it to do. But the thing was too deliberate to succeed. Borrow’s +right instinct was to get work which would take him abroad; he failed, +and so he travelled because travel offered him relief from his melancholy +and unrest. Whether or no he “satisfied his roving demon +for a time,” as Mr. Walling puts it, is unknown. What is +known is that he did not make this journey a subject of mystery or boasting, +and that he stayed in England thereafter. He had tasted comfort +and celebrity; he had a wife; he was an older man, looking weak in the +eyes by the time he was fifty; and he had no motive for travel except +discontent with staying at home. He tried to get away again on +a mission to the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, to acquire +manuscripts for the British Museum; but he failed, and the manuscripts +went to St. Petersburg instead of Bloomsbury.</p> +<p>In 1843 Henry Wyndham Phillips, R.A., painted his portrait. +He was a restless sitter until the painter remarked: “I have always +heard, Mr. Borrow, that the Persian is a very fine language; is it so?” +“It is, Phillips; it is.” “Perhaps you will +not mind reciting me something in the Persian tongue?” said Phillips. +“Dear me, no; certainly not.” And then “Mr. +Borrow’s face lit up with the light that Phillips longed for, +and he kept declaiming <!-- page 205--><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>at +the top of his voice, while the painter made the most of his opportunity.” +<a name="citation205"></a><a href="#footnote205">{205}</a> According +to the story, Phillips had the like success with Turkish and Armenian, +and successfully stilled Borrow’s desire “to get out into +the fresh air and sunlight.”</p> +<p>In the same way, writing and literary ambition kept Borrow from travel. +He stayed at home and he wrote “Lavengro,” where, speaking +of the rapid flow of time in the years of his youth, he says: “Since +then it has flagged often enough; sometimes it has seemed to stand entirely +still: and the reader may easily judge how it fares at the present, +from the circumstance of my taking pen in hand, and endeavouring to +write down the passages of my life—a last resource with most people.” +At one moment he got satisfaction from professing scorn of authorship, +at another, speaking of Byron, he reflected:</p> +<p>“Well, perhaps after all it was better to have been mighty +Milton in his poverty and blindness—witty and ingenious Butler +consigned to the tender mercies of bailiffs, and starving Otway; they +might enjoy more real pleasure than this lordling; they must have been +aware that the world would one day do them justice—fame after +death is better than the top of fashion in life. They have left +a fame behind them which shall never die, whilst this lordling—a +time will come when he will be out of fashion and forgotten. And +yet I don’t know; didn’t he write Childe Harold and that +ode? Yes, he wrote Childe Harold and that ode. Then a time +will scarcely come when he will be forgotten. Lords, squires, +and cockneys may pass away, but a time will scarcely come when Childe +Harold and that ode will be forgotten. He was a poet, after all—and +he must have known it; a real poet, equal to—to—what a destiny!”</p> +<p><!-- page 206--><a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>It +is said that in actual life Borrow refused to be introduced to a Russian +scholar “simply because he moved in the literary world.” +<a name="citation206"></a><a href="#footnote206">{206}</a></p> +<p>Yet again he made the glorious Gypsy say that he would rather be +a book-writer than a fighting-man, because the book-writers “have +so much to say for themselves even when dead and gone”:</p> +<p>“‘When they are laid in the churchyard, it is their own +fault if people a’n’t talking of them. Who will know, +after I am dead, or bitchadey pawdel, that I was once the beauty of +the world, or that you, Jasper, were—’</p> +<p>“‘The best man in England of my inches. That’s +true, Tawno—however, here’s our brother will perhaps let +the world know something about us.’”</p> +<p>I should think, too, that Borrow was both questioner and answerer +in the conversation with the literary man who had the touching mania:</p> +<p>“‘With respect to your present troubles and anxieties, +would it not be wise, seeing that authorship causes you so much trouble +and anxiety, to give it up altogether?’</p> +<p>“‘Were you an author yourself,’ replied my host, +‘you would not talk in this manner; once an author, ever an author—besides, +what could I do? return to my former state of vegetation? no, much as +I endure, I do not wish that; besides, every now and then my reason +tells me that these troubles and anxieties of mine are utterly without +foundation; that whatever I write is the legitimate growth of my own +mind, and that it is the height of folly to afflict myself at any chance +resemblance between my own thoughts and those of other writers, such +resemblance being inevitable from the fact of our common human origin. +. . .”</p> +<p>Knapp gives at length a story showing what an author Borrow was, +and how little his travels had sweetened him. <!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>He +had long promised to review Ford’s “Handbook for Spain,” +when it should appear. In 1845 he wrote an article and sent it +in to the “Quarterly” as a review of the Handbook. +It had nothing to do with the book and very little to do with the subject +of the book, and Lockhart, the “Quarterly” editor, suggested +turning it into a review by a few interpolations and extracts. +Borrow would not have the article touched. Both Lockhart and Ford +advised him to send it to “Fraser’s” or another magazine +where it was certain to be welcomed as a Spanish essay by the author +of “The Bible in Spain.” But no: and the article was +never printed anywhere.</p> +<p>Yet Borrow was not settling down to authorship pure and simple. +He flew into a passion because a new railway line, in 1846, ran through +his estate. He flew into a passion, did nothing, and remained +on his estates until 1853, when he and his family went into lodgings +at Yarmouth. I have not discovered how much he profited by the +intrusion of the railway, except when he pilloried the contractor, his +neighbour, Mr. Peto, as Flamson, in the Appendix to “The Romany +Rye.” Then he tried again to be put on the Commission of +the Peace, with no success. He probably spent much of his time +in being either suspicious, or ambitious, or indignant. In 1847, +for example, he suspected his friend Dr. Bowring—his “only +friend” in 1842—of using his work to get for himself the +consulship at Canton, which he was professing to obtain for Borrow. +The result was the foaming abuse of “The Romany Rye,” where +Bowring is the old Radical. The affair of the Sinai manuscripts +followed close on this. All that he saw of foreign lands was at +the Exhibition of 1851, where he frequently accosted foreigners in their +own tongue, so that it began to be whispered about that he was “uncanny”: +he excited so much remark that his daughter thought it better to drag +him away.</p> +<p><!-- page 208--><a name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>He +was suffering from ill-health and untranquility of mind which gave his +mother anxiety, though his physical strength appears not to have degenerated, +for in 1853, at Yarmouth, he rescued a man out of a stormy sea. +He was an unpleasant companion for those whom he did not like or could +not get on with. Thackeray tried to get up a conversation with +him, his final effort being the question, “Have you seen my ‘Snob +Papers’ in ‘Punch’?” To which Borrow answered: +“In ‘Punch’? It is a periodical I never look +at.” He once met Miss Agnes Strickland:</p> +<p>“Borrow was unwilling to be introduced, but was prevailed on +to submit. He sat down at her side; before long she spoke with +rapture of his works, and asked his permission to send him a copy of +her ‘Queens of England.’ He exclaimed, ‘For +God’s sake, don’t, madam, I should not know where to put +them or what to do with them.’ On this he rose, fuming, +as was his wont when offended, and said to Mr. Donne, ‘What a +damned fool that woman is!’ The fact is that, whenever Borrow +was induced to do anything unwillingly, he lost his temper.” <a name="citation208"></a><a href="#footnote208">{208}</a></p> +<p>The friend who tells this story, Gordon Hake, a poet and doctor at +Bury St. Edmunds, tells also that once when he was at dinner with a +banker who had recently “struck the docket” to secure payment +from a friend of Borrow’s, and the banker’s wife said to +him: “Oh Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!” +the great man exclaimed: “Pray, what books do you mean, madam? +Do you mean my account books?” How touchy he was, Mr. Walling +shows, by his story of Borrow in Cornwall neglecting a lady all one +evening because she bore the name of the man his father had knocked +down at Menheniot Fair. Several <!-- page 209--><a name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span>stories +of his crushing remarks prove nothing but that he was big and alarming +and uncontrolled.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page209b.jpg"> +<img alt="Gordon Hake. From the painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. By kind permission of Mrs. George Gordon Hake" src="images/page209s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Very little record of his friendly intercourse with men at this middle +period remains. Several letters, of 1853, 1856 and 1857, alone +survive to show that he met and received letters from Fitzgerald. +That Fitzgerald enjoyed an evening with him in 1856 tells us little; +and even so it appears that Fitzgerald only wanted to ask him to read +some of the “Northern Ballads”—“but you shut +the book”—and that he doubted whether Borrow wished to keep +up the acquaintance. They had friends in common, and Fitzgerald +had sent Borrow a copy of his “Six Dramas of Calderon,” +in 1853, confessing that he had had thoughts of sending the manuscript +first for an inspection. He also told Borrow when he was about +to make the “dangerous experiment” of marriage with Miss +Barton “of Quaker memory.” In 1857 Borrow came to +see him and had the loan of the “Rubaiyat” in manuscript, +and Fitzgerald showed his readiness to see more of the “Great +Man.” In 1859 he sent Borrow a copy of “Omar.” +He found Borrow’s “masterful manners and irritable temper +uncongenial,” <a name="citation209"></a><a href="#footnote209">{209}</a> +but succeeded, unlike many other friends, in having no quarrel with +him. Near the end of his life, in 1875, it was Borrow that tried +to renew the acquaintance, but in vain, for Fitzgerald reminded him +that friends “exist and enjoy themselves pretty reasonably without +me,” and asked, was not being alone better than having company?</p> +<p>If Borrow had little consideration for others’ feelings, his +consideration for his own was exquisite, as this story, belonging to +1856, may help to prove:</p> +<p>“There were three personages in the world whom he always had +a desire to see; two of these had slipped through his fingers, so he +was determined to see the third. <!-- page 210--><a name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>‘Pray, +Mr. Borrow, who were they?’ He held up three fingers of +his left hand and pointed them off with the forefinger of the right: +the first, Daniel O’Connell; the second, Lamplighter (the sire +of Phosphorus, Lord Berners’s winner of the Derby); the third, +Anna Gurney. . . .”</p> +<p>One spring day during the Crimean War, when he was walking round +Norfolk, he sent word to Anna Gurney to announce his coming, and she +was ready to receive him.</p> +<p>“When, according to his account, he had been but a very short +time in her presence, she wheeled her chair round and reached her hand +to one of her bookshelves and took down an Arabic Grammar, and put it +into his hand, asking for explanation of some difficult point, which +he tried to decipher; but meanwhile she talked to him continuously; +when, said he, ‘I could not study the Arabic Grammar and listen +to her at the same time, so I threw down the book and ran out of the +room.’ He seems not to have stopped running till he reached +Old Tucker’s Inn, at Cromer, where he renewed his strength, or +calmed his temper, with five excellent sausages, and then came on to +Sheringham. . . .” <a name="citation210a"></a><a href="#footnote210a">{210a}</a></p> +<p>The distance is a very good two miles, and Borrow’s age was +forty-nine.</p> +<p>He is said also to have been considerate towards his mother, the +poor, and domestic animals. Probably he and his mother understood +one another. When he could not write to her, he got his wife to +do so; and from 1849 she lived with them at Oulton. As to the +poor, Knapp tells us that he left behind him letters of gratitude or +acknowledgment from individuals, churches, and chapels. As to +animals, once when he came upon some men beating a horse that had fallen, +he gave it ale of sufficient quantity and strength to set it soon upon +the road trotting with the rest of its kind, after the men had received +a lecture. <a name="citation210b"></a><a href="#footnote210b">{210b}</a> +It is <!-- page 211--><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 211</span>also +related that when a favourite old cat crawled out to die in the hedge +he brought it into the house, where he “laid it down in a comfortable +spot and watched it till it was dead.” His horse, Sidi Habismilk, +the Arab, seems to have returned his admiration and esteem. He +said himself, in “Wild Wales,” after expressing his relief +that a boy and dog had not seen a weazel that ran across his path:</p> +<p>“I hate to see poor wild animals persecuted and murdered, lose +my appetite for dinner at hearing the screams of a hare pursued by greyhounds, +and am silly enough to feel disgust and horror at the squeals of a rat +in the fangs of a terrier, which one of the sporting tribe once told +me were the sweetest sounds in ‘natur.’”</p> +<h2><!-- page 212--><a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>CHAPTER +XXIV—“LAVENGRO” AND “THE ROMANY RYE”</h2> +<p>Instead of travelling over the world Borrow wrote his autobiography +and spent so many years on it that his contempt for the pen had some +excuse. I have already said almost all there is to say about these +labours. <a name="citation212"></a><a href="#footnote212">{212}</a> +Knapp has shown that they were protracted to include matters relating +to Bowring and long posterior to the period covered by the autobiography, +and that the magnitude of these additions compelled him to divide the +book in two. The first part was “Lavengro,” published +in 1851, with an ending that is now, and perhaps was then, obviously +due to the knife. The sceptical and hostile criticism of “Lavengro” +delayed the appearance of the remainder of the autobiography, “The +Romany Rye.”</p> +<p>Borrow had to reply to his critics and explain himself. This +he did in the Appendix, and thus changed, the book was finished in 1853 +or 1854. Something in Murray’s attitude while they were +discussing publication mounted Borrow on the high horse, and yet again +he fumed because Murray had expressed a private opinion and had revealed +his feeling that the book was not likely to make money for anyone.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page212b.jpg"> +<img alt="Cancelled title-page of “Lavengro”. (Photographed from the Author’s corrected proof copy, by kind permission of Mr. Kyllmann and Mr. Thos. Seccombe.) Photo: W. J. Roberts" src="images/page212s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” describe +the author’s early adventures and, at the same time, his later +opinions and mature character. In some places he turns openly +aside to express his feeling or opinion at the time of writing, as, +for example, in his praise of the Orangemen, <!-- page 213--><a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>or, +on the very first page, where he claims to spring from a family of gentlemen, +though “not very wealthy,” that the reader may see at once +he is “not altogether of low and plebeian origin.” +But by far more important is the indirect self-revelation when he is +recalling that other distant self, the child of three or of ten, the +youth of twenty.</p> +<p>Ford had asked Borrow for a book of his adventures and travels, something +“thick and slab,” to follow “The Bible in Spain.” +The result shows that Borrow had almost done with outward adventure. +“The Bible in Spain” had an atmosphere composed at best +of as much Spain as Borrow. But the autobiography is pure inward +Borrow: except a few detachable incidents there is nothing in it which +is not Borrow’s creation, nothing which would have any value apart +from his own treatment of it. A man might have used “The +Bible in Spain” as a kind of guide to men and places in 1843, +and it is possible he would not have been wholly disappointed. +The autobiography does not depend on anything outside itself, but creates +its own atmosphere and dwells in it without admitting that of the outer +world—no: not even by references to events like the campaign of +Waterloo or the funeral of Byron; and, as if conscious that this other +atmosphere must be excluded, Borrow has hardly mentioned a name which +could act upon the reader as a temporary check to the charm. When +he does recall contemporary events, and speaks as a Briton to Britons, +the rant is of a brave degree that is almost as much his own, and it +makes more intense than ever the solitude and inwardness of the individual +life going on side by side with war and with politics.</p> +<p>“Pleasant were those days of my early boyhood; and a melancholy +pleasure steals over me as I recall them. Those were stirring +times of which I am speaking, and there was much passing around me calculated +to captivate the imagination. The dreadful struggle which so long +<!-- page 214--><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 214</span>convulsed +Europe, and in which England bore so prominent a part, was then at its +hottest; we were at war, and determination and enthusiasm shone in every +face; man, woman and child were eager to fight the Frank, the hereditary, +but, thank God, never dreaded enemy of the Anglo-Saxon race. ‘Love +your country and beat the French, and then never mind what happens,’ +was the cry of entire England. Oh those were days of power, gallant +days, bustling days, worth the bravest days of chivalry, at least; tall +battalions of native warriors were marching through the land; there +was the glitter of the bayonet and the gleam of the sabre; the shrill +squeak of the fife and loud rattling of the drum were heard in the streets +of county towns, and the loyal shouts of the inhabitants greeted the +soldiery on their arrival or cheered them at their departure. +And now let us leave the upland and descend to the sea-board; there +is a sight for you upon the billows! A dozen men-of-war are gliding +majestically out of port, their long buntings streaming from the top-gallant +masts, calling on the skulking Frenchman to come forth from his bights +and bays; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the East? +A gallant frigate towing behind her the long low hull of a crippled +privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the +sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their impudence +in an English hold. Stirring times those, which I love to recall, +for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm, and were moreover the +days of my boyhood.”</p> +<p>“Pleasant were those days,” and there is a “melancholy +pleasure” in recalling them. The two combine in this autobiography +with strange effect, for they set the man side by side with the child +as an invisible companion haunting him.</p> +<p>Whatever was the change that came over Borrow in the ’forties, +and showed itself in melancholy and unrest, this <!-- page 215--><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>long-continued +contemplation of his childhood betrayed him into a profound change of +tone. Neither Africa nor the East could have shown him as much +mystery as this wide England of a child ignorant of geography, and it +kept hold of him for twice as long as Spain. It offered him relief +and escape, and gladly did he accept them, and deeply he indulged in +them. He found that he had that within himself as wild as any +mountain or maniac-haunted ruin of Spain. For example, he recalled +his schooldays in Ireland, and how one day he set out to visit his elder +brother, the boy lieutenant:</p> +<p>“The distance was rather considerable, yet I hoped to be back +by evening fall, for I was now a shrewd walker, thanks to constant practice. +I set out early, and, directing my course towards the north, I had in +less than two hours accomplished considerably more than half of the +journey. The weather had been propitious: a slight frost had rendered +the ground firm to the tread, and the skies were clear; but now a change +came over the scene, the skies darkened, and a heavy snow-storm came +on; the road then lay straight through a bog, and was bounded by a deep +trench on both sides; I was making the best of my way, keeping as nearly +as I could in the middle of the road, lest, blinded by the snow which +was frequently borne into my eyes by the wind, I might fall into the +dyke, when all at once I heard a shout to windward, and turning my eyes +I saw the figure of a man, and what appeared to be an animal of some +kind, coming across the bog with great speed, in the direction of myself; +the nature of the ground seemed to offer but little impediment to these +beings, both clearing the holes and abysses which lay in their way with +surprising agility; the animal was, however, some slight way in advance, +and, bounding over the dyke, appeared on the road just before me. +It was a dog, of what species I cannot tell, never having seen the like +before or since; <!-- page 216--><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>the +head was large and round; the ears so tiny as scarcely to be discernible; +the eyes of a fiery red; in size it was rather small than large; and +the coat, which was remarkably smooth, as white as the falling flakes. +It placed itself directly in my path, and showing its teeth, and bristling +its coat, appeared determined to prevent my progress. I had an +ashen stick in my hand, with which I threatened it; this, however, only +served to increase its fury; it rushed upon me, and I had the utmost +difficulty to preserve myself from its fangs.</p> +<p>“‘What are you doing with the dog, the fairy dog?’ +said a man, who at this time likewise cleared the dyke at a bound.</p> +<p>“He was a very tall man, rather well dressed as it should seem; +his garments, however, were like my own, so covered with snow that I +could scarcely discern their quality.</p> +<p>“‘What are ye doing with the dog of peace?’</p> +<p>“‘I wish he would show himself one,’ said I; ‘I +said nothing to him, but he placed himself in my road, and would not +let me pass.’</p> +<p>“‘Of course he would not be letting you till he knew +where ye were going.’</p> +<p>“‘He’s not much of a fairy,’ said I, ‘or +he would know that without asking; tell him that I am going to see my +brother.’</p> +<p>“‘And who is your brother, little Sas?’</p> +<p>“‘What my father is, a royal soldier.’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, ye are going then to the detachment at ---; by +my shoul, I have a good mind to be spoiling your journey.’</p> +<p>“‘You are doing that already,’ said I, ‘keeping +me here talking about dogs and fairies; you had better go home and get +some salve to cure that place over your eye; it’s catching cold +you’ll be in so much snow.’</p> +<p>“On one side of the man’s forehead there was a raw and +staring wound, as if from a recent and terrible blow.</p> +<p><!-- page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 217</span>“‘Faith, +then, I’ll be going, but it’s taking you wid me I will be.’</p> +<p>“‘And where will you take me?’</p> +<p>“‘Why, then, to Ryan’s Castle, little Sas.’</p> +<p>“‘You do not speak the language very correctly,’ +said I; ‘it is not Sas you should call me—’tis Sassanach,’ +and forthwith I accompanied the word with a speech full of flowers of +Irish rhetoric.</p> +<p>“The man looked upon me for a moment, fixedly, then, bending +his head towards his breast, he appeared to be undergoing a kind of +convulsion, which was accompanied by a sound something resembling laughter; +presently he looked at me, and there was a broad grin on his features.</p> +<p>“‘By my shoul, it’s a thing of peace I’m +thinking ye.’</p> +<p>“But now with a whisking sound came running down the road a +hare; it was nearly upon us before it perceived us; suddenly stopping +short, however, it sprang into the bog on the right-hand side; after +it amain bounded the dog of peace, followed by the man, but not until +he had nodded to me a farewell salutation. In a few moments I +lost sight of him amidst the snow-flakes.”</p> +<p>This is more magical than nine-tenths of the deliberately Celtic +prose or verse. I mean that it is real and credible and yet insubstantial, +the too too solid flesh is melted into something like the mist over +the bogland, and it recalls to us times when an account of our physical +self, height, width, weight, colour, age, etc., would bear no relation +whatever to the true self. In part, this effect may be due to +Ireland and to the fact that Borrow was only there for one short impressionable +year of his boyhood, and had never seen any other country like it. +But most of it is due to Borrow’s nature and the conditions under +which the autobiography was composed. While he was writing it +he was probably living a more solitary and sedentary life than ever +before, and could hear the voices of solitude; he was not the busy <!-- page 218--><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>riding +missionary of “The Bible in Spain,” nor the fêted +author, but the unsocial morbid tinker, philologist, boxer, and religious +doubter. It has been said that “he was a Celt of Celts. +His genius was truly Celtic.” <a name="citation218a"></a><a href="#footnote218a">{218a}</a> +It has been said that “he inherited nothing from Norfolk save +his accent and his love of ‘leg of mutton and turnips.’” +<a name="citation218b"></a><a href="#footnote218b">{218b}</a> +Yet his father, the Cornish “Celt,” appears to have been +entirely unlike him, while he draws his mother, the Norfolk Huguenot, +as innately sympathetic with himself. I am content to leave this +mystery for Celts and anti-Celts to grow lean on. I have known +Celts who said that five and five were ten or, at most, eleven; and +Saxons who said twenty-five, and even fifty-five.</p> +<p>Borrow was writing without note books: things had therefore in his +memory the importance which his nature had decreed for them, and among +these things no doubt he exercised a conscious choice. Behind +all was the inexplicable singular force which, Celtic or not, gave the +“dream”-like, illusory quality which pervades the books +in spite of more positive and arresting qualities sometimes apparently +hostile to this one. It is true that his books have in them many +rude or simple characters of Gypsies, jockeys, and others, living chiefly +by their hands, and it is part of the conscious and unconscious object +of the books to exalt them. But these people in Borrow’s +hands seldom or never give the impression of coarse solid bodies well +endowed with the principal appetites. There is, for example, a +famous page where the young doubting Borrow listens to a Wesleyan preacher +and wishes that his life had been like that man’s, and then comes +upon his Gypsy friend after a long absence. He asks the Gypsy +for news and hears of some deaths:</p> +<p><!-- page 219--><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>“‘What +is your opinion of death, Mr. Petulengro?’ said I, as I sat down +beside him</p> +<p>“‘My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as that +in the old song of Pharaoh, which I have heard my grandam sing—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Canna marel o manus chivios andé puv,<br /> +Ta rovel pa leste o chavo ta romi.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and his wife and child +sorrow over him. If he has neither wife nor child, then his father +and mother, I suppose; and if he is quite alone in the world, why, then, +he is cast into the earth, and there is an end of the matter.’</p> +<p>“‘And do you think that is the end of man?’</p> +<p>“‘There’s an end of him, brother, more’s +the pity.’</p> +<p>“‘Why do you say so?’</p> +<p>“‘Life is sweet, brother.’</p> +<p>“‘Do you think so?’</p> +<p>“‘Think so!—There’s night and day, brother, +both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; +there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, +brother; who would wish to die?’</p> +<p>“‘I would wish to die—’</p> +<p>“‘You talk like a gorgio—which is the same as talking +like a fool—were you a Rommany Chal you would talk wiser. +Wish to die, indeed!—A Rommany Chal would wish to live for ever!”</p> +<p>“‘In sickness, Jasper?’</p> +<p>“‘There’s the sun and stars, brother.’</p> +<p>“‘In blindness, Jasper?’</p> +<p>“‘There’s the wind on the heath, brother; if I +could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we’ll +now go to the tents and put on the gloves; and I’ll try to make +you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother!’”</p> +<p>But how delicate it is, the two lads talking amidst the furze of +Mousehold Heath at sunset. And so with the rest. <!-- page 220--><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 220</span>As +he grows older the atmosphere thins but never quite fades away; even +Thurtell, the bull-necked friend of bruisers, is as much a spirit as +a man.</p> +<p>Mr. Watts-Dunton has complained <a name="citation220"></a><a href="#footnote220">{220}</a> +that Borrow makes Isopel taller than Borrow, and therefore too tall +for beauty. But Borrow was not writing for readers who knew, or +for those who, if they knew, always remembered, that he was six-feet-two. +We know that Lavengro is tall, but we are not told so just before hearing +that Isopel is taller; and the effect is that we think, not too distinctly, +of a girl who somehow succeeds in being very tall and beautiful. +If Borrow had said: “Whereas I was six feet two inches, the girl +was six feet two and three-quarter inches,” it would have been +different, and it would not have been Borrow, who, as I say, was not +writing of ponderable, measurable bodies, but of possible immortal souls +curiously dressed in flesh that can be almost as invisible. So +again, Mr. Watts-Dunton says:</p> +<p>“With regard to Isopel Berners, neither Lavengro, nor the man +she thrashed when he stole one of her flaxen hairs to conjure with, +gives the reader the faintest idea of Isopel’s method of attack +or defence, and we have to take her prowess on trust. In a word +Borrow was content to give us the wonderful, without taking that trouble +to find for it a logical basis which a literary master would have taken. +And instances might easily be multiplied of this exaggeration of Borrow’s, +which is apt to lend a sense of unreality to some of the most picturesque +pages of ‘Lavengro.’”</p> +<p>But would Mr. Watts-Dunton seriously like to have these scenes touched +up by Driscoll or Sullivan. Borrow did not write for real or imaginary +connoisseurs.</p> +<p>I do not mean that a man need sacrifice his effect upon <!-- page 221--><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>the +ordinary man by satisfying the connoisseur. No one, for example, +will deny that a ship by Mr. Joseph Conrad is as beautiful and intelligible +as one by Stevenson; but neither would it be safe to foretell that Mr. +Conrad’s, the more accurate, will seem the more like life in fifty +years’ time. Borrow is never technical. If he quotes +Gypsy it is not for the sake of the colour effect on those who read +Gypsy as they run. His effects are for a certain distance and +in a certain atmosphere where technicality would be impertinent.</p> +<p>Mr. Hindes Groome <a name="citation221a"></a><a href="#footnote221a">{221a}</a> +was more justified in saying:</p> +<p>“Mr. Borrow, no doubt, knows the Gypsies well, and could describe +them perfectly. But his love of effect leads him away. In +his wish to impress his reader with a certain mysterious notion of himself, +he colours his Gypsy pictures (the <i>form</i> of which is quite accurate) +in a fantastic style, which robs them altogether of the value they would +have as studies from life.”</p> +<p>For Groome wrote simply as a Gypsy student. He collected data +which can be verified, but do not often give an impression of life, +except the life of a young Cambridge man who is devoted to Gypsies. +The “Athenæum” reviewer <a name="citation221b"></a><a href="#footnote221b">{221b}</a> +begs the question by calling the Gypsy dialogues of Hindes Groome, photographic; +and is plainly inaccurate in saying that if they are compared with those +in “Lavengro” “the illusion in Borrow’s narrative +is disturbed by the uncolloquial vocabulary of the speakers.” +For Borrow’s dialogues do produce an effect of some kind of life; +those of Hindes Groome instruct us or pique our curiosity, but unless +we know Gypsies, they produce no life-like effect.