Second. It is lawful for anyone to use his fists in his own defence, or

in the defence of others, provided they can't help themselves; but it is

not lawful to use them for purposes of tyranny or brutality. If you are

attacked by a ruffian, as the elderly individual in 'Lavengro' is in the

inn-yard, it is quite lawful, if you can, to give him as good a thrashing

as the elderly individual gave the brutal coachman; and if you see a

helpless woman--perhaps your own sister--set upon by a drunken lord, a

drunken coachman, or a drunken coalheaver, or a brute of any description,

either drunk or sober, it is not only lawful, but laudable, to give them,

if you can, a good drubbing; but it is not lawful, because you have a

strong pair of fists, and know how to use them, to go swaggering through

a fair, jostling against unoffending individuals; should you do so, you

would be served quite right if you were to get a drubbing, more

particularly if you were served out by some one less strong, but more

skilful than yourself--even as the coachman was served out by a pupil of

the immortal Broughton--sixty years old, it is true, but possessed of

Broughton's guard and chop. Moses is not blamed in the Scripture for

taking part with the oppressed, and killing an Egyptian persecutor. We

are not told how Moses killed the Egyptian; but it is quite as creditable

to Moses to suppose that he killed the Egyptian by giving him a buffet

under the left ear, as by stabbing him with a knife. It is true, that

the Saviour in the New Testament tells His disciples to turn the left

cheek to be smitten, after they had received a blow on the right; but He

was speaking to people divinely inspired, or whom He intended divinely to

inspire--people selected by God for a particular purpose. He likewise

tells these people to part with various articles of raiment when asked

for them, and to go a-travelling without money, and to take no thought of

the morrow. Are those exhortations carried out by very good people in

the present day? Do Quakers, when smitten on the right cheek, turn the

left to the smiter? When asked for their coat, do they say: 'Friend,

take my shirt also'? Has the Dean of Salisbury no purse? Does the

Archbishop of Canterbury go to an inn, run up a reckoning, and then say

to his landlady, 'Mistress, I have no coin'? Assuredly the Dean has a

purse, and a tolerably well-filled one; and, assuredly, the Archbishop,

on departing from an inn, not only settles his reckoning, but leaves

something handsome for the servants, and does not say that he is

forbidden by the Gospel to pay for what he has eaten, or the trouble he

has given, as a certain Spanish cavalier said he was forbidden by the

statutes of chivalry. Now, to take the part of yourself, or the part of

the oppressed, with your fists, is quite as lawful in the present day as

it is to refuse your coat and your shirt also to any vagabond who may ask

for them, and not to refuse to pay for supper, bed, and breakfast, at the

Feathers, or any other inn, after you have had the benefit of all three.

The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the whole, serve

as a model. He is no drunkard, nor is he fond of intoxicating other

people; yet when the horrors are upon him he has no objection to go to a

public-house and call for a pint of ale, nor does he shrink from

recommending ale to others when they are faint and downcast. In one

instance, it is true, he does what cannot be exactly justified; he

encourages the Priest in the dingle, in more instances than one, in

drinking more hollands and water than is consistent with decorum. He has

a motive indeed in doing so; a desire to learn from the knave in his cups

the plans and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome. Such conduct, however,

was inconsistent with strict fair dealing and openness; and the author

advises all those whose consciences never reproach them for a single

unfair or covert act committed by them, to abuse him heartily for

administering hollands and water to the Priest of Rome. In that instance

the hero is certainly wrong; yet in all other cases with regard to drink,

he is manifestly right. To tell people that they are never to drink a

glass of ale or wine themselves, or to give one to others, is cant; and

the writer has no toleration for cant of any description. Some cants are

not dangerous; but the writer believes that a more dangerous cant than

the temperance cant, or, as it is generally called, teetotalism, is

scarcely to be found. The writer is willing to believe that it

originated with well-meaning, though weak people; but there can be no

doubt that it was quickly turned to account by people who were neither

well-meaning nor weak. Let the reader note particularly the purpose to

which this cry has been turned in America; the land, indeed, par

excellence, of humbug and humbug cries. It is there continually in the

mouth of the most violent political party, and is made an instrument of

almost unexampled persecution. The writer would say more on the

temperance cant, both in England and America, but want of space prevents

him. There is one point on which he cannot avoid making a few brief

remarks--that is, the inconsistent conduct of its apostles in general.