</p> +<p>Who else but Borrow could make the old viper-catcher thus describe +the King of the Vipers?—</p> +<p><!-- page 222--><a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>“It +may be about seven years ago that I happened to be far down yonder to +the west, on the other side of England, nearly two hundred miles from +here, following my business. It was a very sultry day, I remember, +and I had been out several hours catching creatures. It might +be about three o’clock in the afternoon, when I found myself on +some heathy land near the sea, on the ridge of a hill, the side of which, +nearly as far down as the sea, was heath; but on the top there was arable +ground, which had been planted, and from which the harvest had been +gathered—oats or barley, I know not which—but I remember +that the ground was covered with stubble. Well, about three o’clock, +as I told you before, what with the heat of the day and from having +walked about for hours in a lazy way, I felt very tired; so I determined +to have a sleep, and I laid myself down, my head just on the ridge of +the hill, towards the field, and my body over the side down amongst +the heath; my bag, which was nearly filled with creatures, lay at a +little distance from my face; the creatures were struggling in it, I +remember, and I thought to myself, how much more comfortably off I was +than they; I was taking my ease on the nice open hill, cooled with the +breezes, whilst they were in the nasty close bag, coiling about one +another, and breaking their very hearts all to no purpose; and I felt +quite comfortable and happy in the thought, and little by little closed +my eyes, and fell into the sweetest snooze that ever I was in in all +my life; and there I lay over the hill’s side, with my head half +in the field, I don’t know how long, all dead asleep. At +last it seemed to me that I heard a noise in my sleep, something like +a thing moving, very faint, however, far away; then it died, and then +it came again upon my ear, as I slept, and now it appeared almost as +if I heard crackle, crackle; then it died again, or I became yet more +dead asleep than before, I know not which, but <!-- page 223--><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>I +certainly lay some time without hearing it. All of a sudden I +became awake, and there was I, on the ridge of the hill, with my cheek +on the ground towards the stubble, with a noise in my ear like that +of something moving towards me, among the stubble of the field; well, +I lay a moment or two listening to the noise, and then I became frightened, +for I did not like the noise at all, it sounded so odd; so I rolled +myself on my belly, and looked towards the stubble. Mercy upon +us! there was a huge snake, or rather a dreadful viper, for it was all +yellow and gold, moving towards me, bearing its head about a foot and +a half above the ground, the dry stubble crackling beneath its outrageous +belly. It might be about five yards off when I first saw it, making +straight towards me, child, as if it would devour me. I lay quite +still, for I was stupefied with horror, whilst the creature came still +nearer; and now it was nearly upon me, when it suddenly drew back a +little, and then—what do you think?—it lifted its head and +chest high in the air, and high over my face as I looked up, flickering +at me with its tongue as if it would fly at my face. Child, what +I felt at that moment I can scarcely say, but it was a sufficient punishment +for all the sins I ever committed; and there we two were, I looking +up at the viper, and the viper looking down upon me, flickering at me +with its tongue. It was only the kindness of God that saved me: +all at once there was a loud noise, the report of a gun, for a fowler +was shooting at a covey of birds, a little way off in the stubble. +Whereupon the viper sunk its head and immediately made off over the +ridge of the hill, down in the direction of the sea. As it passed +by me, however—and it passed close by me—it hesitated a +moment, as if it was doubtful whether it should not seize me; it did +not, however, but made off down the hill. It has often struck +me that he was angry with me, and came upon me unawares <!-- page 224--><a name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>for +presuming to meddle with his people, as I have always been in the habit +of doing.”</p> +<p>The passages quoted from “Lavengro” are representative +only of the <i>spirit</i> of the book, which, as I have suggested, diminishes +with Borrow’s increasing years, but pervades the physical activity, +the “low life” and open air, and prevails over them. +I will give one other example of his by no means everyday magic—the +incident of the poisoned cake. The Gypsy girl Leonora discovers +him and betrays him to his enemy, old hairy Mrs. Herne:</p> +<p>“Leaning my back against the tree I was not long in falling +into a slumber; I quite clearly remember that slumber of mine beneath +the ash tree, for it was about the sweetest slumber that I ever enjoyed; +how long I continued in it I don’t know; I could almost have wished +that it had lasted to the present time. All of a sudden it appeared +to me that a voice cried in my ear, ‘Danger! danger! danger!’ +Nothing seemingly could be more distinct than the words which I heard; +then an uneasy sensation came over me, which I strove to get rid of, +and at last succeeded, for I awoke. The Gypsy girl was standing +just opposite to me, with her eyes fixed upon my countenance; a singular +kind of little dog stood beside her.</p> +<p>“‘Ha!’ said I, ‘was it you that cried danger? +What danger is there?’</p> +<p>“‘Danger, brother, there is no danger; what danger should +there be? I called to my little dog, but that was in the wood; +my little dog’s name is not danger, but stranger; what danger +should there be, brother.’</p> +<p>“‘What, indeed, except in sleeping beneath a tree; what +is that you have got in your hand?’</p> +<p>“‘Something for you,’ said the girl, sitting down +and proceeding to untie a white napkin; ‘a pretty manricli, so +sweet, so nice; when I went home to my people I told my grandbebee how +kind you had been to the poor person’s <!-- page 225--><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>child, +and when my grandbebee saw the kekaubi, she said, “Hir mi devlis, +it won’t do for the poor people to be ungrateful; by my God, I +will bake a cake for the young harko mescro.”’</p> +<p>“‘But there are two cakes.’</p> +<p>“‘Yes, brother, two cakes, both for you; my grandbebee +meant them both for you—but list, brother, I will have one of +them for bringing them. I know you will give me one, pretty brother, +grey-haired brother—which shall I have, brother?’</p> +<p>“In the napkin were two round cakes, seemingly made of rich +and costly compounds, and precisely similar in form, each weighing about +half a pound.</p> +<p>“‘Which shall I have, brother?’ said the Gypsy +girl.</p> +<p>“‘Whichever you please.’</p> +<p>“‘No, brother, no, the cakes are yours, not mine, it +is for you to say.’</p> +<p>“‘Well, then, give me the one nearest you, and take the +other.’</p> +<p>“‘Yes, brother, yes,’ said the girl; and taking +the cakes, she flung them into the air two or three times, catching +them as they fell, and singing the while. ‘Pretty brother, +grey-haired brother—here, brother,’ said she, ‘here +is your cake, this other is mine. . . .’”</p> +<p>I cannot afford to quote the whole passage, but it is at once as +real and as phantasmal as the witch scene in “Macbeth.” +He eats the poisoned cake and lies deadly sick. Mrs. Herne and +Leonora came to see the effect of the poison:</p> +<p>“‘Ha, ha! bebee, and here he lies, poisoned like a hog.’</p> +<p>“‘You have taken drows, sir,’ said Mrs. Herne; +‘do you hear, sir? drows; tip him a stave, child, of the song +of poison.’</p> +<p><!-- page 226--><a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>“And +thereupon the girl clapped her hands, and sang—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The Rommany churl<br /> +And the Rommany girl<br /> +To-morrow shall hie<br /> +To poison the sty,<br /> +And bewitch on the mead<br /> +The farmer’s steed.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“‘Do you hear that, sir?’ said Mrs. Herne; ‘the +child has tipped you a stave of the song of poison: that is, she has +sung it Christianly, though perhaps you would like to hear it Romanly; +you were always fond of what was Roman. Tip it him Romanly, child.’”</p> +<p>It is not much use to remark on “the uncolloquial vocabulary +of the speakers.” Iago’s vocabulary is not colloquial +when he says:</p> +<blockquote><p> “Not poppy nor mandragora<br /> +Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world<br /> +Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep<br /> +That thou ow’dst yesterday.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Borrow is not describing Gypsy life but the “dream” of +his own early life. I should say that he succeeds, because his +words work upon the indifferent reader in something like the same way +as memory worked upon himself. The physical activity, the “low +life,” and the open air of the books are powerful. These +and the England of his youth gave Borrow his refuge from middle age +and Victorian England of the middle class. “Youth,” +he says in “The Romany Rye,” “is the only season for +enjoyment, and the first twenty-five years of one’s life are worth +all the rest of the longest life of man, even though these five and +twenty be spent in penury and contempt, and the rest in the possession +of wealth, honour, respectability, ay, and many of them in strength +and health. . . .” Still more emphatically did he think +the same when he was looking on his past life in the dingle, feeling +his arms and thighs and teeth, which were strong and sound; “so +now was the time <!-- page 227--><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>to +labour, to marry, to eat strong flesh, and beget strong children—the +power of doing all this would pass away with youth, which was terribly +transitory.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page227b.jpg"> +<img alt="View on Mousehold Heath, near Norwich. (From the painting by “Old Crome” in The National Gallery.) Photo: W. J. Roberts" src="images/page227s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Youth and strength or their extreme opposites alone attracted him, +and therefore he is best in writing of men, if we except the tall Brynhild, +Isopel, and the old witch, Mrs. Herne, than whom “no she bear +of Lapland ever looked more fierce and hairy.” In the same +breath as he praises youth he praises England, pouring scorn on those +who traverse Spain and Portugal in quest of adventures, “whereas +there are ten times more adventures to be met with in England than in +Spain, Portugal, or stupid Germany to boot.” It was the +old England before railways, though Mr. Petulengro heard a man speaking +of a wonderful invention that “would set aside all the old roads, +which in a little time would be ploughed up, and sowed with corn, and +cause all England to be laid down with iron roads, on which people would +go thundering along in vehicles, pushed forward by fire and smoke.” +Borrow makes another of his characters also foretell the triumph of +railways, and I insist on quoting part of the sentence as another example +of Borrow’s mysterious way: the speaker has had his information +from the projector of the scheme: “which he has told me many of +the wisest heads of England have been dreaming of during a period of +six hundred years, and which it seems was alluded to by a certain Brazen +Head in the story-book of Friar Bacon, who is generally supposed to +have been a wizard, but in reality was a great philosopher. Young +man, in less than twenty years, by which time I shall be dead and gone, +England will be surrounded with roads of metal, on which armies may +travel with mighty velocity, and of which the walls of brass and iron +by which the friar proposed to defend his native land are types.” +And yet he makes little of the practical difference between the England +of railways and <!-- page 228--><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>the +England of coaches; in fact he hated the bullying coachmen so that he +expressed nothing but gladness when they had disappeared from the road. +No: it was first as the England of the successful wars with Napoleon, +and second as the England of his youth that he idealised it—the +country of Byron and Farmer George, not that of Tennyson, Victoria and +Albert; for as Byron was one of the new age and yet looked back to Pope +and down on Wordsworth, so did Borrow look back.</p> +<p>His English geography is far vaguer than his Spanish. He creeps—walking +or riding—over this land with more mystery. The variety +and difficulties of the roads were less, and actual movement fills very +few pages. He advances not so much step by step as adventure by +adventure. Well might he say, a little impudently, “there +is not a chapter in the present book which is not full of adventures, +with the exception of the present one, and this is not yet terminated”—it +ends with a fall from his horse which stuns him. There is an air +of somnambulism about some of the travel, especially when he is escaping +alone from London and hack-writing. He shows great art in his +transitions from day to day, from scene to scene, making it natural +that one hour of one day should have the importance of the whole of +another year, and one house more than the importance of several day’s +journeys. It matters not that he crammed more than was possible +between Greenwich and Horncastle fairs, probably by transplanting earlier +or later events. Time and space submit to him: his old schoolfellows +were vainly astonished that he gave no chapters to them and his years +at Norwich Grammar School. Thus England seems a great and a strange +land on Borrow’s page, though he does not touch the sea or the +mountains, or any celebrated places except Stonehenge. His England +is strange, I think, because it is presented according to a purely spiritual +<!-- page 229--><a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>geography +in which the childish drawling of “Witney on the Windrush manufactures +blankets,” etc., is utterly forgot. Few men have the courage +or the power to be honestly impressionistic and to say what they feel +instead of compromising between that and what they believe to be “the +facts.”</p> +<p>It is also strange on account of the many adventures which it provides, +and these will always attract attention, because England in 1911 is +not what it was in 1825, but still more because few men, especially +writing men, ever take their chance upon the roads of England for a +few months together. At the same time it must be granted that +Borrow had a morbid fear of being dull or at least of being ordinary. +He was a partly conscious provider of entertainment when he made the +book so thick with incidents, scenes and portraits, and each incident, +scene and portrait so perfect after its kind. Where he overdoes +his emphasis or refinement, can only be decided by differing tastes. +Some, for example, cannot abide his description of the sleepless man +who had at last discovered a perfect opiate in Wordsworth’s poetry. +I find myself stopping short at the effect of sherry and Popish leanings +on the publican and his trade, and still more the effect of his return +to ale and commonsense religion: how everyone bought his liquids and +paid for them and wanted to treat him, while the folk of his parish +had already made him a churchwarden. This might have been writ +sarcastic by a witty Papist.</p> +<p>Probably Borrow used the device of recognition and reappearances +to satisfy a rather primitive taste in fiction, and to add to the mystery, +though I will again suggest that a man who travelled and went about +among men as he did would take less offence at these things. The +re-appearances of Jasper are natural enough, except at the ford when +Borrow is about to pass into Wales: those of Ardry <!-- page 230--><a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 230</span>less +so. But when Borrow contrives to hear more of the old china collector +and of Isopel also from the jockey, and shuffles about the postillion, +Murtagh, the Man in Black, and Platitude, and introduces Sir John Bowring +for punishment, he makes “The Romany Rye” much inferior +to “Lavengro.”</p> +<p>These devices never succeed, except where their extravagance makes +us laugh heartily—as when on Salisbury Plain he meets returning +from Botany Bay the long lost son of his old London Bridge apple-woman. +The devices are unnecessary and remain as stiffening stains upon a book +that is otherwise full of nature and human nature.</p> +<h2><!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 231</span>CHAPTER +XXV—“LAVENGRO” AND “THE ROMANY RYE”: THE +CHARACTERS</h2> +<p>As the atmosphere of the two autobiographical books is more intense +and pure than that of “The Bible in Spain,” so the characters +in it are more elaborate. “The Bible in Spain” contained +brilliant sketches and suggestions of men and women. In the autobiography +even the sketches are intimate, like that of the “Anglo-Germanist,” +William Taylor; and they are not less surprising than the Spanish sketches, +from the Rommany chal who “fought in the old Roman fashion. +He bit, he kicked, and screamed like a wild cat of Benygant; casting +foam from his mouth, and fire from his eyes”—from this man +upwards and downwards. Some are highly finished, and these are +not always the best. For example, the portrait of his father, +the stiff, kindly, uncomprehending soldier, strikes me as a little too +much “done to a turn.” It is a little too like a man +in a book, and so perfectly consistent, except for that one picturesque +weakness—the battle with Big Ben, whose skin was like a toad. +Borrow probably saw and cared very little for his father, and therefore +found it too easy to idealise and produce a mere type, chiefly out of +his head. His mother is more certainly from life, and he could +not detach himself from her sufficiently to make her clear; yet he makes +her his own mother plainly enough. His brother has something of +the same unreality and perfection as his father. These members +of his family belong to one distinct class of studies which includes +among others the <!-- page 232--><a name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>publisher, +Sir Richard Phillips. They are of persons not quite of his world +whom he presents to us with admiration, or, on the other hand, with +dislike, but in either case without sympathy. They do not contribute +much to the special character of the autobiography, except in humour. +The interviews with Sir Richard Phillips, in particular, give an example +of Borrow’s obviously personal satire, poisonous and yet without +rancour. He is a type. He is the charlatan, holy and massive +and not perfectly self-convincing. When Borrow’s money was +running low and he asked the publisher to pay for some contributions +to a magazine, now deceased:</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ said the publisher, ‘what do you +want the money for?’</p> +<p>“‘Merely to live on,’ I replied; ‘it is very +difficult to live in this town without money.’</p> +<p>“‘How much money did you bring with you to town?’ +demanded the publisher.</p> +<p>“‘Some twenty or thirty pounds,’ I replied.</p> +<p>“‘And you have spent it already?’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ said I, ‘not entirely; but it is fast +disappearing.’</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ said the publisher, ‘I believe you +to be extravagant; yes, sir, extravagant!’</p> +<p>“‘On what grounds do you suppose me to be so?’</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ said the publisher, ‘you eat meat.’</p> +<p>“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I eat meat sometimes; what +should I eat?’</p> +<p>“‘Bread, sir,’ said the publisher; ‘bread +and cheese.’</p> +<p>“‘So I do, sir, when I am disposed to indulge; but I +cannot often afford it—it is very expensive to dine on bread and +cheese, especially when one is fond of cheese, as I am. My last +bread and cheese dinner cost me fourteen pence. There is drink, +sir; with bread and cheese one must drink porter, sir.’</p> +<p>“‘Then, sir, eat bread—bread alone. As good +men as yourself have eaten bread alone; they have been glad to <!-- page 233--><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>get +it, sir. If with bread and cheese you must drink porter, sir, +with bread alone you can, perhaps, drink water, sir.’</p> +<p>“However, I got paid at last for my writings in the review, +not, it is true, in the current coin of the realm, but in certain bills; +there were two of them, one payable at twelve, and the other at eighteen +months after date.”</p> +<p>The incident serves to diversify the narrative, and may be taken +from his own London experiences, while the particular merriment of the +rhyme is Borrow’s; but it is not of the essence of the book, and +fits only indifferently into the mysterious “Arabian Nights” +London, the city of the gallant Ardry and the old apple-woman who called +him “dear” and called Moll Flanders “blessed Mary +Flanders.” Sir Richard will not mysteriously re-appear, +nor will Captain and Mrs. Borrow. I should say, in fact, that +characters of this class have scarcely at all the power of motion. +What is more, they take us not only a little way out of Borrow’s +world sometimes, but away from Borrow himself.</p> +<p>Apart from these characters, the men and women of “Lavengro” +and “The Romany Rye” are all in harmony with one another, +with Borrow, and with Borrow’s world. Jasper Petulengro +and his wife, his sister Ursula, the gigantic Tawno Chikno, the witch +Mrs. Herne, and the evil sprite Leonora, Thurtell, the fighting men, +the Irish outlaw Jerry Grant, who was suspected of raising a storm by +“something Irish and supernatural” to win a fight, Murtagh, +that wicked innocent, the old apple-woman, Blazing Bosville, Isopel +Berners, the jockey who drove one hundred and ten miles in eleven hours +to see “the only friend he ever had in the world,” John +Thurtell, and say, “God Almighty bless you, Jack!” before +the drop fell, the old gentleman who had learned “Sergeant Broughton’s +guard” and knocked out the bullying coachman, the Welsh preacher +and his wife, the Arcadian old bee-keeper, the <!-- page 234--><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 234</span>rat-catcher—all +these and their companions are woven into one piece by the genius of +their creator, Borrow. I can imagine them all greeting him together +as the Gypsies did, and much as the jockey did afterwards:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Here the Gipsy gemman see,<br /> +With his Roman jib and his rome and dree—<br /> +Rome and dree, rum and dry<br /> +Rally round the Rommany Rye.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>He waves his wand and they disappear. He made them as Jerry +Grant made the storm and beat Sergeant Bagg. In “Lavengro” +he actually does raise such a storm, though Knapp affected to discover +it in a newspaper of the period. Sampson and Martin are fighting +at North Walsham, and a storm comes on:</p> +<p>“There’s wind and dust, a crash, rain and hail; is it +possible to fight amidst such a commotion? Yes! the fight goes +on; again the boy strikes the man full on the brow, but it is no use +striking that man, his frame is of adamant. ‘Boy, thy strength +is beginning to give way, thou art becoming confused’; the man +now goes to work, amidst rain and hail. ‘Boy, thou wilt +not hold out ten minutes longer against rain, hail, and the blows of +such an antagonist.’</p> +<p>“And now the storm was at its height; the black thundercloud +had broken into many, which assumed the wildest shapes and the strangest +colours, some of them unspeakably glorious; the rain poured in a deluge, +and more than one water-spout was seen at no great distance: an immense +rabble is hurrying in one direction; a multitude of men of all ranks, +peers and yokels, prize-fighters and Jews, and the last came to plunder, +and are now plundering amidst that wild confusion of hail and rain, +men and horses, carts and carriages. But all hurry in one direction, +through mud and mire; there’s a town only three miles distant +which is soon reached, and soon filled, it will not contain one-third +<!-- page 235--><a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>of +that mighty rabble; but there’s another town farther on—the +good old city is farther on, only twelve miles; what’s that! who’ll +stay here? onward to the old town.</p> +<p>“Hurry skurry, a mixed multitude of men and horses, carts and +carriages, all in the direction of the old town; and, in the midst of +all that mad throng, at a moment when the rain gushes were coming down +with particular fury, and the artillery of the sky was pealing as I +had never heard it peal before, I felt some one seize me by the arm—I +turned round and beheld Mr. Petulengro.</p> +<p>“‘I can’t hear you, Mr. Petulengro,’ said +I; for the thunder drowned the words which he appeared to be uttering.</p> +<p>“‘Dearginni,’ I heard Mr. Petulengro say, ‘it +thundereth. I was asking, brother, whether you believe in dukkeripens?’</p> +<p>“‘I do not, Mr. Petulengro; but this is strange weather +to be asking me whether I believe in fortunes.’</p> +<p>“‘Grondinni,’ said Mr. Petulengro, ‘it haileth. +I believe in dukkeripens, brother.’</p> +<p>“‘And who has more right,’ said I, ‘seeing +that you live by them? But this tempest is truly horrible.’</p> +<p>“‘Dearginni, grondinni ta villaminni! It thundereth, +it haileth, and also flameth,’ said Mr. Petulengro. ‘Look +up there, brother!’</p> +<p>“I looked up. Connected with this tempest there was one +feature to which I have already alluded—the wonderful colours +of the clouds. Some were of vivid green; others of the brightest +orange; others as black as pitch. The Gypsy’s finger was +pointed to a particular part of the sky.</p> +<p>“‘What do you see there, brother?’</p> +<p>“‘A strange kind of cloud.’</p> +<p>“‘What does it look like, brother?’</p> +<p>“‘Something like a stream of blood.’</p> +<p>“‘That cloud foreshoweth a bloody dukkeripen.’</p> +<p>“‘A bloody fortune!’ said I. ‘And whom +may it betide?’</p> +<p><!-- page 236--><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 236</span>“‘Who +knows?’ said the Gypsy.</p> +<p>“Down the way, dashing and splashing, and scattering man, horse, +and cart to the left and right, came an open barouche, drawn by four +smoking steeds, with postillions in scarlet jackets, and leather skull-caps. +Two forms were conspicuous in it; that of the successful bruiser, and +of his friend and backer, the sporting gentleman of my acquaintance.</p> +<p>“‘His!’ said the Gypsy, pointing to the latter, +whose stern features wore a smile of triumph, as, probably recognizing +me in the crowd, he nodded in the direction of where I stood, as the +barouche hurried by.</p> +<p>“There went the barouche, dashing through the rain gushes’, +and in it one whose boast it was that he was equal to ‘either +fortune.’ Many have heard of that man—many may be +desirous of knowing yet more of him. I have nothing to do with +that man’s after life—he fulfilled his dukkeripen. +‘A bad, violent man!’ Softly, friend; when thou wouldst +speak harshly of the dead, remember that thou hast not yet fulfilled +thy own dukkeripen!”</p> +<p>As Borrow fits these pugilists into the texture of his autobiography, +so he does men who appear not once but a dozen times. Take Jasper +Petulengro out of the books and he does not amount to much. In +them he is a figure of most masculine beauty, a king, a trickster, and +thief, but simple, good with his fists, loving life, manly sport and +fair play. He and Borrow meet and shake hands as “brothers” +when they are little boys. They meet again, by chance, as big +boys, and Jasper says: “Your blood beat when mine was near, as +mine always does at the coming of a brother; and we became brothers +in that lane.” Jasper laughs at the Sapengro and Lavengro +and horse-witch because he lacks two things, “mother sense and +gentle Rommany,” and he has something to do with teaching Borrow +the Gypsy tongue and Gypsy ways, and the “mother sense” +of shifting <!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>for +himself. The Gypsies approve him also as “a pure fist master.” +In return he teaches Mrs. Chikno’s child to say his prayers in +Rommany. They were willing—all but Mrs. Herne—that +he should marry Mr. Petulengro’s sister, Ursula. It is always +by chance that they meet, and chance is very favourable. They +meet at significant times, as when Borrow has been troubled by the preacher +and the state of his own soul, or when he is sick of London and hack-writing +and poverty. In fact, the Gypsies, and his “brother” +Jasper in particular, returning and returning, are the motive of the +book. They connect Borrow with what is strange, with what is simple, +and with what is free. The very last words of “The Romany +Rye,” spoken as he is walking eastward, are “I shouldn’t +wonder if Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno came originally from India. +I think I’ll go there.” They are not a device. +The re-appearances of these wandering men are for the most part only +pleasantly unexpected. Their mystery is the mystery of nature +and life. They keep their language and their tents against the +mass of civilization and length of time. They are foreigners but +as native as the birds. It is Borrow’s triumph to make them +as romantic as their reputation while yet satisfying Gypsy students +as to his facts.</p> +<p>Jasper is almost like a second self, a kind of more simple, atavistic +self, to Borrow, as in that characteristic picture, where he is drawing +near to Wales with his friends, the Welsh preacher and his wife. +A brook is the border and they point it out. There is a horseman +entering it: “he stops in the middle of it as if to water his +steed.” They ask Lavengro if he will come with them into +Wales. They persuade him:</p> +<p>“‘I will not go with you,’ said I. ‘Dost +thou see that man in the ford?’</p> +<p>“‘Who is staring at us so, and whose horse has not yet +done drinking? Of course I see him.’</p> +<p><!-- page 238--><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>“‘I +shall turn back with him. God bless you!’</p> +<p>“‘Go back with him not,’ said Peter, ‘he +is one of those whom I like not, one of the clibberty-clabber, as Master +Ellis Wyn observes—turn not with that man.’</p> +<p>“‘Go not back with him,’ said Winifred. ‘If +thou goest with that man, thou wilt soon forget all our profitable counsels; +come with us.’</p> +<p>“‘I cannot; I have much to say to him. Kosko Divous, +Mr. Petulengro.’</p> +<p>“‘Kosko Divvus, Pal,’ said Mr. Petulengro, riding +through the water; ‘are you turning back?’</p> +<p>“I turned back with Mr. Petulengro.”</p> +<p>At another time Jasper twists about like a weasel bewitching a bird, +and in so doing puts £50 unnoticed into Lavengro’s pocket. +Lavengro is indignant at the pleasantry. But Jasper insists; the +money is for him to buy a certain horse; if he will not take the money +and buy the horse there will be a quarrel. He has made the money +by fair fighting in the ring, has nowhere to put it, and seriously thinks +that it were best invested in this fine horse, which accordingly Borrow +purchases and takes across England, and sells at Horncastle Fair for +£150. The next scene shows Tawno Chikno at his best. +Borrow has been trotting the horse and racing it against a cob, amid +a company that put him “wonderfully in mind of the ancient horse-races +of the heathen north,” so that he almost thought himself Gunnar +of Lithend. But Tawno was the man to try the horse at a jump, +said Jasper. Tawno weighed sixteen stone, and the owner thought +him more likely to break the horse’s back. Jasper became +very much excited, and offered to forfeit a handful of guineas if harm +was done.</p> +<p>“‘Here’s the man. Here’s the horse-leaper +of the world. . . .’ Tawno, at a bound, leaped into the +saddle, where he really looked like Gunnar of Hlitharend, save <!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 239</span>and +except that the complexion of Gunnar was florid, whereas that of Tawno +was of nearly Mulatto darkness; and that all Tawno’s features +were cast in the Grecian model, whereas Gunnar had a snub nose. +‘There’s a leaping-bar behind the house,’ said the +landlord. ‘Leaping-bar!’ said Mr. Petulengro, scornfully. +‘Do you think my black pal ever rides at a leaping bar? +No more than at a windle-straw. Leap over that meadow wall, Tawno.’ +Just past the house, in the direction in which I had been trotting, +was a wall about four feet high, beyond which was a small meadow. +Tawno rode the horse gently up to the wall, permitted him to look over, +then backed him for about ten yards, and pressing his calves against +the horse’s sides, he loosed the rein, and the horse launching +forward, took the leap in gallant style. ‘Well done, man +and horse!’ said Mr. Petulengro; ‘now come back, Tawno.’ +The leap from the side of the meadow was, however, somewhat higher; +and the horse, when pushed at it, at first turned away; whereupon Tawno +backed him to a greater distance, pushed the horse to a full gallop, +giving a wild cry; whereupon the horse again took the wall, slightly +grazing one of his legs against it. ‘A near thing,’ +said the landlord, ‘but a good leap. Now, no more leaping, +so long as I have control over the animal.’”</p> +<p>A very different beautiful scene is where Mrs. Petulengro braids +Isopel’s fair hair in Gypsy fashion, half against her will, and +Lavengro looks on, showing Isopel at a glance his disapproval of the +fashion, while Petulengro admires it. If it is not too much to +quote, I will do so, because it is the clearest and most detailed picture +of more than one figure in the whole of the autobiography. Mr. +and Mrs. Petulengro have come to visit Isopel, and Lavengro has fetched +her to his tent, where they are awaiting her:</p> +<p>“So Belle and I advanced towards our guests. As we drew +nigh Mr. Petulengro took off his hat and made a <!-- page 240--><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 240</span>profound +obeisance to Belle, whilst Mrs. Petulengro rose from her stool and made +a profound curtsey. Belle, who had flung her hair back over her +shoulders, returned their salutations by bending her head, and after +slightly glancing at Mr. Petulengro, fixed her large blue eyes full +upon his wife. Both these females were very handsome—but +how unlike! Belle fair, with blue eyes and flaxen hair; Mrs. Petulengro +with olive complexion, eyes black, and hair dark—as dark could +be. Belle, in demeanour calm and proud; the Gypsy graceful, but +full of movement and agitation. And then how different were those +two in stature! The head of the Romany rawnie scarcely ascended +to the breast of Isopel Berners. I could see that Mrs. Petulengro +gazed on Belle with unmixed admiration: so did her husband. ‘Well,’ +said the latter, ‘one thing I will say, which is, that there is +only one on earth worthy to stand up in front of this she, and that +is the beauty of the world, as far as man flesh is concerned, Tawno +Chikno; what a pity he did not come down! . . .’</p> +<p>“Mrs. Petulengro says: ‘You are very beautiful, madam, +though you are not dressed as I could wish to see you, and your hair +is hanging down in sad confusion; allow me to assist you in arranging +your hair, madam; I will dress it for you in our fashion; I would fain +see how your hair would look in our poor Gypsy fashion; pray allow me, +madam?’ and she took Belle by the hand.</p> +<p>“‘I really can do no such thing,’ said Belle, withdrawing +her hand; ‘I thank you for coming to see me, but . . .’</p> +<p>“‘Do allow me to officiate upon your hair, madam,’ +said Mrs. Petulengro; ‘I should esteem your allowing me a great +mark of condescension. You are very beautiful, madam, and I think +you doubly so, because you are so fair; I have a great esteem for persons +with fair complexions and hair; I have a less regard for people with +dark hair and complexions, madam.’</p> +<p><!-- page 241--><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>“‘Then +why did you turn off the lord, and take up with me?’ said Mr. +Petulengro; ‘that same lord was fair enough all about him.’</p> +<p>“‘People do when they are young and silly what they sometimes +repent of when they are of riper years and understandings. I sometimes +think that had I not been something of a simpleton, I might at this +time be a great court lady. Now, madam,’ said she, again +taking Belle by the hand, ‘do oblige me by allowing me to plait +your hair a little?’</p> +<p>“‘I have really a good mind to be angry with you,’ +said Belle, giving Mrs. Petulengro a peculiar glance.</p> +<p>“‘Do allow her to arrange your hair,’ said I, ‘she +means no harm, and wishes to do you honour; do oblige her and me too, +for I should like to see how your hair would look dressed in her fashion.’</p> +<p>“‘You hear what the young rye says?’ said Mrs. +Petulengro. ‘I am sure you will oblige the young rye, if +not myself. Many people would be willing to oblige the young rye, +if he would but ask them; but he is not in the habit of asking favours. +He has a nose of his own, which he keeps tolerably exalted; he does +not think small-beer of himself, madam; and all the time I have been +with him, I never heard him ask a favour before; therefore, madam, I +am sure you will oblige him.’ . . .”</p> +<p>The men talk together, Jasper telling about the passing of the “old-fashioned +good-tempered constables,” the advent of railways, and the spoiling +of road life.</p> +<p>“. . . ‘Now, madam,’ said Mrs. Petulengro, ‘I +have braided your hair in our fashion: you look very beautiful, madam; +more beautiful, if possible, than before.’ Belle now rose, +and came forward with her tire-woman. Mr. Petulengro was loud +in his applause, but I said nothing, for I did not think Belle was improved +in appearance by having submitted to the ministry of Mrs. Petulengro’s +<!-- page 242--><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>hand. +Nature never intended Belle to appear as a Gypsy; she had made her too +proud and serious. A more proper part for her was that of a heroine, +a queenly heroine,—that of Theresa of Hungary, for example; or, +better still, that of Brynhilda the Valkyrie, the beloved of Sigurd, +the serpent-killer, who incurred the curse of Odin, because, in the +tumult of spears, she sided with the young king, and doomed the old +warrior to die, to whom Odin had promised victory.</p> +<p>“Belle looked at me for a moment in silence; then turning to +Mrs. Petulengro, she said, ‘You have had your will with me; are +you satisfied?’ ‘Quite so, madam,’ said Mrs. +Petulengro, ‘and I hope you will be so too, as soon as you have +looked in the glass.’ ‘I have looked in one already,’ +said Belle,’ and the glass does not flatter.’ . . .”</p> +<p>Here it is easy to notice how the uncolloquial and even ugly English +does not destroy the illusion of the scene, but entirely subserves it +and makes these two or three pages fine painter’s work for richness +and still drama.</p> +<p>I have not forgotten the Man in Black, though I gladly would. +Not that I am any more in sympathy with his theology than Borrow’s, +if it is more interesting and venerable. But in this priest, Borrow’s +method, always instinctively intense if not exaggerated, falls to caricature. +I have no objection to caricature; when it is of a logical or incidental +kind I enjoy it, even in “The Romany Rye”; I enjoy, for +example, the snoring Wordsworthian, without any prejudice against Wordsworth. +“The Catholic Times” as late as 1900 was still angry with +Borrow’s “crass anti-Catholic bigotry.” I should +have expected them to laugh consumedly at a priest, a parson and a publican +who deserve places in the same gallery with wicked earls and noble savages +of popular fiction. It may be true that this “creation of +Borrow’s most studied hatred” is, as Mr. Seccombe says, +<a name="citation242"></a><a href="#footnote242">{242}</a> “a +triumph <!-- page 243--><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 243</span>of +complex characterisation.” He is “a joyous liver and +an unscrupulous libertine, sceptical as Voltaire, as atheistic as a +German professor, as practical as a Jew banker, as subtle as a Jesuit, +he has as many ways of converting the folks among whom he is thrown +as Panurge had of eating the corn in ear. For the simple and credulous—crosses +and beads; for the hard-hearted and venal—material considerations; +for the cultured and educated—a fine tissue of epigrams and anthropology; +for the ladies—flattery and badinage. A spiritual ancestor +of Anatole France’s marvellous full-length figure of Jerôme +Coignard, Borrow’s conception takes us back first to Rabelais +and secondly to the seventeenth-century conviction of the profound Machiavellism +of Jesuitry.”</p> +<p>But in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” he +is an intruder with a design of turning these books into tracts. +He is treated far more elaborately than any other character except the +author’s, and with a massive man’s striving after subtlety. +Moreover, Borrow has made it impossible to ignore him or to cut him +out, by interlacing him with every other character in these two books. +With sad persistency and naïve ingenuity he brings it about that +every one shall see, or have seen in the past, this terrible priest. +Borrow’s natural way of dealing with such a man would be that +of the converted pugilist who, on hearing of an atheist in the vicinity, +wanted to go and “knock the beggar down for Jesus’ sake”; +and a variation upon this would have been delightful and in harmony +with the rest of the book. But clever as the priest is, Borrow +himself is stronger, honester and cleverer, too. Of course, the +priest leads him to some good things. Above all, he leads to the +incident of the half-converted publican, who is being ruined by sherry +and Popery. Borrow pursuades him to take ale, which gives him +the courage to give up thoughts of conversion, and to <!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>turn +on his enemies and re-establish himself, to make a good business, become +a churchwarden, and teach boxing to the brewer’s sons, because +it is “a fine manly English art and a great defence against Popery.” +It is at least a greater defence than Borrow’s pen, or deserves +to be.</p> +<h2><!-- page 245--><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>CHAPTER +XXVI—“LAVENGRO” AND “THE ROMANY RYE”: +THE STYLE</h2> +<p>The writing of the autobiography differs from that of “The +Bible in Spain.” It is less flowing and more laboured. +It has less movement and buoyancy, but more delicacy and variety. +It is a finer and more intimate style, which over and over again distinguishes +Borrow from the Victorian pure and simple. The dialogue is finer; +it is used less to disguise or vary narrative, and more to reveal character +and make dramatic effect; and it is even lyrical at times. Borrow +can be Victorian still. This example is from the old man’s +history in “The Romany Rye”:</p> +<p>“My mother had died about three years previously. I felt +the death of my mother keenly, but that of my father less than was my +duty; indeed, truth compels me to acknowledge that I scarcely regretted +his death. The cause of this want of proper filial feeling was +the opposition which I had experienced from him in an affair which deeply +concerned me. I had formed an attachment for a young female in +the neighbourhood, who, though poor, was of highly respectable birth, +her father having been a curate of the Established Church.”</p> +<p>This better one is from “Lavengro”:</p> +<p>“And then Francis Ardry proceeded to make me his confidant. +It appeared that he had had the good fortune to make the acquaintance +of the most delightful young Frenchwoman imaginable, Annette La Noire +by name, who had just arrived from her native country with the intention +<!-- page 246--><a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>of +obtaining the situation of governess in some English family; a position +which, on account of her many accomplishments, she was eminently qualified +to fill. Francis Ardry had, however, persuaded her to relinquish +her intention for the present, on the ground that, until she had become +acclimated in England, her health would probably suffer from the confinement +inseparable from the occupation in which she was desirous of engaging; +he had, moreover—for it appeared that she was the most frank and +confiding creature in the world—succeeded in persuading her to +permit him to hire for her a very handsome first floor in his own neighbourhood, +and to accept a few inconsiderable presents in money and jewellery.”</p> +<p>But coarse and rigid as this is the same vocabulary, the same ample, +oratorical tone, will help Borrow to genial, substantial effects such +as the dinner with the landlord and the commercial traveller: “The +dinner was good, though plain, consisting of boiled mackerel—rather +a rarity in those parts at that time—with fennel sauce, a prime +baron of roast beef after the mackerel, then a tart and noble Cheshire +cheese; we had prime sherry at dinner, and whilst eating the cheese +prime porter, that of Barclay, the only good porter in the world. +After the cloth was removed we had a bottle of very good port; and whilst +partaking of the port I had an argument with the commercial traveller +on the subject of the corn-laws.”</p> +<p>What is more, this is the vocabulary and tone of the whole book, +and how far the total effect is from coarseness and rigidity I cannot +show now if I have not done so already. Borrow’s gusto triumphs +over this style in descriptions of men riding, fighting, talking or +drinking. His sense of mystery triumphs over it continually as +the prevailing atmosphere must prove. The gusto and the mystery +are all the more impressive because the means are entirely concealed, +except when the writer draws himself <!-- page 247--><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>up +for an apostrophe, and that is not much too often nor always tedious. +The style is capable of essential simplicity, though not of refined +simplicity, just as a man with a hard hat, black clothes and a malacca +cane may be a good deal simpler and more at home with natural things +than a hairy hygienic gentleman. I will quote one example—the +old bee-keeper in “The Romany Rye”:</p> +<p>“I was bidding him farewell, when he hemmed once or twice, +and said that as he did not live far off, he hoped that I would go with +him and taste some of his mead. As I had never tasted mead, of +which I had frequently read in the compositions of the Welsh bards, +and, moreover, felt rather thirsty from the heat of the day, I told +him that I should have great pleasure in attending him. Whereupon, +turning off together, we proceeded about half a mile, sometimes between +stone walls, and at other times hedges, till we reached a small hamlet, +through which we passed, and presently came to a very pretty cottage, +delightfully situated within a garden, surrounded by a hedge of woodbines. +Opening a gate at one corner of the garden, he led the way to a large +shed which stood partly behind the cottage, which he said was his stable; +thereupon he dismounted and led his donkey into the shed, which was +without stalls, but had a long rack and manger. On one side he +tied his donkey, after taking off her caparisons, and I followed his +example, tying my horse at the other side with a rope halter which he +gave me; he then asked me to come in and taste his mead, but I told +him that I must attend to the comfort of my horse first, and forthwith, +taking a wisp of straw, rubbed him carefully down. Then taking +a pailful of clear water which stood in the shed, I allowed the horse +to drink about half a pint; and then turning to the old man, who all +the time had stood by looking at my proceedings, I asked him whether +he had any oats? ‘I have all kinds of grain,’ he replied; +and, going <!-- page 248--><a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 248</span>out, +he presently returned with two measures, one a large and the other a +small one, both filled with oats, mixed with a few beans, and handing +the large one to me for the horse, he emptied the other before the donkey, +who, before she began to despatch it, turned her nose to her master’s +face and fairly kissed him. Having given my horse his portion, +I told the old man that I was ready to taste his mead as soon as he +pleased, whereupon he ushered me into his cottage, where, making me +sit down by a deal table in a neatly-sanded kitchen, he produced from +an old-fashioned closet a bottle, holding about a quart, and a couple +of cups, which might each contain about half a pint, then opening the +bottle and filling the cups with a brown-coloured liquor, he handed +one to me, and taking a seat opposite to me, he lifted the other, nodded, +and saying to me—‘Health and welcome,’ placed it to +his lips and drank.</p> +<p>“‘Health and thanks,’ I replied; and being very +thirsty, emptied my cup at a draught; I had scarcely done so, however, +when I half repented. The mead was deliciously sweet and mellow, +but appeared strong as brandy; my eyes reeled in my head, and my brain +became slightly dizzy. ‘Mead is a strong drink,’ said +the old man, as he looked at me, with a half smile on his countenance. +‘This is, at any rate,’ said I, ‘so strong, indeed, +that I would not drink another cup for any consideration.’ +‘And I would not ask you,’ said the old man; ‘for, +if you did, you would most probably be stupid all day, and wake next +morning with a headache. Mead is a good drink, but woundily strong, +especially to those who be not used to it, as I suppose you are not.’ +‘Where do you get it?’ said I. ‘I make it myself,’ +said the old man, ‘from the honey which my bees make.’ +‘Have you many bees?’ I inquired. ‘A great many,’ +said the old man. ‘And do you keep them,’ said I, +‘for the sake of making mead with their honey?’ ‘I +keep them,’ he replied, ‘partly because I am fond of them, +and <!-- page 249--><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 249</span>partly +for what they bring me in; they make me a great deal of honey, some +of which I sell, and with a little I make me some mead to warm my poor +heart with, or occasionally to treat a friend with like yourself.’ +‘And do you support yourself entirely by means of your bees?’ +‘No,’ said the old man; ‘I have a little bit of ground +behind my house, which is my principal means of support.’ +‘And do you live alone?’ ‘Yes,’ said he; +‘with the exception of the bees and the donkey, I live quite alone.’ +‘And have you always lived alone?’ The old man emptied +his cup, and his heart being warmed with the mead, he told me his history, +which was simplicity itself. His father was a small yeoman, who, +at his death, had left him, his only child, the cottage, with a small +piece of ground behind it, and on this little property he had lived +ever since. About the age of twenty-five he had married an industrious +young woman, by whom he had one daughter, who died before reaching years +of womanhood. His wife, however, had survived her daughter many +years, and had been a great comfort to him, assisting him in his rural +occupations; but, about four years before the present period, he had +lost her, since which time he had lived alone, making himself as comfortable +as he could; cultivating his ground, with the help of a lad from the +neighbouring village, attending to his bees, and occasionally riding +his donkey to market, and hearing the word of God, which he said he +was sorry he could not read, twice a week regularly at the parish church. +Such was the old man’s tale.</p> +<p>“When he had finished speaking, he led me behind his house, +and showed me his little domain. It consisted of about two acres +in admirable cultivation; a small portion of it formed a kitchen garden, +while the rest was sown with four kinds of grain, wheat, barley, pease, +and beans. The air was full of ambrosial sweets, resembling those +proceeding from an orange grove; a place, which though I had <!-- page 250--><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>never +seen at that time, I since have. In the garden was the habitation +of the bees, a long box, supported upon three oaken stumps. It +was full of small round glass windows, and appeared to be divided into +a great many compartments, much resembling drawers placed sideways. +He told me that, as one compartment was filled, the bees left it for +another; so that, whenever he wanted honey, he could procure some without +injuring the insects. Through the little round windows I could +see several of the bees at work; hundreds were going in and out of the +doors; hundreds were buzzing about on the flowers, the woodbines, and +beans. As I looked around on the well-cultivated field, the garden, +and the bees, I thought I had never before seen so rural and peaceful +a scene.”</p> +<p>It may be said of this that it is the style of the time, modified +inexplicably at almost every point by the writer’s character. +The Bible and the older-fashioned narrative English of Defoe and Smollett +have obviously lent it some phrases, and also a nakedness and directness +that is half disdainful of the emotions and colours which it cannot +hide. Still further to qualify the Victorianism which he was heir +to, Borrow took over something from the insinuating Sterne. Mr. +Thomas Seccombe <a name="citation250"></a><a href="#footnote250">{250}</a> +has noticed Sterne particularly in Borrow’s picture of his father, +one of the most deliberate and artificial portions of the book:</p> +<p>“The ironical humour blent with pathos in his picture of this +ill-rewarded old disciplinarian (who combined a tenderness of heart +with a fondness for military metaphor that frequently reminds one of +‘My Uncle Toby’), the details of the ailments and the portents +that attended his infantile career, and, above all, the glimpses of +the wandering military life from barrack to barrack and from garrison +to garrison, inevitably remind the reader of the childish <!-- page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 251</span>reminiscences +of Laurence Sterne, a writer to whom it may thus early be said that +George Borrow paid no small amount of unconscious homage.”</p> +<p>The same critic has remarked on “the Sterne-like conclusion +of a chapter: ‘Italy—what was I going to say about Italy?’” +It was perhaps Sterne who taught him the use of the dash when no more +words are necessary or ready to meet the case, and also when no more +are permissible by contemporary taste. The passage where Ardry +and his French mistress talk to Borrow, she using her own language, +is like “The Sentimental Journey.” And, as Mr. Seccombe +has suggested, Borrow found in Sterne’s a precedent for the rate +of progress in his autobiography.</p> +<p>But innumerable are the possible styles which combine something from +the Bible, Defoe, and Sterne, with something else upon a Victorian foundation. +Borrow’s something else, which dominates and welds the rest, is +the most important. It expresses the man, or rather it allows +the man’s qualities to appear, his melancholy, his independence, +his curiosity, his love of strong men and horses. Of little felicities +there are very few. It has gusto always at command, and mystery +also. We feel in it a kind of reality not often associated with +professional literature, but rather with the letters of men who are +not writers and with the speech of illiterate men of character. +The great difference between them and Borrow is that their speech can +rarely be represented in print except by another genius, and that their +letters only now and then reach the level which Borrow continues at +and often rises above. Yet he has something in common with such +men—for example, in his feeling for Nature. In Spain, it +is true, he gave way to declamatory descriptions of grandeur and desolation: +in England, where he saw nothing of the kind, he wrote little description, +and the impression of the country through which he is passing is that +of an inarticulate outdoor man, <!-- page 252--><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>strong +and sincere but vague. Here, again, he has something in common +with the eighteenth-century man, who liked the country, but would probably +agree that one green field was like another. He writes like the +man who desired a gentle wife, an Arabic book, the haunch of a buck, +and Madeira old. He reminds us of an even older or simpler type +when he apostrophises the retired pugilist:</p> +<p>“’Tis a treat to see thee, Tom of Bedford, in thy ‘public’ +in Holborn way, whither thou hast retired with thy well-earned bays. +’Tis Friday night, and nine by Holborn clock. There sits +the yeoman at the end of his long room, surrounded by his friends: glasses +are filled, and a song is the cry, and a song is sung well suited to +the place; it finds an echo in every heart—fists are clenched, +arms are waved, and the portraits of the mightly fighting men of yore, +Broughton, and Slack, and Ben, which adorn the walls, appear to smile +grim approbation, whilst many a manly voice joins in the bold chorus:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Here’s a health to old honest John Bull,<br /> +When he’s gone we shan’t find such another,<br /> +And with hearts and with glasses brim full,<br /> +We will drink to old England, his mother.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is little doubt of the immortality of this good old style, +and it testifies to the full heart and perhaps the full glass also of +George Borrow; but it was not this passage in particular that made Whitwell +Elwin call his writing “almost affectedly simple.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page253b.jpg"> +<img alt="Ned Turner, Tom Cribb" src="images/page253s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 253--><a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 253</span>CHAPTER +XXVII—BORROW AND LOW LIFE</h2> +<p>“Lavengro” in 1851 and “The Romany Rye” in +1857 failed to impress the critics or the public. Men were disappointed +because “Lavengro” was “not an autobiography.” +They said that the adventures did not bear “the impress of truth.” +They suggested that the anti-Papistry was “added and interpolated +to suit the occasion of the recent Papal aggression.” They +laughed at its mystery-making. They said that it gave “a +false dream in the place of reality.” Ford regretted that +Borrow had “told so little about himself.” Two friends +praised it and foretold long life for it. Whitwell Elwin in 1857 +said that “the truth and vividness of the descriptions both of +scenes and persons, coupled with the purity, force and simplicity of +the language, should confer immortality upon many of its pages.” +“The Saturday Review” found that he had humour and romance, +and that his writing left “a general impression of the scenery +and persons introduced so strongly vivid and life-like,” that +it reminded them of Defoe rather than of any contemporary author; they +called the books a “strange cross between a novel and an autobiography.” +In 1857 also, Émile Montégut wrote a study of “The +Gypsy Gentleman,” which he published in his “Ecrivains Modernes +de l’Angleterre.” He said that Borrow had revived +a neglected literary form, not artificially, but as being the natural +frame for the scenes of his wandering life: he even went so far as to +say that the form and manner of the picaresque or rogue novel, like +“Gil Blas,” is the inevitable one for pictures of the low +and <!-- page 254--><a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>vagabond +life. This form, said he, Borrow adopted not deliberately but +intuitively, because he had a certain attitude to express: he rediscovered +it, as Cervantes and Mendoza invented it, because it was the most appropriate +clothing for his conceptions. Borrow had, without any such ambition, +become the Quevedo and the Mendoza of modern England.</p> +<p>The autobiography resembles the rogue novel in that it is well peppered +with various isolated narratives strung upon the thread of the hero’s +experience. It differs chiefly in that the study of the hero is +serious and without roguery. The conscious attempt to make it +as good as a rogue novel on its own ground caused some of the chief +faults of the book, the excess of recognitions and re-appearances, the +postillion’s story, and the visits of the Man in Black.</p> +<p>When Borrow came to answer his critics in the Appendix to “The +Romany Rye,” he assumed that they thought him vulgar for dealing +in Gypsies and the like. He retorted:</p> +<p>“Rank, wealth, fine clothes and dignified employments, are +no doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not +make a gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman +and scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman +without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, +when he leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled +to more respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? +And is not even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price +to Lavengro for his horse, entitled to more than the scroundrel lord, +who attempts to cheat him of one-fourth of its value. . . .”</p> +<p>He might have said the books were a long tract to prove that many +waters cannot quench gentlemanliness, or “once a gentleman always +a gentleman.” As a rule, when Borrow gets away from life +and begins to think about it, he ceases to be an individual and becomes +a tame and entirely convenient <!-- page 255--><a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>member +of society, fit for the Commission of the Peace or a berth at the British +Museum. After he has made £20 by pen-slavery and saved himself +from serious poverty, he exclaims:</p> +<p>“Reader, amidst the difficulties and dangers of this life, +should you ever be tempted to despair, call to mind these latter chapters +of the life of Lavengro. There are few positions, however difficult, +from which dogged resolution and perseverance may not liberate you.”</p> +<p>When he comes to discuss his own work he says that “it represents +him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but +poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. +It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally +associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity +of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of London +Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with +the man of the table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness +of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably +shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is contained +amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence, +scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and +describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances +by writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson +is said to have written his ‘Rasselas,’ and Beckford his +‘Vathek,’ and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself +to the roads and fields.</p> +<p>“In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, +becoming tinker, Gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various +kinds of people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits +are described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from +the book that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still +follows <!-- page 256--><a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>to +a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange characters, +or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of Chapter +XLVII., which terminates the first part of the history, it hints that +he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological expedition.</p> +<p>“Those who read this book with attention—and the author +begs to observe that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly—may +derive much information with respect to matters of philology and literature; +it will be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland +to China, and of the literature which they contain. . . .”</p> +<p>Away from the dingle and Jasper his view of life is as follows—ale, +Tate and Brady, and the gloves:</p> +<p>“But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested +in the case of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is enabled +to make his way in the world up to a certain period, without falling +a prey either to vice or poverty. In his history there is a wonderful +illustration of part of the text quoted by his mother, ‘I have +been young, and now am old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, +or his seed begging bread.’ He is the son of good and honourable +parents, but at the critical period of life, that of entering into the +world, he finds himself without any earthly friend to help him, yet +he manages to make his way; he does not become a Captain in the Life +Guards, it is true, nor does he get into Parliament, nor does the last +chapter conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, +by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or +by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and +contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable +Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, Gypsy, tinker, and postillion, +yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons +of most earls, to have as high <!-- page 257--><a name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 257</span>feelings +of honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, he has money in his +pocket honestly acquired, to enable him to commence a journey quite +as laudable as those which the younger sons of earls generally undertake. +Surely all this is a manifestation of the kindness and providence of +God: and yet he is not a religious person; up to the time when the reader +loses sight of him, he is decidedly not a religious person; he has glimpses, +it is true, of that God who does not forsake him, but he prays very +seldom, is not fond of going to church; and, though he admires Tate +and Brady’s version of the Psalms, his admiration is rather caused +by the beautiful poetry which that version contains than the religion; +yet his tale is not finished—like the tale of the gentleman who +touched objects, and that of the old man who knew Chinese without knowing +what was o’clock; perhaps, like them, he is destined to become +religious, and to have, instead of occasional glimpses, frequent and +distinct views of his God; yet, though he may become religious, it is +hardly to be expected that he will become a very precise and strait-laced +person; it is probable that he will retain, with his scholarship, something +of his Gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer and tongs, and perhaps +some inclination to put on certain gloves, not white kid, with any friend +who may be inclined for a little old English diversion, and a readiness +to take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in it, and as little hop +as may well be—ale at least two years old—with the aforesaid +friend, when the diversion is over; for, as it is the belief of the +writer that a person may get to heaven very comfortably without knowing +what’s o’clock, so it is his belief that he will not be +refused admission there because to the last he has been fond of healthy +and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to partake of any +of the good things which it pleases the Almighty to put within the reach +of His children during their sojourn upon earth.”