The teetotal apostle says it is a dreadful thing to be drunk. So it is,

teetotaller; but, if so, why do you get drunk? I get drunk? Yes,

unhappy man, why do you get drunk on smoke and passion? Why are your

garments impregnated with the odour of the Indian weed? Why is there a

pipe or cigar always in your mouth? Why is your language more dreadful

than that of a Poissarde? Tobacco smoke is more deleterious than ale,

teetotaller; bile more potent than brandy. You are fond of telling your

hearers what an awful thing it is to die drunken. So it is teetotaller.

Then take care that you do not die with smoke and passion, drunken, and

with temperance language on your lips; that is, abuse and calumny against

all those who differ from you. One word of sense you have been heard to

say, which is, that spirits may be taken as a medicine. Now you are in a

fever of passion, teetotaller; so, pray take this tumbler of brandy; take

it on the homoeopathic principle, that heat is to be expelled by heat.

You are in a temperance fury, so swallow the contents of this tumbler,

and it will, perhaps, cure you. You look at the glass wistfully--you say

you occasionally take a glass medicinally, and it is probable you do.

Take one now. Consider what a dreadful thing it would be to die passion

drunk, to appear before your Maker with _in_temperate language on your

lips. That's right! You don't seem to wince at the brandy. That's

right--well done! All down in two pulls. Now you look like a reasonable

being!

If the conduct of Lavengro with regard to drink is open to little

censure, assuredly the use which he makes of his fists is entitled to

none at all. Because he has a pair of tolerably strong fists, and knows

to a certain extent how to use them, is he a swaggerer or oppressor? To

what ill account does he turn them? Who more quiet, gentle, and

inoffensive than he? He beats off a ruffian who attacks him in a dingle;

has a kind of friendly tuzzle with Mr. Petulengro, and behold the extent

of his fistic exploits.

Ay, but he associates with prize-fighters; and that very fellow,

Petulengro, is a prize-fighter, and has fought for a stake in a ring.

Well, and if he had not associated with prize-fighters, how could he have

used his fists? Oh, anybody can use his fists in his own defence,

without being taught by prize-fighters. Can they? Then why does not the

Italian, or Spaniard, or Affghan use his fists when insulted or outraged,

instead of having recourse to the weapons which he has recourse to?

Nobody can use his fists without being taught the use of them by those

who have themselves been taught, no more than anyone can 'whiffle' {355}

without being taught by a master of the art. Now let any man of the

present day try to whiffle. Would not anyone who wished to whiffle have

to go to a master of the art? Assuredly! but where would he find one at

the present day? The last of the whifflers hanged himself about a

fortnight ago on a bell-rope in a church steeple of 'the old town,' from

pure grief that there was no further demand for the exhibition of his

art, there being no demand for whiffling since the discontinuation of

Guildhall banquets. Whiffling is lost. The old chap left his sword

behind him; let anyone take up the old chap's sword and try to whiffle.

Now much the same hand as he would make who should take up the whiffler's

sword and try to whiffle, would he who should try to use his fists who

had never had the advantage of a master. Let no one think that men use

their fists naturally in their own disputes--men have naturally recourse

to any other thing to defend themselves or to offend others; they fly to

the stick, to the stone, to the murderous and cowardly knife, or to abuse

as cowardly as the knife, and occasionally more murderous. Now which is

best when you hate a person, or have a pique against a person, to clench

your fist and say 'Come on,' or to have recourse to the stone, the knife,

or murderous calumny? The use of the fist is almost lost in England.

Yet are the people better than they were when they knew how to use their

fists? The writer believes not. A fisty combat is at present a great

rarity, but the use of the knife, the noose, and of poison, to say

nothing of calumny, are of more frequent occurrence in England than

perhaps in any country in Europe. Is polite taste better than when it

could bear the details of a fight! The writer believes not. Two men

cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a manly manner without some

trumpery local newspaper letting loose a volley of abuse against 'the

disgraceful exhibition,' in which abuse it is sure to be sanctioned by

its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror, the discovery, for

example, of the mangled remains of a woman in some obscure den, is

greedily seized hold on by the moral journal and dressed up for its

readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the ghastly dish. Now, the writer

of 'Lavengro' has no sympathy with those who would shrink from striking a

blow, but would not shrink from the use of poison or calumny; and his

taste has little in common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy

details of a prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of the

murder dens of modern England. But prize-fighters and pugilists are

blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards they would be, provided

they employed their skill and their prowess for purposes of brutality and

oppression; but prize-fighters and pugilists are seldom friends to

brutality and oppression; and which is the blackguard, the writer would

ask, he who uses his fists to take his own part, or instructs others to

use theirs for the same purpose, or the being who from envy and malice,

or at the bidding of a malicious scoundrel, endeavours by calumny,

falsehood, and misrepresentation to impede the efforts of lonely and

unprotected genius?