</p> +<p><!-- page 258--><a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 258</span>It +is quite evident then that Borrow does not advocate the open air, the +tinkers’ trade, and a-roving-a-roving, for the sons of gentlemen. +It is not apparent that the open air did his health much good. +As for tinkering, it was, he declares, a necessity and for lack of anything +better to do, and he realised that he was only playing at it. +When he was looking for a subject for his pen he rejected Harry Simms +and Jemmy Abershaw because both, though bold and extraordinary men, +were “merely highwaymen.”</p> +<p>On the other hand, when he has known a “bad man” he cannot +content himself with mere disapproval. Take, for example, his +friends the murderers, Haggart and Thurtell. He shows Haggart +as an ambitious lad too full of life, “with fine materials for +a hero.” He calls the fatalist’s question: “Can +an Arabian steed submit to be a vile drudge?”—nonsense, +saying: “The greatest victory which a man can achieve is over +himself, by which is meant those unruly passions which are not convenient +to the time and place.” Then he exclaims:</p> +<p>“But peace to thee, poor David! why should a mortal worm be +sitting in judgment over thee? The Mighty and Just One has already +judged thee, and perhaps above thou hast received pardon for thy crimes, +which could not be pardoned here below; and now that thy feverish existence +has closed, and thy once active form become inanimate dust, thy very +memory all but forgotten, I will say a few words about thee, a few words +soon also to be forgotten. Thou wast the most extraordinary robber +that ever lived within the belt of Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, +and England, too, north of the Humber; strange deeds also didst thou +achieve when, fleeing from justice, thou didst find thyself in the sister +Isle; busy wast thou there in town and on curragh, at fair and race-course, +and also in the solitary place. Ireland thought thee her child, +for who spoke her brogue better than thyself?—she felt proud <!-- page 259--><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 259</span>of +thee, and said, ‘Sure, O’Hanlon is come again.’ +What might not have been thy fate in the far west in America, whither +thou hadst turned thine eye, saying, ‘I will go there, and become +an honest man!’ But thou wast not to go there, David—the +blood which thou hadst shed in Scotland was to be required of thee; +the avenger was at hand, the avenger of blood. Seized, manacled, +brought back to thy native land, condemned to die, thou wast left in +thy narrow cell, and told to make the most of thy time, for it was short; +and there, in thy narrow cell, and thy time so short, thou didst put +the crowning stone to thy strange deeds, by that strange history of +thyself, penned by thine own hand in the robber tongue. Thou mightest +have been better employed, David!—but the ruling passion was strong +with thee, even in the jaws of death. Thou mightest have been +better employed!—but peace be with thee, I repeat, and the Almighty’s +grace and pardon.”</p> +<p>He makes the jockey speak in the same fashion of Thurtell whom he +went to see hanged, according to an old agreement:</p> +<p>“I arrived at H--- just in the nick of time. There was +the ugly jail—the scaffold—and there upon it stood the only +friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all +in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if +it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took off my hat, and +shouted, ‘God Almighty bless you, Jack!’ The dying +man turned his pale grim face towards me—for his face was always +somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard +him say, ‘All right, old chap.’ The next moment . +. . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst +in the Marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, +and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly +all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain +that he never did half the <!-- page 260--><a name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 260</span>bad +things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to +fight cross, as it was said he did, on the day of the awful thunderstorm. +Ned Flatnose fairly beat Tom Oliver, for though Ned was not what’s +called a good fighter, he had a particular blow, which if he could put +in he was sure to win. His right shoulder, do you see, was two +inches farther back than it ought to have been, and consequently his +right fist generally fell short; but if he could swing himself round, +and put in a blow with that right arm, he could kill or take away the +senses of anybody in the world. It was by putting in that blow +in his second fight with Spring that he beat noble Tom. Spring +beat him like a sack in the first battle, but in the second Ned Painter—for +that was his real name—contrived to put in his blow, and took +the senses out of Spring; and in like manner he took the senses out +of Tom Oliver.</p> +<p>“Well, some are born to be hanged, and some are not; and many +of those who are not hanged are much worse than those who are. +Jack, with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord, +who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of his value, +without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged, and probably +will remain so. You ask the reason why, perhaps. I’ll +tell you: the lack of a certain quality called courage, which Jack possessed +in abundance, will preserve him; from the love which he bears his own +neck he will do nothing that can bring him to the gallows.”</p> +<p>Isopel Berners, with Moses and David in her mind, expresses Borrow’s +private opinion more soberly when she says:</p> +<p>“<i>Fear God</i>, and take your own part. There’s +Bible in that, young man; see how Moses feared God, and how he took +his own part against everybody who meddled with him. And see how +David feared God, and took his own part against all the bloody enemies +which surrounded him—<!-- page 261--><a name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 261</span>so +fear God, young man, and never give in! The world can bully, and +is fond, provided it sees a man in a kind of difficulty, of getting +about him, calling him coarse names, and even going so far as to hustle +him; but the world, like all bullies, carries a white feather in its +tail, and no sooner sees the man taking off his coat, and offering to +fight its best, than it scatters here and there, and is always civil +to him afterwards. So when folks are disposed to ill-treat you, +young man, say ‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’ and then tip +them Long Melford, to which, as the saying goes, there is nothing comparable +for shortness all the world over.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page261b.jpg"> +<img alt="The Green, Long Melford, Suffolk. Photo: C. F. Emeny, Sudbury" src="images/page261s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>He had probably a natural inclination towards a liberal or eccentric +morality, but he was no thinker, and he gave way to a middle-class phraseology—with +exceptions, as when he gives it as the opinion of his old master, the +Norwich solicitor, that “all first-rate thieves were sober, and +of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance +by their love of gain.” Sometimes Borrow allows these two +sides of him, his private and his social sides, to appear together dramatically. +For example, he more than half seriously advises Jasper to read the +Scriptures and learn his duty to his fellow-creatures and his duty to +his own soul, lest he should be ranked with those who are “outcast, +despised and miserable.” Whereupon Jasper questions him +and gets him to admit that the Gypsies are very much like the cuckoos, +roguish, chaffing birds that everybody is glad to see again:</p> +<p>“‘You would wish to turn the cuckoos into barn-door fowls, +wouldn’t you?’</p> +<p>“‘Can’t say I should, Jasper, whatever some people +might wish.’</p> +<p>“‘And the chals and chies into radical weavers and factory +wenches, hey, brother?’</p> +<p>“‘Can’t say that I should, Jasper. You are +certainly a picturesque people, and in many respects an ornament both +<!-- page 262--><a name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 262</span>to +town and country; painting and lil writing too are under great obligations +to you. What pretty pictures are made out of your campings and +groupings, and what pretty books have been written in which Gypsies, +or at least creatures intended to represent Gypsies, have been the principal +figures! I think if we were without you, we should begin to miss +you.’</p> +<p>“‘Just as you would the cuckoos, if they were all converted +into barn-door fowls. I tell you what, brother, frequently as +I have sat under a hedge in spring or summer time, and heard the cuckoo, +I have thought that we chals and cuckoos are alike in many respects, +but especially in character. Everybody speaks ill of us both, +and everybody is glad to see both of us again.’</p> +<p>“‘Yes, Jasper, but there is some difference between men +and cuckoos; men have souls, Jasper!’</p> +<p>“‘And why not cuckoos, brother?’</p> +<p>“‘You should not talk so, Jasper; what you say is little +short of blasphemy. How should a bird have a soul?’</p> +<p>“‘And how should a man?’</p> +<p>“‘Oh, we know very well that a man has a soul.’</p> +<p>“‘How do you know it?’</p> +<p>“‘We know very well.’</p> +<p>“‘Would you take your oath of it, brother—your +bodily oath?’</p> +<p>“‘Why, I think I might, Jasper!’”</p> +<p>There is no doubt that Borrow liked a strong or an extraordinary +man none the less for being a scoundrel. There is equally little +doubt that he never demeaned himself with the lower orders. He +never pretended, and was seldom taken, to be one of themselves. +His attitude differed in degree, but not in kind, from that of a frank, +free squire or parson towards keepers, fishermen or labourers. +And if he did not drink and swear on an equality with them, neither +did he crankily worship them as Fitzgerald did “Posh,” <!-- page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 263</span>the +fisherman. They respected him—at least so he tells us—and +he never gives himself away to any other effect—because he was +honest, courageous and fair. Thus he never gave cause for suspicion +as a man does who throws off the cloak of class, and he was probably +as interesting to them as they to him. Nor did his refusal to +adopt their ways and manners out and out prevent a very genuine kind +of equality from existing between him and some of them. A man +or woman of equal character and force became his equal, as Jasper did, +as Isopel and David Haggart did, and he accepted this equality without +a trace of snobbishness.</p> +<p>He says himself that he has “no abstract love for what is low, +or what the world calls low.” Certainly there is nothing +low in his familiars, as he presents them, at least nothing sordid. +It may be the result of unconscious idealisation, but his Gypsies have +nothing more sordid about them than wild birds have. Mrs. Herne +is diabolical, but in a manner that would not be unbecoming to a duchess. +Leonora is treacherous, but as an elf is permitted to be. As for +Jasper and Mrs. Petulengro, they are as radiant as Mercutio and Rosalind. +They have all the sweetness of unimprisoned air: they would prefer, +like Borrow, “the sound of the leaves and the tinkling of the +waters” to the parson and the church; and the smell of the stable, +which is strong in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye,” +to the smell of the congregation and the tombs.</p> +<h2><!-- page 264--><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 264</span>CHAPTER +XXVIII—WALKING TOURS</h2> +<p>When Borrow had almost finished “The Romany Rye” he went +on a visit to his cousins in Cornwall. The story of his saving +a man’s life in a stormy sea had reached them, and they sent him +an invitation, which he accepted at Christmas time in 1853. He +stayed for a fortnight with a cousin’s married daughter, Mrs. +Anne Taylor, at Penquite Farm, near Liskeard, and then several days +again after a fortnight spent on a walk to Land’s End and back. +In his last week he walked to Tintagel and Pentire. He was welcomed +with hospitality and admiration. He in turn seems to have been +pleased and at his ease, though he only understood half of what was +said. Those who remember his visit speak of his tears in the house +where his father was born, of his sitting in the centre of a group telling +stories of his travels and singing a Gypsy song, of his singing foreign +songs all day out of doors, of his fit of melancholy cured by Scotch +and Irish airs played on the piano, of his violent opinions on sherry +and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” of his protesting against +some sign of gentility by using a filthy rag as a pocket handkerchief, +and that in a conspicuous manner, of his being vain and not proud, of +his telling the children stories, of one child crying out at sight of +him: “That <i>is</i> a man!” He made his mark by unusual +ways and by intellectual superiority to his rustic cousins. He +rode about with one of his cousin’s grandchildren. He walked +hither and thither alone, doing as much as twenty-five miles a day with +the help of “Look out, look out, Svend Vonved,” which he +sang in the last dark <!-- page 265--><a name="page265"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 265</span>stretches +of road. Mr. Walling was “told that he roamed the Caradons +in all weathers without a hat, in search of sport and specimens, antiquities +and dialects,” but I should think the “specimens” +were for the table. He talked to the men by the wayside or dived +into the slums of Liskeard for disreputable characters. He visited +remarkable and famous places, and was delighted with “Druidic” +remains and tales of fairies.</p> +<p>Thus Borrow made “fifty quarto pages” of notes, says +Knapp, about people, places, dialect, and folk lore. Some of the +notes are mere shorthand; some are rapid gossipy jottings; and they +include; a verse translation of a Cornish tale.</p> +<p>A book on Cornwall, to have grown out of these notes, was advertised; +but it was never written. Perhaps he found it hard to vivify or +integrate his notes. In any case there could hardly have been +any backbone to the book, and it would have been tourist’s work, +however good. He was not a man who wrote about everything; the +impulse was lacking and he went on with the furious Appendix to “The +Romany Rye.”</p> +<p>In 1854 he paid a much longer visit to Wales. He took his wife +and daughter as far as Llangollen, which he used as a centre during +August. Then he had ten days walking through Corwen, Cerrig-y-Drudion, +Capel Curig, Bangor, Anglesey, Snowdon, Beth Gelert, Festiniog, and +Bala. After three weeks more at Llangollen, he had his boots soled +and his umbrella mended, bought a leather satchel with a lock and key, +and put in it a white linen shirt, a pair of worsted stockings, a razor, +and a prayer book, and with twenty pounds in his pocket and his umbrella +grasped in the middle, set out on a tour of three weeks. He travelled +through the whole length of Wales, by Llangarmon, Sycharth, Bala, Machynlleth, +Devil’s Bridge, Plinlimmon, Pont Rhyd Fendigaid, Strata Florida, +Tregaron, Lampeter, Pumpsaint, <!-- page 266--><a name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>Llandovery, +Llangadog, Gwynfe, Gutter Fawr (Brynamman), Swansea, Neath, Merthyr, +Caerphilly, Newport, and Chepstow. He had loved the Welsh bards +and Wales from his boyhood up, and these three months kept him occupied +and happy. When at Llangollen he walked during the day, and in +the evening showed his wife and stepdaughter a view, if he had found +one. His wife reported to his mother that she had reason to praise +God for his condition.</p> +<p>Borrow was happy at seeing the places mentioned by the bards and +the houses where some of them were born. “Oh, the wild hills +of Wales,” he exclaimed, “the land of old renown and of +wonder, the land of Arthur and Merlin!” These were the very +tones of his Spanish enthusiasm nearly twenty years ago. He travelled +probably without maps, and with no general knowledge of the country +or of what had been written of it, so that he did not know how to spell +Manorbier or recognise it as the birthplace of Gerald of Wales. +He remembered his youth, when he translated the bards, with complacent +melancholy. He sunned himself in the admiration of his inferiors, +talking at great length on subjects with which he was acquainted and +repeating his own execrable verse translations. “Nice man”—“civil +man”—“clever man . . . has been everywhere,” +the people said. In the South, too, he had the supreme good fortune +to meet Captain Bosvile for the first time for thirty years, and not +being recognised, said, “I am the chap what certain folks calls +the Romany Rye.” Bejiggered if the Captain had not been +thinking it was he, and goes on to ask after that “fine young +woman and a vartuous” that he used to keep company with, and Borrow +in his turn asked after Jasper—“Lord!” was the answer, +“you can’t think what grand folks he and his wife have become +of late years, and all along of a trumpery lil which somebody has written +about them.” He also met an Italian whose friends he had +last seen at Norwich, one whom he had found at Corunna. <!-- page 267--><a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>It +is no wonder that it seemed to him he had always had “the health +of an elephant,” and could walk thirty-four miles a day, and the +last mile in ten minutes. He took his chance for a night’s +lodging, content to have someone else’s bed, but going to the +best inn where he had a choice, as at Haverfordwest.</p> +<p>He was very much moved by the adventure. “I have a wonderful +deal to say if I once begin; I have been everywhere,” he said +to the old man at Gutter Fawr. He gave the shepherd advice about +his sheep. “I am in the habit,” he said to the landlord +at Pont Erwyd, “of talking about everything, being versed in all +matters, do you see, or affecting to be so, which comes much to the +same thing.” Even in the company of his stepdaughter—as +they were not in Hyde Park—he sang in Welsh at the top of his +voice. The miller’s hospitality in Mona brought tears to +his eyes; so did his own verse translation of the “Ode to Sycharth,” +because it made him think “how much more happy, innocent and holy +I was in the days of my boyhood when I translated Iolo’s ode than +I am at the present time.” He kissed the silver cup at Llanddewi +Brefi and the tombstone of Huw Morus at Llan Silin. When the chair +of Huw Morus was wiped and he was about to sit down in it, he uncovered +and said in his best Welsh:</p> +<p>“‘Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the +place which you loved so well when alive—a Saxon, one of the seed +of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to +true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. He read +the songs of the Nightingale of Ceiriog in the most distant part of +Lloegr, when he was a brown-haired boy, and now that he is a grey-haired +man he is come to say in this place that they frequently made his eyes +overflow with tears of rapture.’</p> +<p>“I then sat down in the chair, and commenced repeating verses +of Huw Morus. All which I did in the presence of <!-- page 268--><a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 268</span>the +stout old lady, the short, buxom, and bare-armed damsel, and of John +Jones, the Calvinistic weaver of Llangollen, all of whom listened patiently +and approvingly though the rain was pouring down upon them, and the +branches of the trees and the tops of the tall nettles, agitated by +the gusts from the mountain hollows, were beating in their faces, for +enthusiasm is never scoffed at by the noble, simple-minded, genuine +Welsh, whatever treatment it may receive from the coarse-hearted, sensual, +selfish Saxon.”</p> +<p>Unless we count the inn at Cemmaes, where he took vengeance on the +suspicious people by using his note-book in an obvious manner, “now +skewing at an object, now leering at an individual,” he was only +once thoroughly put out, and that was at Beth Gelert by a Scotchman: +which suggests a great deal of amiability, on one side, considering +that Borrow’s Welsh was book-Welsh, execrably pronounced.</p> +<p>He filled four books with notes, says Knapp, who has printed from +them some parts which Borrow did not use, including the Orange words +of “Croppies lie down,” and Borrow’s translation of +“the best ghost story in the world,” by Lope de Vega. +The book founded on these Welsh notes was advertised in 1857, but not +published until 1862.</p> +<p>In the September after his Welsh holiday, 1855, Borrow took his wife +and daughter to the Isle of Man, deposited them at Douglas, and travelled +over the island for seven weeks, with intervals at Douglas. He +took notes that make ninety-six quarto pages in Knapp’s copy. +He was to have founded a book on them, entitled, “Wanderings in +Quest of Manx Literature.” Knapp quotes an introduction +which was written. This and the notes show him collecting in manuscript +or <i>viva voce</i> the <i>carvals</i> or carols then in circulation +among the Manx; and he had the good fortune to receive two volumes of +them as gifts. Some he translated during his visit. He went +about questioning people concerning <!-- page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 269</span>the +carvals and a Manx poet, named George Killey. He read a Manx prayer-book +to the poet’s daughter at Kirk Onchan, and asked her a score of +questions. He convinced one woman that he was “of the old +Manx.” Finding a Manxman who spoke French and thought it +the better language, he made the statement that “Manx or something +like it was spoken in France more than a thousand years before French.” +He copied Runic inscriptions, and took down several fairy tales and +a Manx version of the story of “Finn McCoyle” and the Scotch +giant. He went to visit a descendant of the ballad hero, Mollie +Charane. When he wished to know the size of some old skeletons +he inquired if the bones were as large as those of modern ones. +As he met people to compliment him on his Manx, so he did on his walking. +Knapp speaks of a “terrible journey” over the mountain from +Ramsay to Braddan and Douglas in October, but does not make any quotation +relating to it. In his opinion the notes “seldom present +any matter of general interest save to the islanders of Man and the +student of Runic inscriptions.” Enough, however, is quoted +to show that Borrow was delighted with the country and the people, finding +plenty to satisfy his curiosity in languages and customs. But +he was irritable, and committed to paper some sarcastic remarks about +Sir John Bowring and Lord Raglan, “the secret friend” of +Russia; while the advancement of an enemy and the death of a cousin +caused him to reflect: “William Borrow, the wonderful inventor, +dead, and Leicester Curzon . . . a colonel. Pretty justice!” +In 1862, in the pages of “Once a Week,” he published two +of his Manx translations, the ballads—“Brown William” +and “Mollie Charane.” In August and September, 1857, +Borrow was walking again in Wales, covering four hundred miles, as he +told John Murray, and once, at least, between Builth and Mortimer’s +Cross, making twenty-eight miles in a day. His route was through +Laugharne, Saundersfoot, Tenby, <!-- page 270--><a name="page270"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 270</span>Pembroke, +Milford and Milford Haven, Stainton, Johnston, Haverfordwest, St. Davids, +Fishguard, Newport, Cardigan, Llechryd, Cilgerran, Cenarth, Newcastle +Emlyn, Lampeter, Llanddewi Brefi, Builth, Presteign, Mortimer’s +Cross, and so to Shrewsbury, and to Uppington, where Goronwy Owen was +curate in the middle of the eighteenth century. Knapp transcribed +part of Borrow’s journal for Messrs. T. C. Cantrill and J. Pringle, +remarking that the rubbed pencil writing took him eight days to decipher. +With the annotations of Messrs. Cantrill and Pringle it was printed +in “Y Cymmrodor,” <a name="citation270a"></a><a href="#footnote270a">{270a}</a> +the journal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. I will +quote one day’s entries, with the annotations, which are the fruit +of the most patient devotion:</p> +<p>“Haverfordwest—little river—bridge; <a name="citation270b"></a><a href="#footnote270b">{270b}</a> +steep ascent <a name="citation270c"></a><a href="#footnote270c">{270c}</a>—sounds +of music—young fellows playing—steep descent—strange +town—Castle Inn. H.W. in Welsh Hool-fordd.</p> +<p>“[August] 27th, Thursday.—Burning day as usual. +Breakfasted on tea, eggs, and soup. Went up to the Castle. +St. Mary’s Church—river—bridge—toll—The +two bridge keepers—River Dun Cledi <a name="citation270d"></a><a href="#footnote270d">{270d}</a>—runs +into Milford Haven—exceedingly deep in some parts—would +swallow up the largest ship ever built <a name="citation270e"></a><a href="#footnote270e">{270e}</a>—people +in general dislike and despise the Welsh.</p> +<p>“Started for St. David’s. Course S.W. <a name="citation270f"></a><a href="#footnote270f">{270f}</a>After +walking <!-- page 271--><a name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 271</span>about +2 m. crossed Pelkham Bridge <a name="citation271a"></a><a href="#footnote271a">{271a}</a>—it +separates St. Martin’s from Camrwyn <a name="citation271b"></a><a href="#footnote271b">{271b}</a> +parish, as a woman told me who was carrying a pipkin in which were some +potatoes in water but not boiled. In her other hand she had a +dried herring. She said she had lived in the parish all her life +and could speak no Welsh, but that there were some people within it +who could speak it. Rested against a shady bank, <a name="citation271c"></a><a href="#footnote271c">{271c}</a> +very thirsty and my hurt foot very sore. She told me that the +mountains to the N. were called by various names. One the [Clo---?] +mountain. <a name="citation271d"></a><a href="#footnote271d">{271d}</a></p> +<p>“The old inn <a name="citation271e"></a><a href="#footnote271e">{271e}</a>—the +blind woman. <a name="citation271f"></a><a href="#footnote271f">{271f}</a> +Arrival of the odd-looking man and the two women I had passed on the +road. The collier [on] <a name="citation271g"></a><a href="#footnote271g">{271g}</a> +the ass gives me the real history of Bosvile. Written in Roche +Castle, a kind of oblong tower built on the rock—there is a rock +within it, a huge crag standing towards the East in what was perhaps +once a door. It turned out to be a chapel. <a name="citation271h"></a><a href="#footnote271h">{271h}</a></p> +<p>“The castle is call’d in Welsh Castel y Garn, a translation +of Roche. The girl and water—B---? (Nanny) <!-- page 272--><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 272</span>Dallas. +<a name="citation272a"></a><a href="#footnote272a">{272a}</a> +Dialogue with the Baptist <a name="citation272b"></a><a href="#footnote272b">{272b}</a> +who was mending the roads.</p> +<p>“Splendid view of sea—isolated rocks to the South. +Sir las <a name="citation272c"></a><a href="#footnote272c">{272c}</a> +headlands stretching S. Descent to the shore. New Gall Bridge. +<a name="citation272d"></a><a href="#footnote272d">{272d}</a> +The collier’s wife. Jemmy Remaunt <a name="citation272e"></a><a href="#footnote272e">{272e}</a> +was the name of man on the ass. Her own husband goes to work by +the shore. The ascent round the hill. Distant view of Roche +Castle. The Welshers, the little village <a name="citation272f"></a><a href="#footnote272f">{272f}</a>—all +looking down on the valley appropriately called Y Cwm. Dialogue +with tall man Merddyn? <a name="citation272g"></a><a href="#footnote272g">{272g}</a>—The +Dim o Clywed.”</p> +<p>Not much of this second tour can be shown to have been used in “Wild +Wales,” where he alludes to it in the ninety-third chapter, saying +that he “long subsequently” found some of the wildest solitudes +and most romantic scenery among the mountains about Tregaron; but the +collier may have given him the suggestion for the encounter with Bosvile +in the ninety-eighth chapter. The spelling points to Borrow’s +ignorance of the relation of pronunciation and orthography.</p> +<p>In 1858 Borrow’s mother died at Oulton and was buried in Oulton +churchyard. During October and November in that year, partly to +take his mind from his bereavement, he was walking in the Scottish Highlands +and Islands. His <!-- page 273--><a name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 273</span>note-book +contains “nothing of general interest,” says Knapp, except +an imperfect outline of the journey, showing that he was at Oban, Tobermory, +the Mull of Cantire, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Inverness, Dingwall, +Tain, Dornoch, Helmsdale, Wick, John o’Groats, Thurso, Stromness, +Kirkwall, and Lerwick.</p> +<p>In 1860, after taking a house at 20, Hereford Square, West Brompton, +he and his wife and stepdaughter went to Dublin, and himself walked +to Connemara and the Giant’s Causeway. His wife thought +this journey “full of adventure and interest,” but he left +no record of it. They were again in Ireland in 1866, Miss Clarke +having lately married a Dr. MacOubrey, of Belfast. Borrow himself +crossed over to Stranraer and had a month’s walking in Scotland, +to Glen Luce, Castle Douglas, Dumfries, Ecclefechan, Carlisle, Gilnochie, +Hawick, Jedburgh, Yetholm, Kelso, Melrose, Coldstream, Berwick, and +Edinburgh. He talked to the people, admired the scenery, bathed, +and enjoyed his meals. He left the briefest of journals, but afterwards, +in “Romano Lavo-Lil,” published an account of the “Gypsy +toon” of Kirk Yetholm and how he was introduced to the Gypsy Queen. +He dropped his umbrella and flung his arms three times up into the air +and asked her in Romany what her name was, and if she was a mumper or +a true Gypsy. She asked him what was the meaning of this “gibberish,” +but he describes how gradually he made her declare herself, and how +she examined him in Gypsy and at last offered him a chair, and entered +into “deep discourse” about Gypsy matters. He talked +as he did to such people, saying “Whoy, I calls that a juggal,” +etc. He found fault with her Romany, which was thin and mixed +with Gaelic and cant words. She told him that he reminded her +of her grandfather, Will Faa, “being a tall, lusty man like himself, +and having a skellying look with the left eye, just like him.” +He displayed his knowledge of the affairs of the <!-- page 274--><a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 274</span>tribe, +both in her country and in England. She told him that she had +never heard so much Romany before. She promised to receive him +next day, but was out when he called. He found her at St. George’s +Fair, near Roxburgh Castle, and she pointed him out several other Gypsies, +but as she assured him they knew not a word of Romany and would only +be uncivil to him, he left them to “pay his respects at the tomb +of Walter Scott, a man with whose principles he had no sympathy, but +for whose genius he had always entertained the most intense admiration.”</p> +<p>In 1868 he took an autumn walk through Sussex and Hampshire while +his wife was at Bognor. In the next year his wife died, after +being afflicted for some time by troubles connected with her property, +by dropsy, valvular disease of the heart, and “hysteria.” +Borrow was melancholy and irritable, but apparently did not go for another +walk in Scotland as was suggested for a cure; nor ever again did he +get far afield on foot.</p> +<h2><!-- page 275--><a name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>CHAPTER +XXIX—“WILD WALES”</h2> +<p>In 1862, between Borrow’s two visits to Ireland, his “Wild +Wales” was published. It had been heralded by an advertisement +in 1857, by the publication of the “Sleeping Bard” in 1860, +and by an article on “The Welsh and their Literature” in +the “Quarterly” for January, 1861. This article quotes +“an unpublished work called ‘Wild Wales’” and +“Mr. Borrow’s unpublished work, ‘Celtic Bards, Chiefs +and Kings.’” It opened with a vivid story of the coming +of Hu Gadarn and his Cymry to Britain:</p> +<p>“Hu and his people took possession of the best parts of the +island, either driving the few Gaels to other districts or admitting +them to their confederacy. As the country was in a very wild state, +much overgrown with forests in which bears and wolves wandered, and +abounding with deep stagnant pools, which were the haunts of the avanc +or crocodile, Hu forthwith set about clearing it of some of its horrors, +and making it more fit to be the abiding place of civilised beings. +He made his people cut down woods and forests, and destroy, as far as +was possible, wild beasts and crocodiles. He himself went to a +gloomy pool, the haunt of the king of the efync, baited a huge hook +attached to a cable, flung it into the pool, and when the monster had +gorged the snare drew him out by means of certain gigantic oxen, which +he had tamed to the plough, and burnt his horrid, wet, scaly carcass +on a fire. He then caused enclosures to be made, fields to be +ploughed and sown, pleasant wooden houses to be built, bees to be sheltered +and encouraged, <!-- page 276--><a name="page276"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 276</span>and +schools to be erected where song and music were taught. O a truly +great man was Hu Gadarn! though a warrior, he preferred the sickle and +pruning hook to the sword, and the sound of the song and lute to the +hoarse blast of the buffalo’s horn:</p> +<blockquote><p>“The mighty Hu with mead would pay<br /> +The bard for his melodious lay;<br /> +The Emperor of land and sea<br /> +And of all living things was he.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This probably represents Borrow’s view of early history, simple, +heroical and clear, as it would have been had he been in command of +it. The article professed to be a review of Borrow’s “Sleeping +Bard,” and was in fact by Borrow himself. He had achieved +the supreme honour of reviewing his own work, and, as it fell out, he +persuaded the public to buy every copy. Very few were found to +buy “Wild Wales,” notwithstanding. The first edition +of a thousand copies lasted three years; the second, of three thousand, +lasted twenty-three years. Borrow was ridiculed for informing +his readers that he paid his bill at a Welsh inn, without mentioning +the amount. He was praised for having written “the first +clever book . . . in which an honest attempt is made to do justice to +the Welsh literature,” for knowing far more than most educated +Welshmen about that literature, and for describing his travels and encounters +“with much of the freshness, humour and geniality of his earlier +days,” for writing in fact “the best book about Wales ever +published.”</p> +<p>Certainly no later book which could be compared with it has been +as good, or nearly as good. As for its predecessors, the “Itinerary” +and the “Description” of Gerald of Wales, even setting aside +the charm of antiquity, make a book that is equal to “Wild Wales” +for originality, vivacity and truth. Of the antiquarian and picturesque +travellers in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth <!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>none +wrote anything that is valuable except for some facts and some evidence +of taste. Borrow himself probably knew few or none of them, though +he mentions Gerald. There is no evidence that he knew the great +nineteenth-century collections of Welsh manuscripts and translations. +He says nothing of the “Mabinogion.” He had apparently +never heard of the pedestrian Iolo Morganwg. He perhaps never +saw Stephens’ “Literature of the Kymry.” His +knowledge was picked up anyhow and anywhere from Welsh texts and Lhuyd’s +“Archæologia,” without system and with very little +friendly discussion or comparison. Wales, therefore, was to him +as wonderful as Spain, and equally uncharted. What he saw did +not spoil the visionary image, and his enthusiasm coupled with curiosity +gives the book of his travels just the continuous impulse which he never +found for his Cornish, Manx, Irish or Scottish notes. He was able +to fill the book with sympathetic observation and genial self-revelation.</p> +<p>The book is of course a tourist’s book. Borrow went through +the country as a gentleman, running no risks, and having scarcely an +object except to see what was to be seen and to please himself. +He got, as he probably counted on getting, the consideration due to +a gentleman who can pay his way and meets only the humbler sort of people, +publicans, farmers, drovers, labourers, sextons, parish clerks, and +men upon the road. He seldom stayed more than a night or an hour +or two anywhere. His pictures, therefore, are the impressions +of the moment, wrought up at leisure. His few weeks in Wales made +a book of the same size as an equal number of years in Spain.</p> +<p>Sometimes he writes like a detached observer working from notes, +and the result has little value except in so far as it is a pure record +of what was to be seen at such and such a place in the year 1854. +There are many short passages apparently straight from his notes, dead +and useless. <!-- page 278--><a name="page278"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 278</span>The +description of Llangollen Fair, on August 21, is of this kind, but superior, +and I shall quote it entire:</p> +<p>“The day was dull with occasional showers. I went to +see the fair about noon. It was held in and near a little square +in the south-east quarter of the town, of which square the police-station +is the principal feature on the side of the west, and an inn, bearing +the sign of the Grapes, on the east. The fair was a little bustling +fair, attended by plenty of people from the country, and from the English +border, and by some who appeared to come from a greater distance than +the border. A dense row of carts extended from the police-station, +half across the space. These carts were filled with pigs, and +had stout cord nettings drawn over them, to prevent the animals escaping. +By the sides of these carts the principal business of the fair appeared +to be going on—there stood the owners, male and female, higgling +with Llangollen men and women, who came to buy. The pigs were +all small, and the price given seemed to vary from eighteen to twenty-five +shillings. Those who bought pigs generally carried them away in +their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming +of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to +manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine +and with the right hand fast gripping the ear—some few were led +away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, +and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows +in general, far exceeding the Welsh in height and size.</p> +<p>“Much business in the cattle-line did not seem, however, to +be going on. Now and then a big fellow made an offer, and held +out his hand for a little Pictish grazier to give it a slap—a +cattle bargain being concluded by a slap of the hand—but the Welshman +generally turned away, with a <!-- page 279--><a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>half-resentful +exclamation. There were a few horses and ponies in a street leading +into the fair from the south.</p> +<p>“I saw none sold, however. A tall athletic figure was +striding amongst them, evidently a jockey and a stranger, looking at +them and occasionally asking a slight question of one or another of +their proprietors, but he did not buy. He might in age be about +eight-and-twenty, and about six feet and three-quarters of an inch in +height; in build he was perfection itself—a better-built man I +never saw. He wore a cap and a brown jockey coat, trowsers, leggings, +and highlows, and sported a single spur. He had whiskers—all +jockeys should have whiskers—but he had what I did not like, and +what no genuine jockey should have, a moustache, which looks coxcombical +and Frenchified—but most things have terribly changed since I +was young. Three or four hardy-looking fellows, policemen, were +gliding about in their blue coats and leather hats, holding their thin +walking-sticks behind them; conspicuous amongst whom was the leader, +a tall lathy North Briton with a keen eye and hard features. Now +if I add there was much gabbling of Welsh round about, and here and +there some slight sawing of English—that in the street leading +from the north there were some stalls of gingerbread and a table at +which a queer-looking being with a red Greek-looking cap on his head, +sold rhubarb, herbs, and phials containing the Lord knows what, and +who spoke a low vulgar English dialect,—I repeat, if I add this, +I think I have said all that is necessary about Llangollen Fair.”</p> +<p>But this is a somewhat exceptional passage, and the same detachment +is rarely found except in his descriptions of scenery, which are short +and serve well enough to remind the reader of the great hills, the rapid +waters, the rocks, and the furnaces, chimneys and pits. Borrow +certainly does remind us of these things. In the first place he +does so by a hundred minute and scattered suggestions of <!-- page 280--><a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 280</span>the +romantic and sublime, and so general that only a pedant will object +to the nightingales which he heard singing in August near Bethesda. +He gives us black mountains, gloomy shadows, cascades falling into lakes, +“singular-looking” rocks, and mountain villages like one +in Castile or La Mancha but for the trees, mountains that made him exclaim: +“I have had Heaven opened to me,” moors of a “wretched +russet colour,” “black gloomy narrow glens.” +He can also be precise and connoisseur-like, as when he describes the +cataract at Llan Rhaiadr:</p> +<p>“What shall I liken it to? I scarcely know, unless to +an immense skein of silk agitated and disturbed by tempestuous blasts, +or to the long tail of a grey courser at furious speed. Through +the profusion of long silvery threads or hairs, or what looked such, +I could here and there see the black sides of the crag down which the +Rhyadr precipitated itself with something between a boom and a roar.”</p> +<p>He is still more a connoisseur when he continues:</p> +<p>“I never saw water falling so gracefully, so much like thin +beautiful threads as here. Yet even this cataract has its blemish. +What beautiful object has not something which more or less mars its +loveliness? There is an ugly black bridge or semicircle of rock, +about two feet in diameter and about twenty feet high, which rises some +little way below it, and under which the water, after reaching the bottom, +passes, which intercepts the sight, and prevents it from taking in the +whole fall at once. This unsightly object has stood where it now +stands since the day of creation, and will probably remain there to +the day of judgment. It would be a desecration of nature to remove +it by art, but no one could regret if nature in one of her floods were +to sweep it away.”</p> +<p>But Borrow’s temperamental method—where he undertakes +to do more than sketch his environment in the blurred large method corresponding +to ordinary passing impressions<!-- page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 281</span>—is +the rhetorical sublime of this mountain lake between Festiniog and Bala:</p> +<p>“I sped towards it through gorse and heather, occasionally +leaping a deep drain. At last I reached it. It was a small +lake. Wearied and panting, I flung myself on its bank, and gazed +upon it.</p> +<p>“There lay the lake in the low bottom, surrounded by the heathery +hillocks; there it lay quite still, the hot sun reflected upon its surface, +which shone like a polished blue shield. Near the shore it was +shallow, at least near that shore upon which I lay. But farther +on, my eye, practised in deciding upon the depths of waters, saw reason +to suppose that its depth was very great. As I gazed upon it my +mind indulged in strange musings. I thought of the afanc, a creature +which some have supposed to be the harmless and industrious beaver, +others the frightful and destructive crocodile. I wondered whether +the afanc was the crocodile or the beaver, and speedily had no doubt +that the name was originally applied to the crocodile.</p> +<p>“‘O, who can doubt,’ thought I, ‘that the +word was originally intended for something monstrous and horrible? +Is there not something horrible in the look and sound of the word afanc, +something connected with the opening and shutting of immense jaws, and +the swallowing of writhing prey? Is not the word a fitting brother +of the Arabic timsah, denoting the dread horny lizard of the waters? +Moreover, have we not the voice of tradition that the afanc was something +monstrous? Does it not say that Hu the Mighty, the inventor of +husbandry, who brought the Cumry from the summer-country, drew the old +afanc out of the lake of lakes with his four gigantic oxen? Would +he have had recourse to them to draw out the little harmless beaver? +O, surely not. Yet have I no doubt that, when the crocodile had +disappeared from the lands where the Cumric language was spoken, the +name afanc was applied to the <!-- page 282--><a name="page282"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 282</span>beaver, +probably his successor in the pool; the beaver now called in Cumric +Llostlydan, or the broad-tailed, for tradition’s voice is strong +that the beaver has at one time been called the afanc.’ +Then I wondered whether the pool before me had been the haunt of the +afanc, considered both as crocodile and beaver. I saw no reason +to suppose that it had not. ‘If crocodiles,’ thought +I, ‘ever existed in Britain, and who shall say they have not? +seeing that their remains have been discovered, why should they not +have haunted this pool? If beavers ever existed in Britain, and +do not tradition and Giraldus say that they have? why should they not +have existed in this pool?</p> +<p>“‘At a time almost inconceivably remote, when the hills +around were covered with woods, through which the elk and the bison +and the wild cow strolled, when men were rare throughout the lands, +and unlike in most things to the present race—at such a period—and +such a period there has been—I can easily conceive that the afanc-crocodile +haunted this pool, and that when the elk or bison or wild cow came to +drink of its waters, the grim beast would occasionally rush forth, and +seizing his bellowing victim, would return with it to the deeps before +me to luxuriate at his ease upon its flesh. And at time less remote, +when the crocodile was no more, and though the woods still covered the +hills, and wild cattle strolled about, men were more numerous than before, +and less unlike the present race, I can easily conceive this lake to +have been the haunt of the afanc-beaver, that he here built cunningly +his house of trees and clay, and that to this lake the native would +come with his net and his spear to hunt the animal for his precious +fur. Probably if the depths of that pool were searched, relics +of the crocodile and the beaver might be found, along with other strange +things connected with the periods in which they respectively lived. +Happy were I if for a brief space I could become a Cingalese, that I +might swim out <!-- page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 283</span>far +into that pool, dive down into its deepest part, and endeavour to discover +any strange things which beneath its surface may lie.’ Much +in this guise rolled my thoughts as I lay stretched on the margin of +the lake.”</p> +<p>In another place he tells a poor man that he believes in the sea-serpent, +and has a story of one seen in the very neighbourhood where he meets +the man. Immediately after the description of the lake there is +a proof—one of many—that he was writing straight from notes. +Speaking of a rivulet, he says: “It was crossed by two bridges, +one immensely old and terribly delapidated, the other old enough, but +in better repair—<i>went and drank under the oldest bridge of +the two</i>.” The book is large and strong enough to stand +many such infinitesimal blemishes.</p> +<p>Alongside of the sublime I will put what Borrow says he liked better. +He is standing on a bridge over the Ceiriog, just after visiting the +house of Huw Morus at Pont y Meibion:</p> +<p>“About a hundred yards distant was a small watermill, built +over the rivulet, the wheel going slowly, slowly round; large quantities +of pigs, the generality of them brindled, were either browsing on the +banks, or lying close to the sides, half immersed in the water; one +immense white hog, the monarch seemingly of the herd, was standing in +the middle of the current. Such was the scene which I saw from +the bridge, a scene of quiet rural life well suited to the brushes of +two or three of the old Dutch painters, or to those of men scarcely +inferior to them in their own style—Gainsborough, Moreland, and +Crome. My mind for the last half-hour had been in a highly-excited +state; I had been repeating verses of old Huw Morus, brought to my recollection +by the sight of his dwelling-place; they were ranting roaring verses, +against the Roundheads. I admired the vigour, but disliked the +principles which they displayed; and admiration on the <!-- page 284--><a name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 284</span>one +hand, and disapproval on the other, bred a commotion in my mind like +that raised on the sea when tide runs one way and wind blows another. +The quiet scene from the bridge, however, produced a sedative effect +on my mind, and when I resumed my journey I had forgotten Huw, his verses, +and all about Roundheads and Cavaliers.”</p> +<p>But it must be said that if the book is on the whole a cheerful one, +its cheerfulness not only receives a foil from the rhetorical sublime, +but is a little misted by a melancholy note here and there. Thus +he sees “a melancholy ship” out on the sea near Holyhead. +He qualifies russet twice as “wretched” in describing a +moor. He speaks of “strange-looking” hills near Pont +Erwyd, and again near the Devil’s Bridge. His moods were +easily changed. He speaks of “wretched russet hills,” +with no birds singing, but only “the lowing of a wretched bullock,” +and then of beautiful hills that filled his veins with fresh life so +that he walked on merrily.</p> +<p>As for his people, it cannot be asserted that they are always alive +though they are often very Welsh. They are sketched, with dialogue +and description, after the manner of “The Bible in Spain,” +though being nearer home they had to be more modest in their peculiarities. +He establishes Welsh enthusiasm, hospitality and suspiciousness, in +a very friendly manner. The poet-innkeeper is an excellent sketch +of a mild but by no means spiritless type. He is accompanied by +a man with a bulging shoe who drinks ale and continually ejaculates: +“The greatest poet in the world”; for example, when Borrow +asks: “Then I have the honour to be seated with a bard of Anglesey?” +“Tut, tut,” says the bard. Borrow agrees with him +that envy—which has kept him from the bardic chair—will +not always prevail:</p> +<p>“‘Sir,’ said the man in grey, ‘I am delighted +to hear you. Give me your hand, your honourable hand. Sir, +you have <!-- page 285--><a name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 285</span>now +felt the hand-grasp of a Welshman, to say nothing of an Anglesey bard, +and I have felt that of a Briton, perhaps a bard, a brother, sir? +O, when I first saw your face out there in the dyffryn, I at once recognised +in it that of a kindred spirit, and I felt compelled to ask you to drink. +Drink, sir! but how is this? the jug is empty—how is this?—O, +I see—my friend, sir, though an excellent individual, is indiscreet, +sir—very indiscreet. Landlord, bring this moment another +jug of ale.’</p> +<p>“‘The greatest prydydd,’ stuttered he of the bulged +shoe—‘the greatest prydydd—Oh—’</p> +<p>“‘Tut, tut,’ said the man in grey.</p> +<p>“‘I speak the truth and care for no one,’ said +he of the tattered hat. ‘I say the greatest prydydd. +If any one wishes to gainsay me let him show his face, and Myn Diawl—’</p> +<p>The landlord brought the ale, placed it on the table, and then stood +as if waiting for something.</p> +<p>“‘I suppose you are waiting to be paid,’ said I; +‘what is your demand?’</p> +<p>“‘Sixpence for this jug, and sixpence for the other,’ +said the landlord.</p> +<p>“I took out a shilling and said: ‘It is but right that +I should pay half of the reckoning, and as the whole affair is merely +a shilling matter I should feel obliged in being permitted to pay the +whole, so, landlord, take the shilling and remember you are paid.’ +I then delivered the shilling to the landlord, but had no sooner done +so than the man in grey, starting up in violent agitation, wrested the +money from the other, and flung it down on the table before me saying:—</p> +<p>“‘No, no, that will never do. I invited you in +here to drink, and now you would pay for the liquor which I ordered. +You English are free with your money, but you are sometimes free with +it at the expense of people’s <!-- page 286--><a name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 286</span>feelings. +I am a Welshman, and I know Englishmen consider all Welshmen hogs. +But we are not hogs, mind you! for we have little feelings which hogs +have not. Moreover, I would have you know that we have money, +though perhaps not so much as the Saxon.’ Then putting his +hand into his pocket he pulled out a shilling, and giving it to the +landlord, said in Welsh: ‘Now thou art paid, and mayst go thy +ways till thou art again called for. I do not know why thou didst +stay after thou hadst put down the ale. Thou didst know enough +of me to know that thou didst run no risk of not being paid.’</p> +<p>“‘But,’ said I, after the landlord had departed, +‘I must insist on being [? <i>paying</i>] my share. Did +you not hear me say that I would give a quart of ale to see a poet?’</p> +<p>“‘A poet’s face,’ said the man in grey, ‘should +be common to all, even like that of the sun. He is no true poet, +who would keep his face from the world.’</p> +<p>“‘But,’ said I, ‘the sun frequently hides +his head from the world, behind a cloud.’</p> +<p>“‘Not so,’ said the man in grey. ‘The +sun does not hide his face, it is the cloud that hides it. The +sun is always glad enough to be seen, and so is the poet. If both +are occasionally hid, trust me it is no fault of theirs. Bear +that in mind; and now pray take up your money.’</p> +<p>“‘That man is a gentleman,’ thought I to myself, +‘whether poet or not; but I really believe him to be a poet; were +he not he could hardly talk in the manner I have just heard him.’</p> +<p>“The man in grey now filled my glass, his own and that of his +companion. The latter emptied his in a minute, not forgetting +first to say ‘the best prydydd in all the world!’ +The man in grey was also not slow to empty his own. The jug now +passed rapidly between my two friends, for the poet seemed determined +to have his full share of the beverage. <!-- page 287--><a name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>I +allowed the ale in my glass to remain untasted, and began to talk about +the bards, and to quote from their works. I soon found that the +man in grey knew quite as much of the old bards and their works as myself. +In one instance he convicted me of a mistake.</p> +<p>“I had quoted those remarkable lines in which an old bard, +doubtless seeing the Menai Bridge by means of second sight, says: ‘I +will pass to the land of Mona notwithstanding the waters of Menai, without +waiting for the ebb’—and was feeling not a little proud +of my erudition when the man in grey, after looking at me for a moment +fixedly, asked me the name of the bard who composed them—‘Sion +Tudor,’ I replied.</p> +<p>“‘There you are wrong,’ said the man in grey; ‘his +name was not Sion Tudor, but Robert Vychan, in English, Little Bob. +Sion Tudor wrote an englyn on the Skerries whirlpool in the Menai; but +it was Little Bob who wrote the stanza in which the future bridge over +the Menai is hinted at.’</p> +<p>“‘You are right,’ said I, ‘you are right. +Well, I am glad that all song and learning are not dead in Ynis Fon.’</p> +<p>“‘Dead,’ said the man in grey, whose features began +to be rather flushed, ‘they are neither dead, nor ever will be. +There are plenty of poets in Anglesey. . . .’”</p> +<p>The whole sketch is in Borrow’s liberal unqualified style, +but keeping on the right side of caricature. The combination of +modesty, touchiness and pride, without humour, is typical and happily +caught.</p> +<p>The chief fault of his Welsh portraits, in fact, is his almost invariable, +and almost always unnecessary, exhibition of his own superiority. +He is nearly always the big clever gentleman catechizing certain quaint +little rustic foreigners. He met one old man with a crabstick +who told him his Welsh was almost as bad as his English, and a drover +who had the advantage of him in decided opinions and a sense <!-- page 288--><a name="page288"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 288</span>of +superiority, and put him down as a pig-jobber; but these are exceptions. +He is not unkind, but on the other hand he forgets that as a rule his +size, his purse, and his remarkable appearance and qualities put his +casual hosts very much at a disadvantage, and he is thus led to exaggerate +what suspiciousness he observed.</p> +<p>His success is all the more wonderful when his position and his almost +total lack of condescension and concession are considered, but considered +they must be. When he met a Welsh clergyman who could talk about +the Welsh language, Huw Morus and ale, he said nothing about him except +that he was “a capital specimen of the Welsh country clergyman. +His name was Walter Jones.” Too often he merely got answers +to his questions, which break up his pages in an agreeable manner, but +do little more. In such conversations we should fare ill indeed +if one of the parties were not Borrow, and even as it is, he can be +tedious beyond the limits necessary for truth. I will give an +example:</p> +<p>“After a little time I entered into conversation with my guide. +He had not a word of English. ‘Are you married?’ said +I.</p> +<p>“‘In truth I am, sir.’</p> +<p>“‘What family have you?’</p> +<p>“‘I have a daughter.’</p> +<p>“‘Where do you live?’</p> +<p>“‘At the house of the Rhyadr.’</p> +<p>“‘I suppose you live there as servant?’</p> +<p>“‘No, sir, I live there as master.’</p> +<p>“‘Is the good woman I saw there your wife?’</p> +<p>“‘In truth, sir, she is.’</p> +<p>“‘And the young girl I saw your daughter?’</p> +<p>“‘Yes, sir, she is my daughter.’</p> +<p>“‘And how came the good woman not to tell me you were +her husband?’</p> +<p><!-- page 289--><a name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 289</span>“‘I +suppose, sir, you did not ask who I was, and she thought you did not +care to know.’ . . .”</p> +<p>To multiply instances might cease to be amusing. It may have +been Borrow’s right way of getting what he wanted, though it sounds +like a Charity Organization inquisitor. As to the effectiveness +of setting down every step of the process instead of the result, there +can hardly be two opinions, unless the reader prefers an impression +of the wandering inquisitive gentleman to one of the people questioned. +Probably these barren dialogues may be set down to indolence or to the +too facile adoption of a trick. They are too casual and slight +to be exact, and on the other hand they are too literal to give a direct +impression.</p> +<p>Luckily he diversified such conversation with stories of poets and +robbers, gleaned from his books or from wayside company. The best +of this company was naturally not the humble homekeeping publican or +cottager, but the man or woman of the roads, Gypsy or Irish. The +vagabond Irish, for example, give him early in the book an effective +contrast to the more quiet Welsh; his guide tells how they gave him +a terrible fright:</p> +<p>“I had been across the Berwyn to carry home a piece of weaving +work to a person who employs me. It was night as I returned, and +when I was about half-way down the hill, at a place which is called +Allt Paddy, because the Gwyddelod are in the habit of taking up their +quarters there, I came upon a gang of them, who had come there and camped +and lighted their fire, whilst I was on the other side of the hill. +There were nearly twenty of them, men and women, and amongst the rest +was a man standing naked in a tub of water with two women stroking him +down with clouts. He was a large fierce-looking fellow, and his +body, on which the flame of the fire glittered, was nearly covered with +red hair. I never saw such a sight. As I passed they glared +at me and talked violently in their Paddy <!-- page 290--><a name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>Gwyddel, +but did not offer to molest me. I hastened down the hill, and +right glad I was when I found myself safe and sound at my house in Llangollen, +with my money in my pocket, for I had several shillings there, which +the man across the hill had paid me for the work which I had done.”</p> +<p>The best man in the book is the Irish fiddler, with a shock of red +hair, a hat that had lost part of its crown and all its rim, and a game +leg. This Irishman in the early part of the book and the Irishwoman +at the end are characters that Borrow could put his own blood into. +He has done so in a manner equal to anything in the same kind in his +earlier books. I shall quote the whole interview with the man. +It is an admirable piece of imagination. If any man thinks it +anything else, let him spend ten years in taking down conversations +in trains and taverns and ten years in writing them up, and should he +have anything as good as this to show, he has a most rare talent:</p> +<p>“‘Good morning to you,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘A good marning to your hanner, a merry afternoon, and +a roaring joyous evening—that is the worst luck I wish to ye.’</p> +<p>“‘Are you a native of these parts?’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘Not exactly, your hanner—I am a native of the +city of Dublin, or, what’s all the same thing, of the village +of Donnybrook which is close by it.’</p> +<p>“‘A celebrated place,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘Your hanner may say that; all the world has heard of +Donnybrook, owing to the humours of its fair. Many is the merry +tune I have played to the boys at that fair.’</p> +<p>“‘You are a professor of music, I suppose?’</p> +<p>“‘And not a very bad one as your hanner will say if you +will allow me to play you a tune.’</p> +<p>“‘Can you play “Croppies Lie Down”?’</p> +<p>“‘I cannot, your hanner; my fingers never learnt to play +<!-- page 291--><a name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 291</span>such +a blackguard tune; but if ye wish to hear “Croppies Get Up” +I can oblige ye.’</p> +<p>“‘You are a Roman Catholic, I suppose?’</p> +<p>“‘I am not, your hanner—I am a Catholic to the +backbone, just like my father before me. Come, your hanner, shall +I play ye “Croppies Get Up”?’</p> +<p>“‘No,’ said I; ‘It’s a tune that doesn’t +please my ears. If, however, you choose to play “Croppies +Lie Down,” I’ll give you a shilling.’</p> +<p>“‘Your hanner will give me a shilling?’</p> +<p>“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘if you play “Croppies +Lie Down”: but you know you cannot play it, your fingers never +learned the tune.’</p> +<p>“‘They never did, your hanner; but they have heard it +played of ould by the blackguard Orange fiddlers of Dublin on the first +of July, when the Protestant boys used to walk round Willie’s +statue on College Green—so if your hanner gives me the shilling +they may perhaps bring out something like it.’</p> +<p>“‘Very good,’ said I; ‘begin!’</p> +<p>“‘But, your hanner, what shall we do for the words? +Though my fingers may remember the tune, my tongue does not remember +the words—that is unless . . .’</p> +<p>“‘I give another shilling,’ said I; ‘but +never mind you the words; I know the words, and will repeat them.’</p> +<p>“‘And your hanner will give me a shilling?’</p> +<p>“‘If you play the tune,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘Hanner bright, your hanner?’</p> +<p>“‘Honour bright,’ said I.</p> +<p>“Thereupon the fiddler, taking his bow and shouldering his +fiddle, struck up in first-rate style the glorious tune, which I had +so often heard with rapture in the days of my boyhood in the barrack +yard of Clonmel; whilst I walking by his side as he stumped along, caused +the welkin to resound with the words, which were the delight of the +young <!-- page 292--><a name="page292"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 292</span>gentlemen +of the Protestant academy of that beautiful old town.</p> +<p>“‘I never heard those words before,’ said the fiddler, +after I had finished the first stanza.</p> +<p>“‘Get on with you,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘Regular Orange words!’ said the fiddler, on my +finishing the second stanza.</p> +<p>“‘Do you choose to get on?’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘More blackguard Orange words I never heard!’ +cried the fiddler, on my coming to the conclusion of the third stanza. +‘Divil a bit farther will I play; at any rate till I get the shilling.’</p> +<p>“‘Here it is for you,’ said I; ‘the song +is ended and of course the tune.’