One word more about the race, all but extinct, of the people

opprobriously called prize-fighters. Some of them have been as noble,

kindly men as the world ever produced. Can the rolls of the English

aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more noble, heroic men, than those

who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, {357a} and Spring? {357b}

Did ever one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal

consumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the

topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable

destruction? The writer says, No. A woman was rescued from the top of a

burning house, but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it was

Pearce, not Percy, who ran up the burning stairs. Did ever one of those

glittering ones save a fainting female from the libidinous rage of six

ruffians? The writer believes not. A woman was rescued from the

libidinous fury of six monsters on --- Down, but the man who rescued her

was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Paulet, who rescued the woman, and

thrashed my lord's six gamekeepers--Pearce, whose equal never was, and

probably never will be, found in sturdy combat. Are there any of the

aristocracy of whom it can be said that they never did a cowardly, cruel,

or mean action, and that they invariably took the part of the unfortunate

and weak against cruelty and oppression? As much can be said of Cribb,

of Spring, and the other; but where is the aristocrat of whom as much can

be said? Wellington? Wellington, indeed! A skilful general, and a good

man of valour, it is true, but with that cant word of 'duty' continually

on his lips, did he rescue Ney from his butchers? Did he lend a helping

hand to Warner?

In conclusion, the writer would strongly advise those of his

country-folks who may read his book to have nothing to do with the two

kinds of canting nonsense described above, but in their progress through

life to enjoy as well as they can, but always with moderation, the good

things of this world, to put confidence in God, to be as independent as

possible, and to take their own parts. If they are low-spirited, let

them not make themselves foolish by putting on sackcloth, drinking water,

or chewing ashes, but let them take wholesome exercise, and eat the most

generous food they can get, taking up and reading occasionally, not the

lives of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Spira, but something more agreeable;

for example, the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf and

dumb gentleman; the travels of Captain Falconer in America, and the

journal of John Randall, who went to Virginia and married an Indian wife;

not forgetting, amidst their eating and drinking, their walks over

heaths, and by the sea-side, and their agreeable literature, to be

charitable to the poor, to read the Psalms, and to go to church twice on

a Sunday. In their dealings with people to be courteous to everybody, as

Lavengro was, but always independent like him; and if people meddle with

them, to give them as good as they bring, even as he and Isopel Berners

were in the habit of doing; and it will be as well for him to observe

that he by no means advises women to be too womanly, but bearing the

conduct of Isopel Berners in mind, to take their own parts, and if

anybody strikes them, to strike again.

Beating of women by the lords of the creation has become very prevalent

in England since pugilism has been discountenanced. Now the writer

strongly advises any woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him

again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in

these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with

tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is

dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a

woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of

possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid

Isopel, she were as diminutive in stature, and had a hand as delicate and

a foot as small as a certain royal lady, who was some time ago assaulted

by a fellow upwards of six feet high, whom the writer has no doubt she

could have beaten had she thought proper to go at him. Such is the

deliberate advice of the author to his countrymen and women--advice in

which he believes there is nothing unscriptural or repugnant to

common-sense.

The writer is perfectly well aware that, by the plain language which he

has used in speaking of the various kinds of nonsense prevalent in

England, he shall make himself a multitude of enemies; but he is not

going to conceal the truth, or to tamper with nonsense, from the fear of

provoking hostility. He has a duty to perform, and he will perform it

resolutely; he is the person who carried the Bible to Spain; and as

resolutely as he spoke in Spain against the superstitions of Spain, will

he speak in England against the nonsense of his own native land. He is

not one of those who, before they sit down to write a book, say to

themselves, What cry shall we take up? what principles shall we advocate?

What principles shall we abuse? Before we put pen to paper we must find

out what cry is the loudest, what principle has the most advocates,

otherwise, after having written our book, we may find ourselves on the

weaker side.