</p> +<p>“‘Thank your hanner,’ said the fiddler, taking +the money, ‘your hanner has kept your word with me, which is more +than I thought your hanner would. And now, your hanner, let me +ask you why did your hanner wish for that tune, which is not only a +blackguard one, but quite out of date; and where did your hanner get +the words?’</p> +<p>“‘I used to hear the tune in my boyish days,’ said +I, ‘and wished to hear it again, for though you call it a blackguard +tune, it is the sweetest and most noble air that Ireland, the land of +music, has ever produced. As for the words, never mind where I +got them; they are violent enough, but not half so violent as the words +of some of the songs made against the Irish Protestants by the priests.’</p> +<p>“‘Your hanner is an Orange man, I see. Well, your +hanner, the Orange is now in the kennel, and the Croppies have it all +their own way.’</p> +<p>“‘And perhaps,’ said I, ‘before I die, the +Orange will be out of the kennel and the Croppies in, even as they were +in my young days.’</p> +<p>“‘Who knows, your hanner? and who knows that I may <!-- page 293--><a name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 293</span>not +play the ould tune round Willie’s image in College Green, even +as I used some twenty-seven years ago?’</p> +<p>“‘O then you have been an Orange fiddler?’</p> +<p>“‘I have, your hanner. And now as your hanner has +behaved like a gentleman to me I will tell ye all my history. +I was born in the city of Dublin, that is in the village of Donnybrook, +as I tould your hanner before. It was to the trade of bricklaying +I was bred, and bricklaying I followed till at last, getting my leg +smashed, not by falling off the ladder, but by a row in the fair, I +was obliged to give it up, for how could I run up the ladder with a +patten on my foot, which they put on to make my broken leg as long as +the other. Well, your hanner; being obliged to give up my bricklaying, +I took to fiddling, to which I had always a natural inclination, and +played about the streets, and at fairs, and wakes, and weddings. +At length some Orange men getting acquainted with me, and liking my +style of playing, invited me to their lodge, where they gave me to drink, +and tould me that if I would change my religion and join them, and play +their tunes, they would make it answer my purpose. Well, your +hanner, without much stickling I gave up my Popery, joined the Orange +lodge, learned the Orange tunes, and became a regular Protestant boy, +and truly the Orange men kept their word, and made it answer my purpose. +O the meat and drink I got, and the money I made by playing at the Orange +lodges and before the processions when the Orange men paraded the streets +with their Orange colours. And O, what a day for me was the glorious +first of July when with my whole body covered with Orange ribbons I +fiddled “Croppies Lie Down”—“Boyne Water,” +and the “Protestant Boys” before the procession which walked +round Willie’s figure on horseback in College Green, the man and +horse all ablaze with Orange colours. But nothing lasts under +the sun, as your hanner knows; Orangeism began to go down; the Government +<!-- page 294--><a name="page294"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 294</span>scowled +at it, and at last passed a law preventing the Protestant boys dressing +up the figure on the first of July, and walking round it. That +was the death-blow of the Orange party, your hanner; they never recovered +it, but began to despond and dwindle, and I with them, for there was +scarcely any demand for Orange tunes. Then Dan O’Connell +arose with his emancipation and repale cries, and then instead of Orange +processions and walkings, there were Papist processions and mobs, which +made me afraid to stir out, lest knowing me for an Orange fiddler, they +should break my head, as the boys broke my leg at Donnybrook fair. +At length some of the repalers and emancipators knowing that I was a +first-rate hand at fiddling came to me, and tould me, that if I would +give over playing “Croppies Lie Down” and other Orange tunes, +and would play “Croppies Get Up,” and what not, and become +a Catholic and a repaler, and an emancipator, they would make a man +of me—so as my Orange trade was gone, and I was half-starved, +I consinted, not however till they had introduced me to Daniel O’Connell, +who called me a credit to my country, and the Irish Horpheus, and promised +me a sovereign if I would consint to join the cause, as he called it. +Well, your hanner, I joined with the cause and became a Papist, I mane +a Catholic once more, and went at the head of processions, covered all +over with green ribbons, playing “Croppies Get Up,” “Granny +Whale,” and the like. But, your hanner; though I went the +whole hog with the repalers and emancipators, they did not make their +words good by making a man of me. Scant and sparing were they +in the mate and drink, and yet more sparing in the money, and Daniel +O’Connell never gave me the sovereign which he promised me. +No, your hanner, though I played “Croppies Get Up,” till +my fingers ached, as I stumped before him and his mobs and processions, +he never gave me the sovereign: unlike your hanner who gave me the <!-- page 295--><a name="page295"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 295</span>shilling +ye promised me for playing “Croppies Lie Down,” Daniel O’Connell +never gave me the sovereign he promised me for playing “Croppies +Get Up.” Och, your hanner, I often wished the ould Orange +days were back again. However as I could do no better I continued +going the whole hog with the emancipators and repalers and Dan O’Connell; +I went the whole animal with them till they had got emancipation; and +I went the whole animal with them till they nearly got repale—when +all of a sudden they let the whole thing drop—Dan and his party +having frighted the Government out of its seven senses, and gotten all +they thought they could get, in money and places, which was all they +wanted, let the whole hullabaloo drop, and of course myself, who formed +part of it. I went to those who had persuaded me to give up my +Orange tunes, and to play Papist ones, begging them to give me work; +but they tould me very civilly that they had no farther occasion for +my services. I went to Daniel O’Connell reminding him of +the sovereign he had promised me, and offering if he gave it me to play +“Croppies Get Up” under the nose of the lord-lieutenant +himself; but he tould me that he had not time to attend to me, and when +I persisted, bade me go to the Divil and shake myself. Well, your +hanner, seeing no prospect for myself in my own country, and having +incurred some little debts, for which I feared to be arrested, I came +over to England and Wales, where with little content and satisfaction +I have passed seven years.’</p> +<p>“‘Well,’ said I, ‘thank you for your history—farewell.’</p> +<p>“‘Stap, your hanner; does your hanner think that the +Orange will ever be out of the kennel, and that the Orange boys will +ever walk round the brass man and horse in College Green as they did +of ould?’</p> +<p>“‘Who knows?’ said I. ‘But suppose +all that were to happen, what would it signify to you?’</p> +<p>“‘Why then Divil in my patten if I would not go back +<!-- page 296--><a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 296</span>to +Donnybrook and Dublin, hoist the Orange cockade, and become as good +an Orange boy as ever.’</p> +<p>“‘What,’ said I, ‘and give up Popery for +the second time?’</p> +<p>“‘I would, your hanner; and why not? for in spite of +what I have heard Father Toban say, I am by no means certain that all +Protestants will be damned.’</p> +<p>“‘Farewell,’ said I.</p> +<p>“‘Farewell, your hanner, and long life and prosperity +to you! God bless your hanner and your Orange face. Ah, +the Orange boys are the boys for keeping faith. They never served +me as Dan O’Connell and his dirty gang of repalers and emancipators +did. Farewell, your hanner, once more; and here’s another +scratch of the illigant tune your hanner is so fond of, to cheer up +your hanner’s ears upon your way.’</p> +<p>“And long after I had left him I could hear him playing on +his fiddle in first-rate style the beautiful tune of ‘Down, down, +Croppies Lie Down.’”</p> +<h2><!-- page 297--><a name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 297</span>CHAPTER +XXX—“WILD WALES” (<i>continued</i>)</h2> +<p>Much more than in any of his other books Borrow is the hero in “Wild +Wales”—a strange black-coated gentleman with white hair +striding over the hills and along the rivers, carrying an umbrella, +asking innumerable questions and giving infinite information about history, +literature, religion, politics, and minor matters, willing to talk to +anyone, but determined not to put up at a trampers’ hostelry. +The Irish at Chester took him for a minister, the Irish reapers in Anglesey +took him for a priest and got him to bless them in Latin while they +knelt. All wondered to hear the Saxon speaking or reading in Welsh. +A man who could speak Spanish addressed him in that language as a foreigner—“‘I +can’t tell you how it was, sir,’ said he, looking me very +innocently in the face, ‘but I was forced to speak Spanish to +you.’” At Pentre Dwr the man with the pigs heard his +remarks on pigs and said: “I see you are in the trade and understand +a thing or two.” The man on the road south to Tregaron told +him that he looked and spoke like the Earl of Leicester.</p> +<p>He reveals himself also without recourse to impartial men upon the +road. The mere figure of the tall man inquiring for the birthplaces +of poets and literally translating place names for their meaning, is +very powerful in holding the attention. He does not conceal his +opinions. Some were already familiar to readers of Borrow, his +admiration for Smollett and for Scott as a writer, his hate of gentility, +Cavaliers, Papists, France, sherry, and teetotalism. He had some +bad ale in Wales, and he had some Allsopp, which he <!-- page 298--><a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 298</span>declared +good enough for the summer, and at Bala one of his best Welshmen gave +him the best of home-brewed, “rich and mellow, with scarcely any +smack of the hop in it, and though so pale and delicate to the eye nearly +as strong as brandy.” The Chester ale he spirted out of +the window after the Chester cheese. To his subjects of admiration +he also adds Robert Southey, as “not the least of Britain’s +four great latter poets, decidedly her best prose writer, and probably +the purest and most noble character to which she has ever given birth”; +but this was when he was thinking of Madoc, the Welsh discoverer of +America. I should be sorry to have to name any of the other “four +poets” except Byron. Another literary <i>dictum</i> is that +Macpherson’s “Ossian” is genuine because a book which +followed it and was undoubtedly genuine bore a strong resemblance to +it. An opinion that shows as fully as any single one could Borrow’s +vivid and vague inaccuracy and perversity is this of Snowdon:</p> +<p>“But it is from its connection with romance that Snowdon derives +its chief interest. Who when he thinks of Snowdon does not associate +it with the heroes of romance, Arthur and his knights? whose fictitious +adventures, the splendid dreams of Welsh and Breton minstrels, many +of the scenes of which are the valleys and passes of Snowdon, are the +origin of romance, before which what is classic has for more than half +a century been waning, and is perhaps eventually destined to disappear. +Yes, to romance Snowdon is indebted for its interest and consequently +for its celebrity; but for romance Snowdon would assuredly not be what +it at present is, one of the very celebrated hills of the world, and +to the poets of modern Europe almost what Parnassus was to those of +old.”</p> +<p>Who associates Snowdon with Arthur, and what Arthurian stories have +the valleys and passes of Snowdon for their scenes? what “poets +of modern Europe” have <!-- page 299--><a name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 299</span>sung +of it? And yet Borrow has probably often carried this point with +his reader.</p> +<p>Borrow as a Christian is very conspicuous in this book. He +cannot speak of Sir Henry Morgan without calling him “a scourge +of God on the cruel Spaniards of the New World. . . . On which account +God prospered and favoured him, permitting him to attain the noble age +of ninety.” He was fond of discovering the hand of God, +for example, in changing a nunnery—“a place devoted to gorgeous +idolatry and obscene lust”—into a quiet old barn: “Surely,” +he asks, “the hand of God is visible here?” and the respectful +mower answers: “It is so, sir.” In the same way, when +he has told a man called Dafydd Tibbot, that he is a Frenchman—“Dearie +me, sir, am I indeed?” says the man, very pleased—he supposes +the man a descendant of a proud, cruel, violent Norman, for the descendants +of proud, cruel and violent men “are doomed by God to come to +the dogs.” He tells us that he comforted himself, after +thinking that his wife and daughter and himself would before long be +dead, by the reflection that “such is the will of Heaven, and +that Heaven is good.” He showed his respect for Sunday by +going to church and hesitating to go to Plynlimmon—“It is +really not good to travel on the Sunday without going into a place of +worship.” He wished, as he passed Gwynfe, which means Paradise,—or +<i>Gwynfa</i> does; but no matter,—that he had never read Tom +Payne, who “thinks there’s not such a place as Paradise.” +He lectures a poet’s mistress for not staying with her hunchbacked +old husband and making him comfortable: he expresses satisfaction at +the poet’s late repentance. After praising Dafydd as the +Welsh Ovid and Horace and Martial, he says:</p> +<p>“Finally, he was something more; he was what not one of the +great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when +he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began +to be unstrung, his <!-- page 300--><a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 300</span>hair +to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred +pieces entitling him to rank with—we were going to say Cædmon—had +we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled +sacred subjects like the grand Saxon Skald—but which entitle him +to be called a great religious poet, inferior to none but the <i>protégé</i> +of Hilda.”</p> +<p>(Here, by the way, he omits to correct the plural unity of the “Quarterly +Reviewer.”)</p> +<p>But perhaps these remarks are not more than the glib commonplaces +of a man who had found Christianity convenient, but not exactly sufficient. +In another place he says: “The wisest course evidently is to combine +a portion of the philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy +of the publican and something more, to enjoy one’s pint and pipe +and other innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then of death +and judgment—that is what I intend to do, and indeed is what I +have done for the last thirty years.” Which is as much as +to say that he was of “the religion of all sensible men”: +which is as much as to say that he did not greatly trouble about such +matters.</p> +<p>In the cognate matter of patriotism Borrow is superficially more +unsound in “Wild Wales.” At Birmingham railway station +he “became a modern Englishman, enthusiastically proud of modern +England’s science and energy”; at the sight of Norman castles +he felt no Norman enthusiasm, but only hate for the Norman name, which +he associated with “the deflowering of helpless Englishwomen, +the plundering of English homesteads, and the tearing out of Englishmen’s +eyes”; but when he was asked on Snowdon if he was a Breton, he +replied: “I wish I was, or anything but what I am, one of a nation +amongst whom any knowledge save what relates to money-making and over-reaching +is looked upon as a disgrace. I am ashamed to say that I <!-- page 301--><a name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 301</span>am +an Englishman.” And at Gutter Fawr he gloomily expressed +the opinion that we were not going to beat the Russians—“the +Russians are a young nation and we are an old; they are coming on and +we are going off; every dog has its day.” But this was mere +refractoriness. England had not asked his advice; she had moreover +joined forces with her old enemy, France: the patriot therefore hoped +that she would perish to fulfil his own prophecy that she must. +And after the vaticination he sat down to a large dish of veal cutlets, +fried bacon and potatoes, with a jug of ale, and “made one of +the best suppers he ever made in his life,” finally “trifling” +with some whisky and water. That is “the religion of every +sensible man,” which is Lord Tennyson’s phrase, I believe, +but my interpretation.</p> +<h2><!-- page 302--><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 302</span>CHAPTER +XXXI—“WILD WALES”: STYLE</h2> +<p>“Wild Wales” having been written from a tourist’s +note books is less flowing than “The Bible in Spain” and +less delicate than “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.” +A man is often called an “individual,” the sun is called +“the candle of God.” A book just bought is “my +late literary acquisition.” Facts such as “I returned +to Llangollen by nearly the same way by which I had come,” abound. +Sentences straight from his note book, lacking either in subject or +predicate, occur here and there. At times a clause with no sort +of value is admitted, as when, forgetting the name of Kilvey Hill, he +says that Swansea town and harbour “are overhung on the side of +the east by a lofty green mountain with a Welsh name, no doubt exceedingly +appropriate, but which I regret to say has escaped my memory.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page302b.jpg"> +<img alt="The Dolaucothy Arms. Photo: A. & G. Taylor, Swansea" src="images/page302s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>More than once his direct simplicity slips into what could hardly +have been supposed to be within the power of such a pen, as in this +conclusion to a chapter:</p> +<p>“How one enjoys one’s supper at one’s inn, after +a good day’s walk, provided one has the proud and glorious consciousness +of being able to pay one’s reckoning on the morrow!”</p> +<p>Nor is the reader ever allowed to forget that a massive unfeeling +Victorianism is the basis of Borrow’s style. Thus he tells +the story of the Treachery of the Long Knives:</p> +<p>“Hengist, wishing to become paramount in Southern Britain, +thought that the easiest way to accomplish his wish would be by destroying +the South British chieftains. Not believing that he should be +able to make away with them <!-- page 303--><a name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 303</span>by +open force, he determined to see what he could do by treachery. +Accordingly he invited the chieftains to a banquet, to be held near +Stonehenge, or the Hanging Stones, on Salisbury Plain. The unsuspecting +chieftains accepted the invitation, and on the appointed day repaired +to the banquet, which was held in a huge tent. Hengist received +them with a smiling countenance, and every appearance of hospitality, +and caused them to sit down to table, placing by the side of every Briton +one of his own people. The banquet commenced and all seemingly +was mirth and hilarity. Now Hengist had commanded his people that, +when he should get up and cry ‘nemet eoure saxes,’ that +is, take your knives, each Saxon should draw his long sax, or knife, +which he wore at his side, and should plunge it into the throat of his +neighbour. The banquet went on, and in the midst of it, when the +unsuspecting Britons were revelling on the good cheer which had been +provided for them, and half-drunken with the mead and beer which flowed +in torrents, uprose Hengist, and with a voice of thunder uttered the +fatal words, ‘nemet eoure saxes’; the cry was obeyed, each +Saxon grasped his knife, and struck with it at the throat of his defenceless +neighbour. Almost every blow took effect; only three British chieftains +escaping from the banquet of blood. This infernal carnage the +Welsh have appropriately denominated the treachery of the long knives. +It will be as well to observe that the Saxons derived their name from +the saxes, or long knives, which they wore at their sides, and at the +use of which they were terribly proficient.”</p> +<p>Even so, Borrow’s personal vitality triumphs, as it does over +his many mistakes, such as Lledach for Clydach, in Welsh orthography. +There is perhaps hardly such a thing as prose which shall be accounted +perfect by every different age: but what is most important of all, the +harmony of style which gradually steals upon <!-- page 304--><a name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 304</span>the +reader and subjects him to incalculable minor effects, is not the property +of any one age, but of every age; and Victorian prose in general, and +Borrow’s in particular, attains it. “Wild Wales” +is rough in grain; it can be long-winded, slovenly and dull: but it +can also be read; and if the whole, or any large portion, be read continuously +it will give a lively and true impression of a beautiful, diverse country, +of a distinctive people, and of a number of vivid men and women, including +Borrow himself. It is less rich than “The Bible in Spain,” +less atmospheric than “Lavengro.” It is Borrow’s +for reasons which lie open to the view, not on account of any hidden +pervasive quality. Thus what exaggeration there is may easily +be seen, as when a fallow deer is described as equal to a bull in size, +or when carn-lleidyr is said to be one “who, being without house +and home, was more desperate than other thieves, and as savage and brutish +as the wolves and foxes with whom he occasionally shared his pillow, +the earn.” As a rule he keeps us upon an everyday normal +plane. The bard of Anglesey and the man who attends upon him come +through no ivory gate:</p> +<p>“They saluted me; I returned their salutation, and then we +all three stood still looking at one another. One of the men was +rather a tall figure, about forty, dressed in grey, or pepper-and-salt, +with a cap of some kind on his head, his face was long and rather good-looking, +though slightly pock-broken. There was a peculiar gravity upon +it. The other person was somewhat about sixty—he was much +shorter than his companion, and much worse dressed—he wore a hat +that had several holes in it, a dusty, rusty black coat, much too large +for him; ragged yellow velveteen breeches, indifferent fustian gaiters, +and shoes, cobbled here and there, one of which had rather an ugly bulge +by the side near the toes. His mouth was exceedingly wide, and +<!-- page 305--><a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 305</span>his +nose remarkably long; its extremity of a deep purple; upon his features +was a half-simple smile or leer; in his hand was a long stick.”</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page305b.jpg"> +<img alt="Dolaucothy House. (From a photograph by Lady Pretyman, by whose kind permission it is reproduced.)" src="images/page305s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>My last example shall be the house of Dolau Cothi, near Pumpsaint, +in Caermarthenshire:</p> +<p>“After breakfast I departed for Llandovery. Presently +I came to a lodge on the left-hand beside an ornamental gate at the +bottom of an avenue leading seemingly to a gentleman’s seat. +On inquiring of a woman who sat at the door of the lodge to whom the +grounds belonged, she said to Mr. Johnes, and that if I pleased I was +welcome to see them. I went in and advanced along the avenue, +which consisted of very noble oaks; on the right was a vale in which +a beautiful brook was running north and south. Beyond the vale +to the east were fine wooded hills. I thought I had never seen +a more pleasing locality, though I saw it to great disadvantage, the +day being dull, and the season the latter fall. Presently, on +the avenue making a slight turn, I saw the house, a plain but comfortable +gentleman’s seat with wings. It looked to the south down +the dale. ‘With what satisfaction I could live in that house,’ +said I to myself, ‘if backed by a couple of thousands a-year. +With what gravity could I sign a warrant in its library, and with what +dreamy comfort translate an ode of Lewis Glyn Cothi, my tankard of rich +ale beside me. I wonder whether the proprietor is fond of the +old bard and keeps good ale. Were I an Irishman instead of a Norfolk +man I would go in and ask him.’”</p> +<p>To the merit of this the whole book, perhaps the whole of Borrow’s +work, contributes. Simple-looking tranquil successes of this kind +are the privilege of a master, and when they occur they proclaim the +master with a voice which, though gentle, will find but few confessing +to be deaf to it. They are not frequent in “Wild Wales.” +Borrow had set himself too difficult a task to succeed altogether <!-- page 306--><a name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 306</span>with +his methods and at his age. Wales was not unknown land; De Quincey, +Shelley, and Peacock, had been there in his own time; and Borrow had +not sufficient impulse or opportunity to transfigure it as he had done +Spain; nor had he the time behind him, if he had the power still, to +treat it as he had done the country of his youth in “Lavengro” +and “The Romany Rye.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 307--><a name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 307</span>CHAPTER +XXXII—“ROMANO LAVO-LIL”</h2> +<p>Ambition, with a little revenge, helped to impel Borrow to write +“Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.” Some +of this ambition was left over for “Wild Wales,” which he +began and finished before the publication of “The Romany Rye.” +There was little of any impulse left for the writing of books after +“Wild Wales.” In 1862 and 1863 he published in “Once +a Week” some translations in prose and verse, from Manx, Russian, +Danish and Norse—one poem, on Harald Harfagr, being illustrated +by Frederick Sandys. He never published the two-volume books, +advertised as “ready for the press” in 1857, “Celtic +Bards, Chiefs, and Kings,” “Kaempe Viser . . . translated +from the Ancient Danish,” “Northern Skalds, Kings and Earls.”</p> +<p>Borrow was living in Hereford Square, seeing many people, occasionally +dining well, walking out into the suburban country, and visiting the +Gypsy camps in London. He made notes of his observations and conversations, +which, says Knapp, “are not particularly edifying,” whatever +that may mean. Knapp gives one example from the manuscript, describing +the race at Brompton, on October 14, 1861, between Deerfoot, the Seneca +Indian, and Jackson, the “American Deer.” Borrow also +wrote for the “Antiquities of the Royal School of Norwich,” +an autobiography too long for insertion. This survived to be captured +and printed by Knapp. It is very inaccurate, but it serves to +corroborate parts of “Lavengro,” and its inaccuracy, though +now transparent, is characteristically exaggerated or picturesque.</p> +<p><!-- page 308--><a name="page308"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 308</span>Borrow’s +scattered notes would perhaps never have been published in his lifetime, +but for an accident. In 1870 Charles Godfrey Leland, author of +“Hans Breitmann,” introduced himself to Borrow as one who +had read “The Zincali,” “Lavengro,” and “The +Romany Rye,” five times. Borrow answered that he would be +pleased to see him at any time. They met and Leland sent Borrow +his “Breitmann Ballads” because of the German Romany ballad +in it, and his “Music Lesson of Confucius” because of the +poem in it inspired by Borrow’s reference to Svend Vonved in “The +Romany Rye.” Leland confessed in a genial familiar way what +“an incredible influence” Borrow’s books had had on +him, and thanked him for the “instructions in ‘The Romany +Rye’ as to taking care of a horse on a thirty-mile ride.” +Borrow became jealous of this American “Romany Rye.” +Leland, suspecting nothing, wrote offering him the dedication of his +“English Gypsies.” John Murray assured Leland that +Borrow received this letter, but it was never acknowledged except by +the speedy announcement of a new book—“Romano Lavo-Lil: +a word book of the Romany or English Gypsy Language, by George Borrow, +with specimens of Gypsy poetry, and an account of certain Gypsyries +or places inhabited by them, and of various things relating to Gypsy +life in England.” Leland speaks of the affair in “The +Gypsies,” saying that he had nothing but pleasant memories of +the good old Romany Rye:</p> +<p>“A grand old fellow he was—a fresh and hearty giant, +holding his six-feet-two or three inches as uprightly at eighty as he +ever had at eighteen. I believe that was his age, but may be wrong. +Borrow was like one of the old Norse heroes, whom he so much admired, +or an old-fashioned Gypsy bruiser, full of craft and merry tricks. +One of these he played on me, and I bear him no malice for it. +The manner of the joke was this: I had written <!-- page 309--><a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 309</span>a +book on the English Gypsies and their language; but before I announced +it, I wrote a letter to Father George, telling him that I proposed to +print it, and asking his permission to dedicate it to him. He +did not answer the letter, but ‘worked the tip’ promptly +enough, for he immediately announced in the newspapers on the following +Monday his ‘Word-book of the Romany Language,’ ‘with +many pieces in Gypsy, illustrative of the way of speaking and thinking +of the English Gypsies, with specimens of their poetry, and an account +of various things relating to Gypsy life in England.’ This +was exactly what I had told him that my book would contain. . . . I +had no ill-feeling about it.</p> +<p>“My obligations to him for ‘Lavengro’ and ‘The +Romany Rye’ and his other works are such as I owe to few men. +I have enjoyed Gypsying more than any other sport in the world, and +I owe my love of it to George Borrow.”</p> +<p>“The English Gypsies” appeared in 1873, and the “Romano +Lavo-Lil” in 1874.</p> +<p>“Romano Lavo-Lil” contains a note on the English Gypsy +language, a word-book, some Gypsy songs and anecdotes with English translations, +a list of Gypsy names of English counties and towns, and accounts of +several visits to Gypsy camps in London and the country. It was +hastily put together, and the word-book, for example, did not include +all the Romany used in “Lavengro” and “The Romany +Rye.” There were now critics capable of discovering other +shortcomings.</p> +<p>Borrow’s book was reviewed along with Leland’s “English +Gypsies” and Dr. Miklosich’s “Dialects and Migrations +of the Gypsies in Europe,” and he was attacked for his derivations, +his ignorance of philology and of other writers on his subject, his +sketchy knowledge of languages, his interference with the purity of +the idiom in his Romany <!-- page 310--><a name="page310"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 310</span>specimens. +His Gypsy songs were found interesting, his translations, of course, +bad. The final opinion of the book as a book on the Gypsy language +was: <a name="citation310"></a><a href="#footnote310">{310}</a></p> +<p>“Whether or not Mr. Borrow has in the course of his long experience +become the <i>deep</i> Gypsy which he has always been supposed to be, +we cannot say; but it is certain that his present book contains little +more than he gave to the public forty years ago, and does not by any +means represent the present state of knowledge on the subject. +But at the present day, when comparative philology has made such strides, +and when want of accurate scholarship is as little tolerated in strange +and remote languages as in classical literature, the ‘Romano Lavo-Lil’ +is, to speak mildly, an anachronism.”</p> +<p>Nor, apart from the word-book and Gypsy specimens, is the book a +good example of Borrow’s writing. The accounts of visits +to Gypsies at Kirk Yetholm, Wandsworth, Pottery Lane (Notting Hill), +and Friar’s Mount (Shore-ditch), are interesting as much for what +they tell us of Borrow’s recreations in London as for anything +else. The portrait of the “dark, mysterious, beautiful, +terrible” Mrs. Cooper, the story of Clara Bosvil, the life of +Ryley Bosvil—“a thorough Gypsy, versed in all the arts of +the old race, had two wives, never went to church, and considered that +when a man died he was cast into the earth, and there was an end of +him”—and his death and burial ceremony, and some of Borrow’s +own opinions, for example, in favour of Pontius Pilate and George IV.—these +are simple and vigorous in the old style. They show that with +a sufficient impulse he could have written another book at least equal +to “Wild Wales.” But these uneven fragments were not +worthy of the living man. They were the sort of thing that his +friends might have been expected to gather up after <!-- page 311--><a name="page311"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 311</span>he +was dead. Scraps like this from “Wisdom of the Egyptians,” +are well enough:</p> +<p>“‘My father, why were worms made?’ ‘My +son, that moles might live by eating them.’ ‘My father, +why were moles made?’ ‘My son, that you and I might +live by catching them.’ ‘My father, why were you and +I made?’ ‘My son, that worms might live by eating +us.’”</p> +<p>Related to Borrow, and to a living Gypsy, by Borrow’s pen, +how much better! It is a book that can be browsed on again and +again, but hardly ever without this thought. It was the result +of ambition, and might have been equal to its predecessors, but competition +destroyed the impulse of ambition and spoilt the book.</p> +<p>“Romano Lavo-Lil” was his last book. For posthumous +publication he left only “The Turkish Jester; or, The Pleasantries +of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi, translated from the Turkish by G. B.” +(Ipswich, 1884). This was a string of the sayings and adventures +of one Cogia, in this style: “One day Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi +said: ‘O Mussulmen, give thanks to God Most High that He did not +give the camel wings; for had He given them, they would have perched +upon your houses and chimneys, and have caused them to tumble down upon +your heads.’” This may have been the translation from +the Turkish that Fitzgerald read in 1857 and could not admire. +It is a diverting book and illustrates Borrow’s taste.</p> +<h2><!-- page 312--><a name="page312"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 312</span>CHAPTER +XXXIII—LAST YEARS</h2> +<p>From 1860 to 1874 Borrow lived at Brompton, and perhaps because he +wrote few letters these years seem to have been more cheerful, except +at the time of his wife’s death. He is seen at “The +Star and Garter” in 1861 entertaining Murray and two others at +dinner, in a heavy and expensive style. He is still an uncomfortable, +unattractive figure in a drawing-room, especially with accurate and +intelligent ladies, like Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who would not humour +his inaccurate dictatorship. Miss Cobbe was his neighbour in Hereford +Square. She says that if he was not a Gypsy by blood he ought +to have been one; she “never liked him, thinking him more or less +of a hypocrite,” but nevertheless invited him to her house and +tried to console him in his bereavement by a gentle tact which was not +tact in Borrow’s case:</p> +<p>“Poor old Borrow is in a sad state. I hope he is starting +in a day or two for Scotland. I sent C--- with a note begging +him to come and eat the Welsh mutton you sent me to-day, and he sent +back word, ‘Yes.’ Then, an hour afterwards, he arrived, +and in a most agitated manner said he had come to say ‘he would +rather not. He would not trouble anyone with his sorrows.’ +I made him sit down, and talked to him as gently as possible, saying: +‘It won’t be a trouble, Mr. Borrow, it will be a pleasure +to me.’ But it was all of no use. He was so cross, +so <i>rude</i>, I had the greatest difficulty in talking to him. +I asked him would he look at the photos of the Siamese, and he said: +‘Don’t show them to me!’ So, in despair, as +he sat silent, I told him <!-- page 3113--><a name="page3113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3113</span>I +had been at a pleasant dinner-party the night before, and had met Mr. +L---, who told me of certain curious books of mediæval history. +‘Did he know them?’ ‘No, and he <i>dared say</i> +Mr. L--- did not, either! Who was Mr. L---?’ I described +that <i>obscure</i> individual (one of the foremost writers of the day), +and added that he was immensely liked by everybody. Whereupon +Borrow repeated at least twelve times, ‘Immensely liked! +As if a man could be immensely liked!’ quite insultingly. +To make a diversion (I was very patient with him as he was in trouble) +I said I had just come home from the Lyell’s and had heard . . +. But there was no time to say what I had heard! Mr. Borrow asked: +‘Is that old Lyle I met here once, the man who stands at the door +(of some den or other) and <i>bets</i>?’ I explained who +Sir Charles was (of course he knew very well), but he went on and on, +till I said gravely: ‘I don’t think you meet those sort +of people here, Mr. Borrow—we don’t associate with Blacklegs, +exactly.’”</p> +<p>A cantankerous man, and as little fitted for Miss Cobbe as Miss Cobbe +for him.</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page313b.jpg"> +<img alt="Francis Power Cobbe. (Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Miller, Taylor and Holmes.)" src="images/page313s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>There is not one pleasant story of Borrow in a drawing-room. +His great and stately stature, his bright “very black” or +“soft brown” eyes, thick white hair, and smooth oval face, +his “loud rich voice” that could be menacing with nervousness +when he was roused, his “bold heroic air,” <a name="citation313"></a><a href="#footnote313">{313}</a> +ever encased in black raiment to complete the likeness to a “colossal +clergyman,” never seemed to go with any kind of furniture, wall-paper, +or indoor company where there were strangers who might pester him. +His physical vigour endured, though when nearing sixty he is said to +have lamented that he was childless, saying mournfully: “I shall +soon not be able to knock a man down, and I have no son <!-- page 314--><a name="page314"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 314</span>to +do it for me.” <a name="citation314a"></a><a href="#footnote314a">{314a}</a> +No record remains of his knocking any man down. But, at seventy, +he could have walked off with E. J. Trelawny, Shelley’s friend, +under his arm, and was not averse to putting up his “dukes” +to a tramp if necessary. <a name="citation314b"></a><a href="#footnote314b">{314b}</a> +At Ascot in 1872 he intervened when two or three hundred soldiers from +Windsor were going to wreck a Gypsy camp for some affront. Amid +the cursing and screaming and brandishing of belts and tent-rods appeared +“an arbiter, a white-haired brown-eyed calm Colossus, speaking +Romany fluently, and drinking deep draughts of ale—in a quarter +of an hour Tommy Atkins and Anselo Stanley were sworn friends over a +loving quart.” <a name="citation314c"></a><a href="#footnote314c">{314c}</a> +But this is told by Hindes Groome, who said in one place that he met +Borrow once, and in another three times. At seventy, he would +breakfast at eight in Hereford Square, walk to Roehampton and pick up +Mr. Watts-Dunton or Mr. Hake, roam about Wimbledon Common and Richmond +Park, bathe in the Pen Ponds even if it were March and there were ice +on the water, then run about to dry, and after fasting for twelve hours +would eat a dinner at Roehampton “that would have done Sir Walter +Scott’s eyes good to see.” <a name="citation314d"></a><a href="#footnote314d">{314d}</a> +He loved Richmond Park, and “seemed to know every tree.” +<a name="citation314e"></a><a href="#footnote314e">{314e}</a> +He loved also “The Bald-faced Stag,” in Roehampton Valley, +and over his pot of ale would talk about Jerry Abershaw, the highwayman, +and his deeds performed in the neighbourhood. <a name="citation314f"></a><a href="#footnote314f">{314f}</a> +If he liked old Burton and ’37 port he was willing to drink the +worst swipes if necessary. <a name="citation314g"></a><a href="#footnote314g">{314g}</a></p> +<p>At another “Bald-faced Hind,” above Fairlop, he used +to see the Gypsies, for it was their trysting place. He went in +search of them in Wandsworth and Battersea and whereever <!-- page 315--><a name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 315</span>they +were to be found, from Notting Hill to Epsom Downs, though they were +corrupted by loss of liberty and, in his opinion, were destined soon +to disappear, “merged in the dregs of the English population.” +With them, as with others, his vocabulary was “rich in picturesque +words of the high road and dingle.” Once he consented to +join a friend in trying Matthew Arnold’s “Scholar Gypsy” +on Gypsy taste. The Gypsy girl was pleased with the seventeenth-century +story on which the poem is based, and with some “lovely bits of +description,” but she was in the main at first bewildered, and +at last unsympathetic and ran away. The beauty of the girl was +too much for Borrow’s power of expression—it was “really +quite—quite—.” The girl’s companion, a +young woman with a child, was smoking a pipe, and Borrow took it out +of her mouth and asked her not to smoke till he came again, because +the child was sickly and his friend put it down to the tobacco. +“It ought to be a criminal offence for a woman to smoke at all,” +said Borrow; “fancy kissing a woman’s mouth that smelt of +stale tobacco—pheugh!” <a name="citation315"></a><a href="#footnote315">{315}</a> +Whether this proves Borrow’s susceptibility to female charm I +cannot say, but it seems to me rather to prove a sort of connoisseurship, +which is not the same thing.</p> +<p>Just after he was seventy, in 1874, the year of Jasper Petulengro’s +death, Borrow left London for Oulton. He was no longer the walker +and winter bather of a year or two before, but was frequently at lodgings +in Norwich, and seen and noted as he walked in the streets or sat in +the “Norfolk.” At Oulton he was much alone and was +to be heard “by startled rowers on the lake” chanting verses +after his fashion. His remarkable appearance, his solitariness +in the neglected house and tangled garden, his conversation with Gypsies +whom he allowed to camp on his land, <!-- page 316--><a name="page316"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 316</span>created +something of a legend. Children called after him “Gypsy!” +or “Witch!” <a name="citation316"></a><a href="#footnote316">{316}</a> +Towards the end he was joined at Oulton by his stepdaughter and her +husband, Dr. MacOubrey. In 1879 he was too feeble to walk a few +hundred yards, and furious with a man who asked his age. In 1880 +he made his will. On July 26, 1881, when he was left entirely +alone for the day, he died, after having expected death for some time. +He was taken to West Brompton to be buried in that cemetery beside his +wife.</p> +<h2><!-- page 317--><a name="page317"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 317</span>CONCLUSION</h2> +<p>In his introduction to “The Romany Rye,” <a name="citation317"></a><a href="#footnote317">{317}</a> +Hindes Groome gave a long list of Romany Ryes to show that Borrow was +neither the only one nor the first. He went on to say that there +must have been over a dozen Englishmen, in 1874, with a greater knowledge +of the Anglo-Gypsy dialect than Borrow showed in “Romano Lavo-Lil.” +He added that Borrow’s knowledge “of the strange history +of the Gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, +and of their folk-lore practically <i>nil</i>.” And yet, +he concluded, he “would put George Borrow above every other writer +on the Gypsies. . . . He communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom +that is totally wanting in the works—mainly philological—of +Pott, Liebich . . . and their <i>confrères</i>.” +Hindes Groome was speaking, too, from the point of view of a Romany +student, not of a critic of human literature. In the same way +Borrow stands above other English writers on Spain and Wales, for the +insight and life that are lacking in the works of the authorities.</p> +<p>As a master of the living word, Borrow’s place is high, and +it is unnecessary to make other claims for him. He was a wilful +roamer in literature and the world, who attained to no mastery except +over words. If there were many Romany Ryes before Borrow, as there +were great men before Agamemnon, there was not another Borrow, as there +was not another Homer.</p> +<p>He sings himself. He creates a wild Spain, a wild England, +a wild Wales, and in them places himself, the <!-- page 318--><a name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 318</span>Gypsies, +and other wildish men, and himself again. His outstanding character, +his ways and gestures, irresistible even when offensive, hold us while +he is in our presence. In these repressed indoor days, we like +a swaggering man who does justice to the size of the planet. We +run after biographies of extraordinary monarchs, poets, bandits, prostitutes, +and see in them magnificent expansions of our fragmentary, undeveloped, +or mistaken selves. We love strange mighty men, especially when +they are dead and can no longer rob us of property, sleep, or life: +we can handle the great hero or blackguard by the fireside as easily +as a cat. Borrow, as his books portray him, is admirably fitted +to be our hero. He stood six-feet-two and was so finely made that, +in spite of his own statement which could not be less than true, others +have declared him six-feet-three and six-feet-four. He could box, +ride, walk, swim, and endure hardship. He was adventurous. +He was solitary. He was opinionated and a bully. He was +mysterious: he impressed all and puzzled many. He spoke thirty +languages and translated their poetry into verse.</p> +<p>Moreover, he ran away. He ran away from school as a boy. +He ran away from London as a youth. He ran away from England as +a man. He ran away from West Brompton as an old man, to the Gypsyries +of London. He went out into the wilderness and he savoured of +it. His running away from London has something grand and allegorical +about it. It reminds me of the Welshman on London Bridge, carrying +a hazel stick which a strange old man recognised as coming from Craig-y-Dinas, +and at the old man’s bidding he went to Craig-y-Dinas and to the +cave in it, and found Arthur and his knights sleeping and a great treasure +buried. . .</p> +<p class="picture"> +<a href="images/page318b.jpg"> +<img alt="The Gipsyrie at Battersea. Photo: W. J. Roberts" src="images/page318s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In these days when it is a remarkable thing if an author has his +pocket picked, or narrowly escapes being in a ship that is wrecked, +or takes poison when he is young, even the <!-- page 319--><a name="page319"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 319</span>outline +of Borrow’s life is attractive. Like Byron, Ben Jonson, +and Chaucer, he reminds us that an author is not bound to be a nun with +a beard. He depicts himself continually, at all ages, and in all +conditions of pathos or pride. Other human beings, with few exceptions, +he depicts only in relation to himself. He never follows men and +women here and there, but reveals them in one or two concentrated hours; +and either he admires or he dislikes, and there is no mistaking it. +Thus his humour is limited by his egoism, which leads him into extravagance, +either to his own advantage or to the disadvantage of his enemies.</p> +<p>He kept good company from his youth up. Wistful or fancifully +envious admiration for the fortunate simple yeomen, or careless poor +men, or noble savages, or untradesmanlike fishermen, or unromanized +<i>Germani</i>, or animals who do not fret about their souls, admiration +for those in any class who are not for the fashion of these days, is +a deep-seated and ancient sentiment, akin to the sentiment for childhood +and the golden age. Borrow met a hundred men fit to awaken and +satisfy this admiration in an age when thousands can over-eat and over-dress +in comfort all the days of their life. Sometimes he shows that +he himself admires in this way, but more often he mingles with them +as one almost on an equality with them, though his melancholy or his +book knowledge is at times something of a foil. He introduces +us to fighting men, jockeys, thieves, and ratcatchers, without our running +any risk of contamination. Above all, he introduces us to the +Gypsies, people who are either young and beautiful or strong, or else +witch-like in a fierce old age.</p> +<p>Izaak Walton heard the Gypsies talking under the honeysuckle hedge +at Waltham, and the beggar virgin singing:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Bright shines the sun, play, beggars play!<br /> +Here’s scraps enough to serve to-day.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><!-- page 320--><a name="page320"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 320</span>Glanvill +told of the poor Oxford scholar who went away with the Gypsies and learnt +their “traditional kind of learning,” and meant soon to +leave them and give the world an account of what he had learned. +Men like George Morland have lived for a time with Gypsies. Matthew +Arnold elaborated Glanvill’s tale in a sweet Oxford strain. +All these things delight us. Some day we shall be pleased even +with the Gypsy’s carrion-eating and thieving, “those habits +of the Gypsy, shocking to the moralist and sanitarian, and disgusting +to the person of delicate stomach,” which please Mr. W. H. Hudson +“rather than the romance and poetry which the scholar-Gypsy enthusiasts +are fond of reading into him.” Borrow’s Gypsies are +wild and uncoddled and without sordidness, and will not soon be superseded. +They are painted with a lively if ideal colouring, and they live only +in his books. They will not be seen again until the day of Jefferies’ +wild England, “after London,” shall come, and tents are +pitched amidst the ruins of palaces that had displaced earlier tents. +Borrow’s England is the old England of Fielding, painted with +more intensity because even as Borrow was travelling the change was +far advanced, and when he was writing had been fulfilled. And +now most people have to keep off the grass, except in remotest parts +or in the neighbourhood of large towns where landowners are, to some +extent, kept in their place. The rivers, the very roads, are not +ours, as they were Borrow’s. We go out to look for them +still, and of those who adventure with caravan, tent, or knapsack, the +majority must be consciously under Borrow’s influence.</p> +<p>Yet he was no mere lover and praiser of old times. His London +in 1825 is more romantic than the later London of more deliberate romances: +he found it romantic; he did not merely think it would be so if only +we could see it. He loved the old and the wild too well to deface +his feeling by <!-- page 321--><a name="page321"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 321</span>more +than an occasional comparison with the new and the refined, and these +comparisons are not effective.</p> +<p>He is best when he is without apparent design. As a rule if +he has a design it is too obvious: he exaggerates, uses the old-fashioned +trick of re-appearance and recognition, or breaks out into heavy eloquence +of description or meditation. These things show up because he +is the most “natural” of writers. His style is a modification +of the style of his age, and is without the consistent personal quality +of other vigorous men’s, like Hazlitt or Cobbett. Perhaps +English became a foreign language like his other thirty. Thus +his books have no professional air, and they create without difficulty +the illusion of reality. This lack of a literary manner, this +appearance of writing like everybody else in his day, combines, with +his character and habits, to endear him to a generation that has had +its Pater and may find Stevenson too silky.</p> +<p>More than most authors Borrow appears greater than his books, though +he is their offspring. It is one of his great achievements to +have made his books bring forth this lusty and mysterious figure which +moves to and fro in all of them, worthy of the finest scenes and making +the duller ones acceptable. He is not greater than his books in +the sense that he is greater than the sum of them: as a writer he made +the most out of his life. But in the flesh he was a fine figure +of a man, and what he wrote has added something, swelling him to more +than human proportions, stranger and more heroical. So we come +to admire him as a rare specimen of the <i>genus homo</i>, who had among +other faculties that of writing English; and at last we have him armed +with a pen that is mightier than a sword, but with a sword as well, +and what he writes acquires a mythical value. Should his writing +ever lose the power to evoke this figure, it might suffer heavily. +We to-day have many temptations to over praise him, because he is a +Great Man, <!-- page 322--><a name="page322"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 322</span>a +big truculent outdoor wizard, who comes to our doors with a marvellous +company of Gypsies and fellows whose like we shall never see again and +could not invent. When we have used the impulse he may give us +towards a ruder liberty, he may be neglected; but I cannot believe that +things so much alive as many and many a page of Borrow will ever die.</p> +<h2><!-- page 323--><a name="page323"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 323</span>BIBLIOGRAPHY +OF GEORGE BORROW</h2> +<p>By <span class="smcap">Edward Thomas</span>.</p> +<h3>1823</h3> +<p>“New Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 7: “The Diver, a Ballad +translated from the German,” by G. O. B.</p> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 56: “Ode to a Mountain +Torrent,” from the German of Stolberg; “Death,” from +the Swedish of J. C. Lohmann; “Mountain Song,” from the +German of Schiller; “Danish Poetry and Ballad Writing,” +with a translation of “Skion Middel”; “Lenora,” +a new translation from the German, in the metre of the original; “Chloe,” +from the Dutch of Johannes Bellamy; “Sea-Song,” from the +Danish of Evald; “The Erl-King, from the German of Goethe; signed +“George Olaus Borrow.”</p> +<h3>1824</h3> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 57: “Bernard’s Address +to his Army,” a ballad from the Spanish; “The Singing Mariner,” +a ballad from the Spanish; “The French Princess,” a ballad +from the Spanish; “The Nightingale,” translated from the +Danish; signed, all but the last, “George Olaus Borrow.”</p> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 58: “Danish Traditions +and Superstitions”; “War-Song,” written when the French +invaded Spain, translated from the Spanish of Vincente, by George Olaus +Borrow; “Danish Songs and Ballads,” No. 1, Bear Song, by +“B.”</p> +<p>“Universal Review,” Vols. 1 and 2, May, June, Sept, Nov.: +Unsigned reviews by Borrow.</p> +<h3><!-- page 324--><a name="page324"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 324</span>1825.</h3> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 58: “Danish Traditions +and Superstitions.”</p> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 59: “Danish Traditions +and Superstitions,” in five parts; “The Deceived Merman,” +from the Danish, by “G. B.”</p> +<p>“Monthly Magazine,” Vol. 60: “Danish Traditions +and Superstitions,” in two parts.</p> +<p>“Universal Review,” Vol. 2, Jan.: Unsigned reviews by +Borrow.</p> +<p>“Celebrated Trials, and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence, +from the earliest records to the year 1825.” 6 vols. +Knight and Lacey, Paternoster Row.</p> +<p>“Faustus: His Life, Death, and Descent into Hell,” translated +from the German. London, Simpkin and Marshall.</p> +<h3>1826.</h3> +<p>“Romantic Ballads,” translated from the Danish: and miscellaneous +pieces, by George Borrow. Norwich, S. Wilkin, Upper-Haymarket. +Other copies printed by S. Wilkin, published by John Taylor, London.</p> +<h3>1828-9.</h3> +<p>“Memoirs of Vidocq,” principal agent of the French police +until 1827, and now proprietor of the paper manufactory at St. Mandé. +Written by himself. Translated from the French [by Borrow?]. +4 vols. London, Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot, Ave Maria Lane.</p> +<h3>1830.</h3> +<p>“Foreign Quarterly Review,” Vol. 6, June. [Sixteen +translations from the Danish by Borrow, in an article by John Bowring.]</p> +<h3><!-- page 325--><a name="page325"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 325</span>1832.</h3> +<p>“Norfolk Chronicle,” August 18: On the origin of the +word “Tory,” by George Borrow.</p> +<h3>1833.</h3> +<p>“El Evangelio segun San Lucas traducido del Latin al Mexicano +. . .” Londres, Impreso por Samuel Bagster. [Corrected for +the press by Borrow.]</p> +<h3>1835.</h3> +<p>“Targum, or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and +Dialects,” by George Borrow. St. Petersburg, Schulz and +Beneze.</p> +<p>“The Talisman,” from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin, +with other pieces. St. Petersburg, Schulz and Beneze. [Translated +by Borrow.]</p> +<p>“Mousei echen Isus Gheristos i tuta puha itche ghese.” +St. Petersburg, Schulz and Beneze. [Edited by Borrow.]</p> +<h3>1836.</h3> +<p>“Athenæum,” August 20: “The Gypsies of Russia +and Spain.” [Unsigned.]</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” March 5. Review of “Targum,” +and of Borrow’s edition of the “Manchu Bible,” by +John P. Hasfeldt,</p> +<h3>1837.</h3> +<p>“El Nuevo Testamento, traducido al Español. . . .” +Madrid, D. Joaquin de la Barrera. Edited by Borrow.</p> +<p>“Embéo e Majaró Lucas. . . . El Evangelio segun +S. Lucas, traducido al Romani, o dialecto de los Gitanos de Espana.” +Madrid. [Translated by Borrow, “in Badajoz, in the winter +of 1836.”]</p> +<h3>1838.</h3> +<p>“Evangelioa San Lucasen Guissan. El Evangelio segun S. +Lucas, traducido al Vascuence.” Madrid, Gompañia +Tipográfica. [Edited by Borrow.]</p> +<h3><!-- page 326--><a name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 326</span>1841.</h3> +<p>“The Zincali, or An Account of the Gypsies of Spain, with an +original collection of their songs, and a copious dictionary of their +language.” By George Borrow, late Agent of the British and +Foreign Bible Society. In 2 vols. London, John Murray.</p> +<h3>1842.</h3> +<p>“Athenæum,” April and May; Review of “The +Zincali.”</p> +<p>“Blackwood,” September; Review of “The Zincali.”</p> +<p>“Monthly Review,” May; Review of “The Zincali.”</p> +<p>“Westminster Review,” May; Review of “The Zincali,” +by John Bowring.</p> +<p>“British and Foreign Review,” June. Review of “The +Zincali,” by Richard Ford.</p> +<p>“Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean,” by +Col. E. H. D. Elers Napier.</p> +<p>“Gypsies,” by Samuel Roberts. 5th edition. +(Letter by Borrow.)</p> +<p>“The Bible in Spain, or the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments +of an Englishman, in an attempt to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula,” +by George Borrow. In 3 vols. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” December; Review of “The Bible +in Spain.”</p> +<p>“Quarterly,” December; Review of “The Bible in +Spain.”</p> +<p>“Spectator,” December; Review of “The Bible in +Spain.”</p> +<h3>1843.</h3> +<p>“The Zincali.” Second edition, with preface dated +March 1, 1843.</p> +<p>“Memoirs of William Taylor,” by J. W. Robberds.</p> +<p>“Edinburgh Review,” February; review of “The Bible +in Spain,” by Richard Ford.</p> +<p>“Dublin Review,” May; review of “The Bible in Spain.”</p> +<p>“Tait’s Edinburgh Review,” February, March; review +of “The Bible in Spain.”</p> +<h3>1851.</h3> +<p>“Lavengro: the Scholar—the Gypsy—the Priest,” +by George Borrow. In 3 vols. London, John Murray. +Portrait by Henry Wyndham Phillips.</p> +<p><!-- page 327--><a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 327</span>“Athenæum,” +February; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<p>“Blackwood,” March; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<p>“Fraser,” March; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<p>“New Monthly Magazine,” March; review of “Lavengro,” +by W. H. Ainsworth.</p> +<p>“New Monthly Magazine,” April; review of “Lavengro,” +by T. Gordon Hake.</p> +<p>“Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine,” May; review of “Lavengro,” +by William Bodham Donne.</p> +<p>“Britannia,” April 26; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<h3>1852.</h3> +<p>“Hungary in 1851; with an Experience of the Austrian Police,” +by Charles L. Brace.</p> +<h3>1857.</h3> +<p>“The Romany Rye,” a sequel to “Lavengro,” +by George Borrow. In 2 vols. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Quarterly Review”; review of “Lavengro,” +by Whitwell Elwin.</p> +<p>“Saturday Review,” May 23; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” May 23; review of “Lavengro.”</p> +<h3>1859.</h3> +<p>“History of the British and Foreign Bible Society,” by +George Browne.</p> +<h3>1860.</h3> +<p>“The Sleeping Bard, or Visions of the World, Death, and Hell,” +by Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British by George Borrow. +London, John Murray.</p> +<h3>1861.</h3> +<p>“Quarterly Review,” January: “The Welsh and their +Literature,” by George Borrow.</p> +<h3>1862.</h3> +<p>“Wild Wales: its People, Language, and Scenery,” by George +Borrow. 3 vols. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Spectator,” December; review of “Wild Wales.”</p> +<p><!-- page 328--><a name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 328</span>“Once +a Week,” Vol. 6: “Ballads of the Isle of Man,”—“Brown +William,” and “Mollie Charane.” “Russian +Popular Tales”—“Emelian the Fool,” “The +Story of Yvashka with the Bear’s Ear,” and “The Story +of Tim.” Vol. 7: “Harold Harfagr.” [Translations +by Borrow.]</p> +<h3>1863.</h3> +<p>“Once a Week,” Vol. 8: “The Count of Vendel’s +Daughter.” Vol. 9: “The Hail-Storm, or the Death of +Bui.” [Translations by Borrow.]</p> +<p>“The Cornhill Magazine,” January; review of “Wild +Wales.”</p> +<h3>1872.</h3> +<p>“Romany Rye,” 3rd edition, with note by Borrow.</p> +<h3>1874.</h3> +<p>“Romano Lavo-Lil: Word-Book of the Romany, or English Gypsy +Language. With many pieces in Gypsy, illustrative of the way of +thinking of the English Gypsies: with specimens of their poetry, and +an account of certain gypsyries or places inhabited by them, and of +various things relating to Gypsy life in England.” By George +Borrow. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” April 25; review of “Romano Lavo-Lil.”</p> +<p>“Academy,” June 13; review of “Romano Lavo-Lil,” +by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<h3>1876.</h3> +<p>“Correspondence and Table Talk of B. R. Haydon.”</p> +<h3>1877.</h3> +<p>“Autobiography of Harriet Martineau.”</p> +<h3>1880.</h3> +<p>“In Gypsy Tents,” by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<h3><!-- page 329--><a name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 329</span>1881.</h3> +<p>“Athenæum,” August 6, article by Whitwell Elwin.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” August 13, article by A. Egmont Hake.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” September 3 and 10, articles by Theodore +Watts.</p> +<p>“Macmillan’s Magazine,” November, articles by A. +Egmont Hake.</p> +<h3>1882.</h3> +<p>“Memories of Old Friends,” by Caroline Fox.</p> +<h3>1883.</h3> +<p>“East Anglican Handbook,” article by Charles Mackie.</p> +<p>“East Anglia,” by J. Ewing Ritchie.</p> +<p>“The Red Dragon, the National Magazine of Wales.” +Vol. 3. “George Borrow in Wales,” by Tal-a-hên.</p> +<h3>1884.</h3> +<p>“The Turkish Jester; or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin +Effendi.” Translated from the Turkish by George Borrow. +Ipswich, W. Webber.</p> +<h3>1885.</h3> +<p>“Écrivains modernes de l’Angleterre,” par +Émile Montègut.</p> +<h3>1886.</h3> +<p>“Macmillan’s Magazine,” article by George Saintsbury.</p> +<h3>1887.</h3> +<p>“Obiter Dicta,” by Augustine Birrell. [2nd Series.]</p> +<p>“Epoch (U.S.A.)” article by Julian Hawthorne.</p> +<h3>1888.</h3> +<p>“Athenæum,” March 17, article by Theodore Watts.</p> +<p>“Reflector,” Jan. 8, article by Augustine Birrell.</p> +<p>“La Critique Scientifique,” by Émile Hennequin. +Paris.</p> +<h3>1889.</h3> +<p>“The Death of Balder.” Translated from the Danish +of Evald, by George Borrow. Norwich. London, Jarrold and +Son.</p> +<p>“Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald.”</p> +<p>“Journal of Gypsy Lore Society,” Vol. 1, article by Rev. +Wentworth Webster.</p> +<p>“Bible in Spain,” with biographical introduction by G. +T. Bettany, London: Ward, Lock.</p> +<h3><!-- page 330--><a name="page330"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 330</span>1890.</h3> +<p>“Views and Reviews,” by W. E. Henley.</p> +<p>“Essays in English Literature,” by G. Saintsbury.</p> +<h3>1891.</h3> +<p>“A Publisher and his Friends,” by Samuel Smiles.</p> +<h3>1892.</h3> +<p>“Eastern Daily Press,” September 17, 19, 22.</p> +<p>“Eastern Daily Press,” October 1.</p> +<p>“Bohemés et Gypsies” (translation of parts of +“Lavengro,” with biographical sketch by H. Duclos. +Paris).</p> +<p>“Memoirs of Eighty Years,” by Thomas Gordon Hake.</p> +<h3>1893.</h3> +<p>“Bookman,” February, article by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” July 8, article by Augustus Jessopp.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” July 22, article by A. W. Upcher.</p> +<p>“Lavengro,” with introduction by Theodore Watts. +London, Ward, Lock.</p> +<p>“Memoirs,” by C. G. Leland.</p> +<h3>1894.</h3> +<p>“Letters of Edward Fitzgerald,” edited by W. Aldis Wright.</p> +<p>“Life of Frances Power Cobbe,” by herself.</p> +<h3>1895.</h3> +<p>“Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake,” edited +by C. E. Smith.</p> +<p>“Good Words,” February, article by John Murray.</p> +<h3>1896.</h3> +<p>“George Borrow in East Anglia,” by W. A. Dutt.</p> +<p>“Lavengro,” with introduction by Augustine Birrell; illustrated +by E. J. Sullivan. London, Macmillan.</p> +<p>“Bible in Spain,” with notes and glossary by Ulick Ralph +Burke. London, Murray.</p> +<p>“Globe,” July 21. “Vestiges of George Borrow: +some Personal Reminiscences.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 331--><a name="page331"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 331</span>1899.</h3> +<p>“Bible Society Reporter,” July.</p> +<p>“Life, Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow,” +derived from official and other authentic sources, by William I. Knapp, +with portrait and illustrations. 