A sailor of the _Bounty_, waked from his sleep by the noise of the

mutiny, lay still in his hammock for some time, quite undecided whether

to take part with the captain or to join the mutineers. 'I must mind

what I do,' said he to himself, 'lest in the end I find myself on the

weaker side.' Finally, on hearing that the mutineers were successful, he

went on deck, and seeing Bligh pinioned to the mast, he put his fist to

his nose, and otherwise insulted him. Now, there are many writers of the

present day whose conduct is very similar to that of the sailor. They

lie listening in their corners till they have ascertained which principle

has most advocates; then presently they make their appearance on the deck

of the world with their book; if truth has been victorious, then has

truth their hurrah! but if truth is pinioned against the mast, then is

their fist thrust against the nose of truth, and their gibe and their

insult spirted in her face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the

strongest party has almost invariably the writer of the present day.

CHAPTER IX--PSEUDO-CRITICS

A certain set of individuals calling themselves critics have attacked

'Lavengro' with much virulence and malice. If what they call criticism

had been founded on truth, the author would have had nothing to say. The

book contains plenty of blemishes, some of them, by-the-by, wilful ones,

as the writer will presently show; not one of these, however, has been

detected and pointed out; but the best passages in the book, indeed,

whatever was calculated to make the book valuable, have been assailed

with abuse and misrepresentation. The duty of the true critic is to play

the part of a leech, and not of a viper. Upon true and upon malignant

criticism there is an excellent fable by the Spaniard Iriarte. The viper

says to the leech, 'Why do people invite your bite, and flee from mine?'

'Because,' says the leech, 'people receive health from my bite, and

poison from yours.' 'There is as much difference,' says the clever

Spaniard, 'between true and malignant criticism as between poison and

medicine.' Certainly a great many meritorious writers have allowed

themselves to be poisoned by malignant criticism; the writer, however, is

not one of those who allow themselves to be poisoned by pseudo-critics;

no! no! he will rather hold them up by their tails, and show the

creatures wriggling, blood and foam streaming from their broken jaws.

First of all, however, he will notice one of their objections. 'The book

isn't true,' say they. Now one of the principal reasons with those that

have attacked 'Lavengro' for their abuse of it is, that it is

particularly true in one instance, namely, that it exposes their own

nonsense, their love of humbug, their slavishness, their dressings, their

goings out, their scraping and bowing to great people; it is the showing

up of 'gentility nonsense' in 'Lavengro' that has been one principal

reason for the raising of the above cry; for in 'Lavengro' is denounced

the besetting folly of the English people, a folly which those who call

themselves guardians of the public taste are far from being above. 'We

can't abide anything that isn't true!' they exclaim. Can't they? Then

why are they so enraptured with any fiction that is adapted to purposes

of humbug, which tends to make them satisfied with their own proceedings,

with their own nonsense, which does not tell them to reform, to become

more alive to their own failings, and less sensitive about the tyrannical

goings on of the masters, and the degraded condition, the sufferings, and

the trials of the serfs, in the star Jupiter? Had 'Lavengro,' instead of

being the work of an independent mind, been written in order to further

any of the thousand and one cants, and species of nonsense prevalent in

England, the author would have heard much less about its not being true,

both from public detractors and private censurers.

'But "Lavengro" pretends to be an autobiography,' {360} say the critics;

and here the writer begs leave to observe, that it would be well for

people who profess to have a regard for truth, not to exhibit in every

assertion which they make a most profligate disregard of it; this

assertion of theirs is a falsehood, and they know it to be a falsehood.

In the preface 'Lavengro' is stated to be a dream; and the writer takes

this opportunity of stating that he never said it was an autobiography,

never authorized any person to say that it was one; and that he has in

innumerable instances declared in public and private, both before and

after the work was published, that it was not what is generally termed an

autobiography; but a set of people who pretend to write criticisms on

books, hating the author for various reasons--amongst others, because,

having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not, in the

year 1843, choose to permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in

London, and especially because he will neither associate with, nor curry

favour with, them who are neither gentlemen nor scholars--attack his book

with abuse and calumny. He is, perhaps, condescending too much when he

takes any notice of such people; as, however, the English public is

wonderfully led by cries and shouts, and generally ready to take part

against any person who is either unwilling or unable to defend himself,

he deems it advisable not to be altogether quiet with those who assail

him. The best way to deal with vipers is to tear out their teeth; and

the best way to deal with pseudo-critics is to deprive them of their

poison-bag, which is easily done by exposing their ignorance. The writer

knew perfectly well the description of people with whom he would have to

do, he therefore very quietly prepared a stratagem, by means of which he

could at any time exhibit them, powerless and helpless in his hand.