2 vols. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Athenæum,” March 25; review of W. I. Knapp’s +“Life of Borrow,” by Theodore Watts-Dunton.</p> +<p>“Bookman,” May; review of Knapp, by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<h3>1900.</h3> +<p>“Lavengro.” A new edition, containing the unaltered +text of the original issue; some suppressed episodes; MS. variorum, +vocabulary and notes. By the author of “The Life of George +Borrow.” Definitive edition. London, John Murray.</p> +<p>“Lavengro,” illustrated by C. A. Shepperson, with introduction +by C. E. Beckett.</p> +<p>“The Romany Rye.” A new edition, containing the +unaltered text of the original issue; some suppressed episodes; MS. +variorum, vocabulary and notes. By the author of “The Life +of George Borrow.” Definitive edition. London, John +Murray.</p> +<p>“The Romany Rye,” with a defence of George Borrow, by +Theodore Watts-Dunton.</p> +<p>“Daily Chronicle,” April 30, 1900, article by Augustus +Jessopp.</p> +<h3>1901.</h3> +<p>“More Letters of Edward Fitzgerald,” edited by W. Aldis +Wright.</p> +<p>“Archiv, N. S.,” July; “George Borrow,” by +Georg Herzfeld. Berlin.</p> +<p>“Isopel Berners,” edited by Thomas Seccombe. [Passages +arranged from “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.”]</p> +<p>“Lavengro,” edited by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<h3>1902.</h3> +<p>“Bookman,” February; “George Borrow, his Homes +and Haunts,” by Thomas Seccombe.</p> +<p>“Some 18th Century Men of Letters,” by Whitwell Elwin, +edited by Warwick Elwin.</p> +<h3><!-- page 332--><a name="page332"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 332</span>1903.</h3> +<p>“The Romany Rye,” edited by John Sampson.</p> +<h3>1904.</h3> +<p>“Story of the Bible Society,” by William Canton.</p> +<p>“Gypsy Stories from ‘The Bible in Spain,’” +edited by W. H. D. Rouse.</p> +<p>“Stories of Antonio and Benedict Mol,” edited by W. H. +D. Rouse.</p> +<p>“Lavengro,” illustrated by Claude Shepperson.</p> +<h3>1905.</h3> +<p>“The Letters of Richard Ford,” edited by R. E. Prothero.</p> +<p>“William Bodham Donne and his Friends,” by Catherine +B. Johnson.</p> +<p>“Selections from George Borrow.” London, Arnold.</p> +<p>“Spanish Influence on English Literature,” by Martin +A. S. Hume.</p> +<h3>1906.</h3> +<p>“Lavengro,” edited by Thomas Seccombe. (Everyman +Library.)</p> +<p>“Wild Wales,” edited by Theodore Watts-Dunton. +(Everyman Library.)</p> +<p>“The Bible in Spain,” edited by Edward Thomas. +(Everyman Library.)</p> +<p>“Charles Godfred Leland,” by Elizabeth Robins Pennell.</p> +<p>“The Vagabond in Literature,” by Arthur Rickett.</p> +<h3>1907.</h3> +<p>“Immortal Memories,” by Clement Shorter.</p> +<p>“The Literature of Roguery,” by Frank W. Chandler.</p> +<h3>1908.</h3> +<p>“George Borrow: the Man and his Work,” by R. A. J. Walling.</p> +<p>“The Annals of Willenhall,” by Frederick William Hackwood.</p> +<p>“The Bible in the World,” July; “Footprints of +George Borrow,” by A. G. Jayne.</p> +<h3>1909.</h3> +<p>“The Border Magazine,” March, April: “George Borrow +and the Borders,” by J. Pringle.</p> +<p>“Annals of the Harford family.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 333--><a name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 333</span>1910.</h3> +<p>“The Little Guide to Staffordshire,” by Charles Masefield +(s.v. Willenhall and Bushbury).</p> +<p>“Y Cymmrodor” (Journal of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion): +“Journal of Borrow’s Second Tour in Wales,” with notes +by T. C. Cantrill and J. Pringle.</p> +<p>“Gypsy Lore.” Vol. 3 (New Series): article on Borrow’s +“Gypsies,” by T. W. Thompson.</p> +<p>“George Borrow,” by Bernhard Blaesing. Berlin.</p> +<h3>1911.</h3> +<p>“Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society,” edited +by T. H. Darlow.</p> +<p>“Post Liminium,” by Lionel Johnson.</p> +<h3>1912.</h3> +<p>“The Life of George Borrow,” compiled from unpublished +official documents, his works, correspondence, etc. By Herbert +Jenkins, with a frontispiece and 12 other illustrations. London, +John Murray.</p> +<p>“Nation,” review of above, Feb. 17.</p> +<p>“New Age,” review of above, by T. W. Thompson, March.</p> +<h2><!-- page i--><a name="pagei"></a><span class="pagenum">p. i</span>INDEX</h2> +<p>“Adventures of Captain Singleton, The,” pp. 43-44, 51.</p> +<p>“Athenæum, The,” pp. 35, 166, 209-10, 218, 221, +310.</p> +<p>Barbauld, Mrs., p. 68.</p> +<p>Benson, A. C., p. 209.</p> +<p>Berners, Isopel, pp. 34, 50, 93, 220. <i>See also</i> ROMANY +RYE—Characters.</p> +<p>Berwick-upon-Tweed, p. 3.</p> +<p>BIBLE IN SPAIN, THE,<br /> + general references, pp. 6, 10, 11, 28, 32, 111, 113, +147.<br /> + studied in detail, pp. 162-199.<br /> + autobiographical basis of, p. 112.<br /> + characters of, pp. 181-191: Benedict Mol, pp. 181-188; +Antonio, pp. 190-191; Abarbanel, p. 189; Francisco, pp. 152-154.<br /> + materials of, pp. 6, 32, 163, 164, 169, 213.<br /> + style, pp. 168, 192-199: faults, p. 195; biblical +touches, p. 196; dialogue, pp. 196-199; foreign words, pp. 197, 198-199.<br /> + quotations from, pp. 173-176, 177, 179-180, 193, +197-198.<br /> + contemporary and other criticisms of:—pp. 16, +35-36, 148, 166, 198.</p> +<p>British and Foreign Bible Society, the, pp. 14, 125, 126-127, 139-140, +144; for Borrow’s letters to the Society, <i>see</i> “Letters.”</p> +<p>Blackheath, pp. 92, 96.</p> +<p>Borrow, Ann, pp. 55, 61, 81, 112, 133, 144, 201, 208, 210, 231, 272.</p> +<p>Borrow, John Thomas, pp. 55-56, 85, 105, 133, 215, 231.</p> +<p>BORROW, GEORGE HENRY,</p> +<p>(i) <span class="smcap">Life</span>:—</p> +<p> parentage, pp. 55-56.<br /> + birth, pp. 2, 56.<br /> + his name, pp. 2-4.<br /> + travelling with his father’s regiment, pp. +56-57.<br /> + at Pett, pp. 21, 56.<br /> + at Hythe, pp. 22, 56.<br /> + at Canterbury, p. 56.<br /> + at Dereham, pp. 56, 57.<br /> + at Norman Cross, and first meeting with Gypsies, +p. 57.<br /> + at school at Dereham, Huddersfield and Edinburgh, +p. 57; at Norwich Grammar School, p. 59; at the Protestant Academy, +Clonmel, pp. 59-60; again at Norwich Grammar School, pp. 60, 61-64.<br /> + <!-- page ii--><a name="pageii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ii</span>plays +truant, pp. 13, 64.<br /> + breakdown in health at sixteen, pp. 32, 65.<br /> + articled to a solicitor at Norwich, p. 65.<br /> + frequents Taylor’s circle, pp. 66-72.<br /> + reads in the library of Norwich guildhall, p. 73.<br /> + publishes translations, pp. 73-80.<br /> + has another illness, p. 81.<br /> + goes to London, p. 81.<br /> + compiles “Celebrated Trials” and publishes +translations and articles, p. 85.<br /> + ill again: leaves London and begins wandering, p. 96.<br /> + poisoned by Mrs. Herne, p. 70; meets Isopel Berners, <i>id</i>.<br /> + at Norwich in 1826, p. 112; in London in same year, <i>id</i>.<br /> + at Norwich in 1827, p. 113.<br /> + in London in 1829 and 1830, <i>id</i>.<br /> + at Norwich in 1830, p. 117.<br /> + meets Mrs. Clarke, 1832, p. 125.<br /> + interview with the Bible Society in same year, <i>id</i>.<br /> + sent to St. Petersburg, July, 1833, pp. 130-131.<br /> + travels to Novgorod and Moscow, p. 133.<br /> + leaves Russia in 1835, p. 133.<br /> + after a month in England, sails for Lisbon in November, +1835, p. 134.<br /> + crosses into Spain early in 1836, reaches Madrid, and returns +to London in October, p. 135.<br /> + returns to Spain at the end of a month, p. 137.<br /> + quarrels with the Society, and is recalled in 1838, pp. +140-141.<br /> + returns to Spain at end of the same year, p. 141.<br /> + journeys to Tangier and Barbary in 1839, p. 143.<br /> + becomes engaged to Mrs. Clarke, p. 144.<br /> + leaves Spain finally in April, 1840, p. 145.<br /> + marries Mrs. Clarke, <i>id</i>.<br /> + settles at Oulton, p. 147.<br /> + publication of “The Zincali” in 1841, p. 147.<br /> + publication of “The Bible in Spain” in 1842, +p. 166.<br /> + re-editions and translations of “The Bible in Spain,” +p. 200.<br /> + his fame and popularity, <i>id</i>.<br /> + is not made a J.P., p. 201.<br /> + restless and unsatisfied, p. 202.<br /> + travels again in 1844, p. 203.<br /> + settles in England, p. 204.<br /> + writes “Lavengro,” p. 205.<br /> + publication of “Lavengro” in 1851, p. 212.<br /> + moves to Yarmouth in 1853, p. 207.<br /> + publication of “The Romany Rye” delayed, p. +212.<br /> + <!-- page iii--><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iii</span>his +annoyance at the criticisms of “Lavengro,” pp. 212, 253-254.<br /> + tours in Cornwall in 1853, p. 264.<br /> + in Wales in 1854, pp. 265-268.<br /> + in the Isle of Man in 1855, pp. 268-269.<br /> + in Wales in 1857, pp. 269-272.<br /> + in Scotland in 1858, pp. 272-273.<br /> + settles in London in 1860, p. 273.<br /> + visits Ireland in 1860, p. 273.<br /> + publication of “Wild Wales” in 1862, p. 275.<br /> + in Scotland and Ireland in 1866, p. 273.<br /> + in Sussex and Hampshire in 1868, p. 274.<br /> + meets Leland in 1870, pp. 308-309.<br /> + publication of “Romano Lavo-Lil” in 1874, p. +309.<br /> + anecdotes of Borrow <i>ætat</i>. 60-70, pp. 312-315.<br /> + leaves London and goes to Oulton in 1874, p. 315.<br /> + is often in Norwich, <i>id</i>.<br /> + death in 1881, p. 316.</p> +<p>(ii.) <span class="smcap">Character</span>:—</p> +<p> appearance, pp. 55, 56, 61, 70, 105-106 (at twenty-two), +201-202 (at forty), 308 (at eighty).<br /> + portraits, pp. 105, 112, 204.<br /> + manners, pp. 170-172.<br /> + habits as a child, pp. 56, 60.<br /> + self-centred, p. 1; reserved and solitary, p. 70; melancholy, +pp. 85, 110, 112, 117; mysterious and impressive, pp. 12-13, 19, 167; +sensitive, p. 86<br /> + attacks of “horrors,” pp. 34, 98, 117 sqq., +131.<br /> + surly and ill-tempered in middle life, pp. 208, 209.<br /> + kindness to animals, pp. 210-211.<br /> + passion for horses, pp. 60, 107-109, 192, 203.<br /> + dislike of smoking, pp. 116, 315; and other prejudices, +pp. 297-298.<br /> + attitude towards vagrants and criminals, pp. 258-263.<br /> + patriotism, pp. 214, 227-228.<br /> + religious belief, pp. 24, 30-31, 33, 50, 56-57, 71, 81, +114, 122-123, 126, 127-129, 168-169, 175, 218, 242, 299-300.<br /> + his memory, pp. 29-30, 70, 75.</p> +<p><!-- page iv--><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span>(iii.) +<span class="smcap">Characteristics as a Writer</span>:—</p> +<p> collection and choice of material, pp. 20, 163-165, +218.<br /> + personality and observation, p. 148.<br /> + descriptive power, pp. 173-180.<br /> + vocabulary, pp. 226, 242.<br /> + use of the marvellous and supernatural, p. 85.<br /> + treatment of facts, pp. 2, 5, 12-13, 25, 27, 32, 35, 36, +39, 50-51, 93, 94, 95, 180, 188, 228-229.<br /> + use of dramatic re-appearances, pp. 11, 93, 185, 189-190, +229-230, 233, 254, 321.<br /> + love of mystery and romance, pp. 12, 193-194, 196, 217-218, +227, 320, 321.<br /> + final estimate, pp. 317-322.</p> +<p>(iv.) <span class="smcap">Literary Development</span>:—</p> +<p> his imagination stimulated by Danish relics, p. +23.<br /> + his reading, pp. 40-51, 77-79, 85.<br /> + character of his early work, pp. 74-75, 77, 79-80, 117.</p> +<p>(v.) <span class="smcap">Knowledge of Languages</span>:—</p> +<p> Latin, pp. 57, 60; Greek, pp. 60, 61; Irish, pp. +60, 65; French, p. 62; Italian, <i>id</i>.; Spanish, <i>id</i>.; Gypsy, +pp. 64, 137-138, 236; Welsh, pp. 65, 267-268; Danish, p. 65; Hebrew, +p. 65; Arabic, pp. 65, 113; Armenian, pp. 65, 98, 103; German, p. 70; +Portuguese, p. 70; Old English, p. 73; Old Norse, p. 73; Swedish, p. +73; Dutch, p. 73; Persian, pp. 113, 204; Manchu-Tartar, pp. 125, 129; +Russian, pp. 131-132; Manx, pp. 268-269: Translations from Welsh, pp. +73, 75, 114; from Danish, pp. 73, 75; from German, pp. 73, 75, from +Swedish, p. 73; from Dutch, p. 73; from Gypsy, pp. 79-80; from Russian, +pp. 131-132; from Manx, p. 269; from “thirty languages,” +pp. 79, 114.</p> +<p>(vi.) <span class="smcap">Portrayal of Himself</span>:—</p> +<p> general references, pp. 1, 6, 7, 10, 14, 17, 21, +28, 51, 53-54.<br /> + as a child, p. 56.<br /> + as a missionary, p. 128.<br /> + in “The Zincali,” pp. 149-154.<br /> + in “The Bible in Spain,” pp. 173, 188, 192, +194-195.<br /> + in “Lavengro,” pp. 213-215.<br /> + in “The Romany Rye,” pp. 255-256, 256-257.<br /> + in “Wild Wales,” pp. 297-301.</p> +<p>Borrow, Mary, pp. 147, 166, 273, 274.</p> +<p>Borrow, Thomas, pp. 24, 61-62, 70, 201, 231.<br /> + early life and marriage, p. 25.<br /> + at Norwich, pp. 24, 61-62, 70.<br /> + death, p. 81.</p> +<p>Bowring, J., pp. 71-72, 113, 207, 212, 269.</p> +<p>Brooke, J., p. 62.</p> +<p>Bunyan, J., p. 41.</p> +<p>Burton, R., pp. 188-189.</p> +<p>Byron, Ld., pp. 41, 80, 91, 205.</p> +<p>Carlyle, J., p. 68.</p> +<p>“Catholic Times, The,” p. 242.</p> +<p><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. v</span>“Celebrated +Trials,” pp. 40, 62, 79, 84.</p> +<p>Clarke, Henrietta, pp. 126, 143, 145, 207, 267, 273, 316.</p> +<p>Clarke, Mary, pp. 14, 125, 126, 133, 143-144, 145: <i>See also</i> +Borrow Mary.</p> +<p>Cobbe, F. P., pp. 312-313.</p> +<p>Cobbett, W., pp. 47-50, 164.</p> +<p>Cowper, W., pp 24, 26.</p> +<p>“Dairyman’s Daughter, the,” pp. 81-84.</p> +<p>Darlow, T. H., pp. 163, 164.</p> +<p>Defoe, D., pp. 41, 43-44, 54, 250.</p> +<p>De Quincey, T., pp. 44, 51.</p> +<p>Donne, W. B., p. 36.</p> +<p>Dutt, W. A., p. 205.</p> +<p>East Dereham, pp. 2, 26, 30.</p> +<p>Eastlake, Lady, p. 201.</p> +<p>“Edinburgh Review, The,” pp. 148, 198, 203.</p> +<p>“Elvir Hill,” p. 3.</p> +<p>Elwin, W., pp. 36, 252, 253, 314.</p> +<p>“English Rogue, The,” p. 44.</p> +<p>“Examiner, The,” p. 166.</p> +<p>Fitzgerald, E., pp. 209, 311.</p> +<p>Flamson, p. 207.</p> +<p>Ford, R., pp. 14, 19, 20, 26, 28, 29, 44, 148, 165, 166-167, 197, +198, 202, 203, 207, 213, 253.</p> +<p>Fox, Caroline, p. 201.</p> +<p>“Fraser’s Magazine,” pp. 35-36.</p> +<p>Giraldus Cambrensis, pp. 276-277.</p> +<p>“Gil Blas,” pp. 16, 189.</p> +<p>Goethe, p. 74.</p> +<p>Groome, F. Hindes, pp. 221, 314, 317.</p> +<p>Gurney, A., p. 210.</p> +<p>Gypsies, pp. 2, 6-10, 12-13, 17-19, 45-46, 57, 64, 97, 132-133, 135-138, +142-143, 148-149, 152, 154, 170, 197-198, 219, 221-226, 234-242, 261-262, +273-274, 309-311, 314-315, 319-320.</p> +<p>“Gypsies of Spain, The,” <i>see</i> “Zincali, The.”</p> +<p>“Gypsy Lore” (article by T. W. Thompson), p. 2.</p> +<p>Haggart, David, pp. 57-59.</p> +<p>Hake, A. E., pp. 313, 314.</p> +<p>Hake, G., p. 208.</p> +<p>Hardy, T., p. 68.</p> +<p>“Hayward, S. D., The Life of,” pp. 88-90.</p> +<p>Hazlitt, W., p. 66.</p> +<p>Hudson, W. H., p. 320.</p> +<p><!-- page vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>Jefferies, +R., pp. 3, 23, 320.</p> +<p>“Joseph Sell,” pp. 92-95, 99.</p> +<p>Keats, J., p, 80.</p> +<p>Knapp, W. I., pp. 2, 6, 13, 29-30, 31-32, 36, 37, 39, 40, 52, 59, +64, 71, 72, 73, 92, 93, 95, 112, 113, 136, 138, 140, 181, 188, 203-204, +206-207, 210, 212, 234, 265, 268, 269, 273, 307.</p> +<p>Lamb, C., p. 198.</p> +<p>LAVENGRO,<br /> + general references, p. 14, 19-20, 28, 30, 32, 44, 65, 66, +79, 81, 86, 93, 96-98, 123, 147, 189.<br /> + studied in detail, pp. 212-252.<br /> + autobiographical basis, pp. 15, 50-51, 52.<br /> + characters of, pp. 50, 231-244.<br /> + the publisher, pp. 232-233.<br /> + the Anglo-Germanist, p. 231.<br /> + Jasper Petulengro, s.v. and pp. 236-238.<br /> + <i>see also</i> ROMANY RYE—Characters.<br /> + materials of, pp. 50, 212-213.<br /> + style, pp. 21-26, 245-252.<br /> + occasionally Victorian, pp. 245-246.<br /> + the vocabulary, pp. 246-247.<br /> + quotations from, pp. 3-5, 21-26, 32-34, 37-38, 41-43, 86-87, +96, 98-101, 101-103, 117-122, 213-214, 215-217, 219, 222-224, 224-225, +225-226, 234-236, 245, 258-259, 259-260.<br /> + contemporary and other criticisms of:—pp. 35, 36, +220, 221, 253.</p> +<p>Leland, C. G., pp. 87-88, 308-309.</p> +<p>Letters of Borrow to the Bible Society,<br /> + general references, pp. 19, 32, 50, 112, 163-164, 173.<br /> + quotations from, pp. 128-130, 132-133, 135-136, 140, 144.</p> +<p>Lhuyd’s “Archæologia,” p. 277.</p> +<p>“Life, a Drama,” pp. 20, 21.</p> +<p>Lockhart, J. G., p. 207.</p> +<p>“Mabinogion, The,” p. 277.</p> +<p>Mackintosh, Sir J., p. 66.</p> +<p>Martineau, J., p. 62.</p> +<p>Martineau, H., p. 69.</p> +<p>“Moll Flanders,” p. 44.</p> +<p>Montègut, E., p. 253.</p> +<p>“Monthly Magazine, The,” pp. 73, 74.</p> +<p>Moore-Carew, B., pp. 45-47.</p> +<p>Morganwg, Iolo, p. 277.</p> +<p>Murray, J., pp. 16, 19, 166, 212.</p> +<p>“My Life: a Drama,” p. 19.</p> +<p>Napier, Col., pp. 141-143, 203.</p> +<p>“New Monthly Magazine, The,” p. 73.</p> +<p>“Newgate Lives and Trials,” <i>see</i> “<i>Celebrated +Trials</i>.”</p> +<p><!-- page vii--><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>“Once +a Week,” pp. 269, 307.</p> +<p>Opie, A., p. 68.</p> +<p>Oulton, pp. 28, 147, 315.</p> +<p>“Oxford Review, The,” <i>see</i> “Universal Review, +The.”</p> +<p>Perfrement, Ann, p. 55: <i>See also</i> Borrow, Ann.</p> +<p>Peto, Mr., p. 207.</p> +<p>Petulengro, Jasper, pp. 2, 17-20, 26, 57, 64, 92, 315: <i>See also</i> +LAVENGRO—Characters.</p> +<p>Phillips, H. W., p. 204.</p> +<p>Phillips, Sir, R., pp. 73, 81, 232.</p> +<p>“Quarterly Review, The,” pp. 36, 207, 275-276.</p> +<p>Reynolds, J. H., pp. 90-91.</p> +<p>Ritchie, J. E., p. 71.</p> +<p>Robinson, Crabb, p. 68.</p> +<p>“Robinson Crusoe,” pp. 41-43, 44.</p> +<p>“Romantic Ballads,” pp. 76, 80, 112.</p> +<p>ROMANO LAVO-LIL,<br /> + autobiographical anecdote in, pp. 273-274.<br /> + publication of, pp. 308-309.<br /> + criticisms of, pp. 309-310.<br /> + main interest of, pp. 310-311.</p> +<p>ROMANY RYE, THE,<br /> + general references, pp. 28, 79, 93, 111, 189.<br /> + studied in detail, pp. 212-252.<br /> + inferiority to “Lavengro,” p. 230.<br /> + autobiographical basis of, p. 50-51, 52, 112.<br /> + characters of, pp. 72, 231-244.<br /> + Flamson, p. 207.<br /> + the Old Radical, p. 207.<br /> + Isopel Berners, s.v. and pp. 239-242.<br /> + the Man in Black, pp. 242-244.<br /> + materials of, pp. 212-213.<br /> + style, <i>see under</i> LAVENGRO—Style.<br /> + quotations from, pp. 107-109, 127-128, 237-238, 238-239, +239-241, 241-242, 245-246, 247-250, 254, 255-256, 256-257, 260-261, +261-262.<br /> + contemporary and other criticisms of, pp. 36, 252.</p> +<p>“Saturday Review, The,” p. 253.</p> +<p>Scaliger, J., p. 26.</p> +<p>Scott, Sir W., pp. 66, 112.</p> +<p>Seccombe, T., pp. 1, 50, 68, 96, 97, 242-243, 250-251.</p> +<p>“Sleeping Bard, The,” pp. 114-116, 275-276.</p> +<p>Smith, Ambrose, pp. 2, 19, 26.</p> +<p>Smollett, J., pp. 41, 250.</p> +<p>“Songs of Scandinavia,” p. 113.</p> +<p><!-- page viii--><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>Southey, +R., pp. 70, 71.</p> +<p>Sterne, L. pp. 41, 54, 250.</p> +<p>Stevenson, R. L., p. 3.</p> +<p>Strickland, A., p. 208.</p> +<p>“Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine,” p. 36.</p> +<p>“Targum,” pp. 79, 114.</p> +<p>Taylor, W., pp. 25, 66-70.</p> +<p>Thurtell, J., pp. 7, 62-64, 233, 258, 259-260.</p> +<p>“Turkish Jester, The,” p. 311.</p> +<p>“Universal Review, The,” pp. 84, 91.</p> +<p>Vidocq’s Memoirs, pp 93-95, 113.</p> +<p>“Vocabulary of the Gypsy Language,” p. 203.</p> +<p>Walling, R. A. J., pp. 72, 113, 122, 204, 208, 218, 265.</p> +<p>“Wandering Children and the Benevolent Gentleman, The,” +p. 13.</p> +<p>Watts-Dunton, T., pp. 51, 93, 122, 206, 220, 314, 315.</p> +<p>Wesley, J., p. 50.</p> +<p>WILD WALES,<br /> + general references, pp. 65, 123-124.<br /> + studied in detail, pp. 275-306.<br /> + autobiographical basis, pp. 113-114.<br /> + characters of, pp. 284-289.<br /> + the bard, pp. 284-287.<br /> + the Irish fiddler, pp. 290-296.<br /> + materials of, pp. 272, 277.<br /> + style, pp. 302-306.<br /> + quotations from, pp. 278-279, 280, 281-283, 283-284, 284-287 +288-296, 298, 299-300, 302-303, 304, 305.<br /> + criticisms of, p. 276.</p> +<p>Wordsworth, W., p. 80.</p> +<p>Yeats, W. B., p. 58.</p> +<p>ZINCALI, THE,<br /> + general references, pp. 6, in, 144.<br /> + studied in detail, pp. 147-162.<br /> + autobiographical basis of, p. 113.<br /> + characters of,<br /> + the Gitana of Seville, pp. 156-161.<br /> + materials of, p. 6, 147-148, 163, 164.<br /> + style, pp. 155, 156, 162.<br /> + contemporary and other criticisms of, pp. 35-36, 148.<br /> + quotations from, p. 6-10, 15-17, 18-19, 137-138, 152-154, +155-156, 156-161.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Thomas +Seccombe; introduction to “Lavengro” (Everyman).</p> +<p><a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> “Gypsy +Lore,” Jan., 1910.</p> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> “Lavengro,” +Chapter VI.</p> +<p><a name="footnote13a"></a><a href="#citation13a">{13a}</a> +Knapp I., 62-4.</p> +<p><a name="footnote13b"></a><a href="#citation13b">{13b}</a> +II., 207.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17a"></a><a href="#citation17a">{17a}</a> +Good-day.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17b"></a><a href="#citation17b">{17b}</a> +Glandered horse.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17c"></a><a href="#citation17c">{17c}</a> +Two brothers.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18a"></a><a href="#citation18a">{18a}</a> +Christmas, literally Wine-day.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18b"></a><a href="#citation18b">{18b}</a> +Irishman or beggar, literally a dirty squalid person.</p> +<p><a name="footnote18c"></a><a href="#citation18c">{18c}</a> +Guineas.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19a"></a><a href="#citation19a">{19a}</a> +Silver teapots.</p> +<p><a name="footnote19b"></a><a href="#citation19b">{19b}</a> +The Gypsy word for a certain town (Norwich).</p> +<p><a name="footnote30"></a><a href="#citation30">{30}</a> Suppressed +MS. of “Lavengro,” quoted in Knapp I., 36.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31">{31}</a> Knapp +I., 25.</p> +<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50">{50}</a> “Lavengro.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote68"></a><a href="#citation68">{68}</a> <i>See</i> +“Panthera” in “Time’s Laughing Stocks,” +by Thomas Hardy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote71a"></a><a href="#citation71a">{71a}</a> +J. Ewing Ritchie.</p> +<p><a name="footnote71b"></a><a href="#citation71b">{71b}</a> +Dr. Knapp, I., 79, connects this question with Captain Borrow’s +last will and testament, made on Feb. 11, 1822.</p> +<p><a name="footnote72"></a><a href="#citation72">{72}</a> “George +Borrow: the Man and His Work,” 1908.</p> +<p><a name="footnote75a"></a><a href="#citation75a">{75a}</a> +Translation published, Norwich, 1825, anonymous.</p> +<p><a name="footnote75b"></a><a href="#citation75b">{75b}</a> +Translation published, London, Jarrold & Sons, 1889.</p> +<p><a name="footnote85"></a><a href="#citation85">{85}</a> “Romantic +Ballads.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote87"></a><a href="#citation87">{87}</a> “The +Gypsies.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote93a"></a><a href="#citation93a">{93a}</a> +“The Romany Rye,” edited by F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<p><a name="footnote93b"></a><a href="#citation93b">{93b}</a> +Translated, 1828.</p> +<p><a name="footnote96"></a><a href="#citation96">{96}</a> “Isopel +Berners.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97">{97}</a> Knapp, +I., 105.</p> +<p><a name="footnote114"></a><a href="#citation114">{114}</a> +<i>See</i> “<i>Wild Wales</i>,” Chapter XXXIII.</p> +<p><a name="footnote126"></a><a href="#citation126">{126}</a> +Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society: Introduction, p. 2.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128a"></a><a href="#citation128a">{128a}</a> +Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society, p. 469.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128b"></a><a href="#citation128b">{128b}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. 27.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128c"></a><a href="#citation128c">{128c}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. 280.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128d"></a><a href="#citation128d">{128d}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. 342.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129a"></a><a href="#citation129a">{129a}</a> +Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society, p. 20.</p> +<p><a name="footnote129b"></a><a href="#citation129b">{129b}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. 364.</p> +<p><a name="footnote130"></a><a href="#citation130">{130}</a> +Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society, p. 8.</p> +<p><a name="footnote132"></a><a href="#citation132">{132}</a> +August 20, 1836.</p> +<p><a name="footnote137"></a><a href="#citation137">{137}</a> +Wentworth Webster, in “Journal of Gypsy Lore Society.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote139"></a><a href="#citation139">{139}</a> +“Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society,” p. 271.</p> +<p><a name="footnote140"></a><a href="#citation140">{140}</a> +“Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society,” p. 334.</p> +<p><a name="footnote144"></a><a href="#citation144">{144}</a> +Letter to the Bible Society, 25th Nov., 1839.</p> +<p><a name="footnote148"></a><a href="#citation148">{148}</a> +“Edinburgh Review,” February, 1843.</p> +<p><a name="footnote154"></a><a href="#citation154">{154}</a> +The hostess, Maria Diaz, and her son Juan José Lopez, were present +when the outcast uttered these prophetic words.</p> +<p><a name="footnote163a"></a><a href="#citation163a">{163a}</a> +Edited by T. H. Darlow, Hodder and Stoughton.</p> +<p><a name="footnote163b"></a><a href="#citation163b">{163b}</a> +<i>See</i>, <i>e.g.</i>, “Bible in Spain,” Chapter XIII. +“I shall have frequent occasion to mention the Swiss in the course +of <i>these Journals</i> . . .”; also the preface.</p> +<p><a name="footnote163c"></a><a href="#citation163c">{163c}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>., p. 445.</p> +<p><a name="footnote173"></a><a href="#citation173">{173}</a> +Borrow’s Letters to the Bible Society, p. 391.</p> +<p><a name="footnote181"></a><a href="#citation181">{181}</a> +Knapp, I., p. 270.</p> +<p><a name="footnote184"></a><a href="#citation184">{184}</a> +Witch. Ger. Hexe.</p> +<p><a name="footnote187"></a><a href="#citation187">{187}</a> +Fake.</p> +<p><a name="footnote201"></a><a href="#citation201">{201}</a> +Egmont Hake; “Athenæum,” 13th August, 1881.</p> +<p><a name="footnote205"></a><a href="#citation205">{205}</a> +“George Borrow in East Anglia,” by W. A. Dutt.</p> +<p><a name="footnote206"></a><a href="#citation206">{206}</a> +T. Watts-Dunton in “Lavengro” (Minerva Library).</p> +<p><a name="footnote208"></a><a href="#citation208">{208}</a> +“Memoirs of 80 years,” by Gordon Hake.</p> +<p><a name="footnote209"></a><a href="#citation209">{209}</a> +“Edward Fitzgerald,” A. C. Benson.</p> +<p><a name="footnote210a"></a><a href="#citation210a">{210a}</a> +“Athenæum,” July, 1893.</p> +<p><a name="footnote210b"></a><a href="#citation210b">{210b}</a> +Knapp and W. A. Dutt.</p> +<p><a name="footnote212"></a><a href="#citation212">{212}</a> +See Chapters II., III., and IV.</p> +<p><a name="footnote218a"></a><a href="#citation218a">{218a}</a> +R. A. J. Walling.</p> +<p><a name="footnote218b"></a><a href="#citation218b">{218b}</a> +“Athenæum,” 25th March, 1889.</p> +<p><a name="footnote220"></a><a href="#citation220">{220}</a> +“Lavengro” (Minerva Library).</p> +<p><a name="footnote221a"></a><a href="#citation221a">{221a}</a> +“In Gypsy Tents.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote221b"></a><a href="#citation221b">{221b}</a> +March 25th, 1899.</p> +<p><a name="footnote242"></a><a href="#citation242">{242}</a> +“Isopel Berners.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote250"></a><a href="#citation250">{250}</a> +“Isopel Berners,” edited by Thomas Seccombe.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270a"></a><a href="#citation270a">{270a}</a> +Vol. XXII., 1910.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270b"></a><a href="#citation270b">{270b}</a> +Merlin’s Bridge, on the outskirts of Haverfordwest.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270c"></a><a href="#citation270c">{270c}</a> +Merlin’s Hill.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270d"></a><a href="#citation270d">{270d}</a> +River Daucleddau. The river at Haverfordwest is the Western Cleddau; +it joins the Eastern Cleddau about six miles below the town. Both +rivers then become known as Daucleddau or the two Cleddaus.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270e"></a><a href="#citation270e">{270e}</a> +Borrow means Milford Haven; the swallowing capacities of the Western +Cleddau are small.</p> +<p><a name="footnote270f"></a><a href="#citation270f">{270f}</a> +North-west.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271a"></a><a href="#citation271a">{271a}</a> +Pelcomb Bridge.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271b"></a><a href="#citation271b">{271b}</a> +Camrose parish.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271c"></a><a href="#citation271c">{271c}</a> +Appropriately known as Tinker’s Bank.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271d"></a><a href="#citation271d">{271d}</a> +Dr. Knapp was unable to decipher this word. He remarks in a note +that the pencillings are much rubbed and almost illegible. We +think, however, that the word should be Plumstone, a lofty hill which +Borrow would see just before he crossed Pelcomb Bridge.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271e"></a><a href="#citation271e">{271e}</a> +This was a low thatched cottage on the St. David’s road, half-way +up Keeston Hill. A few years ago it was demolished, and a new +and more commodious building known as the Hill Arms erected on its site.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271f"></a><a href="#citation271f">{271f}</a> +The old inn was kept by the blind woman, whose name was Mrs. Lloyd. +Many stories are related of her wonderful cleverness in managing her +business, and it is said that no customer was ever able to cheat her +with a bad coin. Her blindness was the result of an attack of +small-pox when twelve years of age.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271g"></a><a href="#citation271g">{271g}</a> +Dr. Knapp’s insertion.</p> +<p><a name="footnote271h"></a><a href="#citation271h">{271h}</a> +It is doubtful if there was a chapel; no one remembers it.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272a"></a><a href="#citation272a">{272a}</a> +Nanny Dallas is a mistake. No such name is remembered by the oldest +inhabitants, and it seems certain that the woman Borrow met was Nanny +Lawless, who lived at Simpson a short distance away.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272b"></a><a href="#citation272b">{272b}</a> +Evan Rees, of Summerhill (a mile south-east of Roch).</p> +<p><a name="footnote272c"></a><a href="#citation272c">{272c}</a> +Sger-lâs and Sger-ddu, two isolated rocky islets off Solva Harbour. +The headlands are the numerous prominences which jut out along the north +shore of St. Bride’s Bay.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272d"></a><a href="#citation272d">{272d}</a> +Newgale Bridge.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272e"></a><a href="#citation272e">{272e}</a> +Jemmy Raymond. “Remaunt” is the local pronunciation. +Jemmy and his ass appear to have been two well-known figures in Roch +thirty or forty years ago; the former died about the year 1886.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272f"></a><a href="#citation272f">{272f}</a> +Pen-y-cwm.</p> +<p><a name="footnote272g"></a><a href="#citation272g">{272g}</a> +Davies the carpenter was undoubtedly the man; he was noted for his stature. +Dim-yn-clywed—deaf.</p> +<p><a name="footnote310"></a><a href="#citation310">{310}</a> +“Athenæum,” 25th April, 1874.</p> +<p><a name="footnote313"></a><a href="#citation313">{313}</a> +A. Egmont Hake.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314a"></a><a href="#citation314a">{314a}</a> +Whitwell Elwin.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314b"></a><a href="#citation314b">{314b}</a> +T. Watts-Dunton.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314c"></a><a href="#citation314c">{314c}</a> +F. Hindes Groome.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314d"></a><a href="#citation314d">{314d}</a> +T. Watts-Dunton.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314e"></a><a href="#citation314e">{314e}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314f"></a><a href="#citation314f">{314f}</a> +A. Egmont Hake.</p> +<p><a name="footnote314g"></a><a href="#citation314g">{314g}</a> +<i>Ibid</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote315"></a><a href="#citation315">{315}</a> +T. Watts-Dunton.</p> +<p><a name="footnote316"></a><a href="#citation316">{316}</a> +Thomas Seccombe: “Everyman” edition of “Lavengro.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote317"></a><a href="#citation317">{317}</a> +Methuen & Co.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE BORROW***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 18588-h.htm or 18588-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/8/18588 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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