Critics, when they review books, ought to have a competent knowledge of

the subjects which those books discuss.

'Lavengro' is a philological book, a poem if you chose to call it so.

Now, what a fine triumph it would have been for those who wished to

vilify the book and its author, provided they could have detected the

latter tripping in his philology--they might have instantly said that he

was an ignorant pretender to philology--they laughed at the idea of his

taking up a viper up by its tail, a trick which hundreds of country

urchins do every September, but they were silent about the really

wonderful part of the book, the philological matter--they thought

philology was his stronghold, and that it would be useless to attack him

there; they of course would give him no credit as a philologist, for

anything like fair treatment towards him was not to be expected at their

hands, but they were afraid to attack his philology--yet that was the

point, and the only point, in which they might have attacked him

successfully; he was vulnerable there. How was this? Why, in order to

have an opportunity of holding up pseudo-critics by the tails, he

wilfully spelt various foreign words wrong--Welsh words, and even Italian

words--did they detect these mis-spellings? Not one of them, even as he

knew they would not, and he now taunts them with ignorance; and the power

of taunting them with ignorance is the punishment which he designed for

them--a power which they might, but for their ignorance, have used

against him. The writer, besides knowing something of Italian and Welsh,

knows a little of Armenian language and literature; but who, knowing

anything of the Armenian language, unless he had an end in view, would

say that the word for sea in Armenian is anything like the word tide in

English? The word for sea in Armenian is dzow, a word connected with the

Tebetian word for water, and the Chinese shuy, and the Turkish su,

signifying the same thing; but where is the resemblance between dzow and

tide? Again, the word for bread in ancient Armenian is hats; yet the

Armenian on London Bridge is made to say zhats, which is not the

nominative of the Armenian noun for bread, but the accusative. Now,

critics, ravening against a man because he is a gentleman and a scholar,

and has not only the power but also the courage to write original works,

why did not you discover that weak point? Why, because you were

ignorant; so here ye are held up! Moreover, who with a name commencing

with Z, ever wrote fables in Armenian? There are two writers of fables

in Armenian--Varthan and Koscht, and illustrious writers they are, one in

the simple and the other in the ornate style of Armenian composition, but

neither of their names begins with a Z. Oh, what a precious opportunity

ye lost, ye ravening crew, of convicting the poor, half-starved,

friendless boy of the book, of ignorance or misrepresentation, by asking

who with a name beginning with Z ever wrote fables in Armenian; but ye

couldn't help yourselves, ye are duncie. We duncie! Ay, duncie. So

here ye are held up by the tails, blood and foam streaming from your

jaws.

The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this, Messieurs

les Critiques? Were ye ever served so before? But don't you richly

deserve it? Haven't you been for years past bullying and insulting

everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with everybody whom

ye thought strong? '_We_ approve of this. We disapprove of that. Oh,

this will never do. These are fine lines!' The lines perhaps some

horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so.

To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and

by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But

is it not galling after all?

Ah, but _we_ don't understand Armenian, it cannot be expected that _we_

should understand Armenian, or Welsh, or-- Hey, what's this? The mighty

_we_ not understand Armenian, or Welsh, or-- Then why does the mighty

_we_ pretend to review a book like 'Lavengro'? From the arrogance with

which it continually delivers itself, one would think that the mighty

_we_ is omniscient; that it understands every language; is versed in

every literature; yet the mighty _we_ does not even know the word for

bread in Armenian. It knows bread well enough by name in English, and

frequently bread in England only by its name, but the truth is, that the

mighty _we_, with all its pretension, is in general a very sorry

creature, who, instead of saying nous disons, should rather say nous dis:

Porny in his 'Guerre des Dieux,' very profanely makes the three in one

say, Je faisons; now, Lavengro, who is anything but profane, would

suggest that critics, especially magazine and Sunday newspaper critics,

should commence with nous dis, as the first word would be significant of

the conceit and assumption of the critic, and the second of the extent of

the critic's information. The _we_ says its say, but when fawning

sycophancy or vulgar abuse are taken from that say, what remains? Why a

blank, a void like Ginnungagap.

As the writer, of his own accord, has exposed some of the blemishes of

his book--a task, which a competent critic ought to have done--he will

now point out two or three of its merits, which any critic, not

altogether blinded with ignorance, might have done, or not replete with

gall and envy would have been glad to do. The book has the merit of

communicating a fact connected with physiology, which in all the pages of

the multitude of books was never previously mentioned--the mysterious

practice of touching objects to baffle the evil chance. The miserable

detractor will, of course, instantly begin to rave about such a habit

being common--well and good; but was it ever before described in print,

or all connected with it dissected? He may then vociferate something

about Johnson having touched--the writer cares not whether Johnson--who,

by the by, during the last twenty or thirty years, owing to people having

become ultra Tory mad from reading Scott's novels and the _Quarterly

Review_, has been a mighty favourite, especially with some who were in

the habit of calling him a half-crazy old fool--touched, or whether he

did not; but he asks where did Johnson ever describe the feelings which

induced him to perform the magic touch, even supposing that he did

perform it? Again, the history gives an account of a certain book called

the 'Sleeping Bard,' the most remarkable prose work of the most difficult

language but one, of modern Europe; a book, for a notice of which, he

believes, one might turn over in vain the pages of any review printed in

England, or, indeed, elsewhere. So here are two facts, one literary and

the other physiological, for which any candid critic was bound to thank

the author, even as in 'The Romany Rye' there is a fact connected with

Iro Norman Myth, for the disclosing of which any person who pretends to

have a regard for literature is bound to thank him, namely, that the

mysterious Finn or Fingal of 'Ossian's Poems' is one and the same person

as the Sigurd Fofnisbane of the Edda and the Wilkina, and the Siegfried

Horn of the Lay of the Niebelungs.

The writer might here conclude, and, he believes, most triumphantly; as,

however, he is in the cue for writing, which he seldom is, he will for

his own gratification, and for the sake of others, dropping metaphors

about vipers and serpents, show up in particular two or three sets or

cliques of people, who, he is happy to say, have been particularly

virulent against him and his work, for nothing indeed could have given

him greater mortification than their praise.

In the first place, he wishes to dispose of certain individuals who call

themselves men of wit and fashion--about town--who he is told have abused

his book 'vaustly'--their own word. These people paint their cheeks,

wear white kid gloves, and dabble in literature, or what they conceive to

be literature. For abuse from such people, the writer was prepared.

Does anyone imagine that the writer was not well aware, before he

published his book, that, whenever he gave it to the world, he should be

attacked by every literary coxcomb in England who had influence enough to

procure the insertion of a scurrilous article in a magazine or newspaper!

He has been in Spain, and has seen how invariably the mule attacks the

horse; now why does the mule attack the horse? Why, because the latter

carries about with him that which the envious hermaphrodite does not

possess.

They consider, forsooth, that his book is low--but he is not going to

waste words about them--one or two of whom, he is told, have written very

duncie books about Spain, and are highly enraged with him, because

certain books which he wrote about Spain were not considered duncie. No,

he is not going to waste words upon them, for verily he dislikes their

company, and so he'll pass them by, and proceed to others.

The Scotch Charlie o'er the water people have been very loud in the abuse

of 'Lavengro'--this again might be expected; the sarcasms of the Priest

about the Charlie o'er the water nonsense of course stung them. Oh! it

is one of the claims which 'Lavengro' has to respect, that it is the

first, if not the only work, in which that nonsense is, to a certain

extent, exposed. Two or three of their remarks on passages of 'Lavengro'

he will reproduce and laugh at. Of course your Charlie o'er the water

people are genteel exceedingly, and cannot abide anything low. Gypsyism

they think is particularly low, and the use of gypsy words in literature

beneath its gentility; so they object to gypsy words being used in

'Lavengro' where gypsies are introduced speaking. 'What is Romany

forsooth?' say they. Very good! And what is Scotch? Has not the public

been nauseated with Scotch for the last thirty years? 'Ay, but Scotch is

not--' The writer believes he knows much better than the Scotch what

Scotch is, and what it is not; he has told them before what it is, a very

sorry jargon. He will now tell them what it's not--a sister or an

immediate daughter of the Sanscrit, which Romany is. 'Ay, but the Scotch

are'--foxes, foxes, nothing else than foxes, even like the gypsies--the

difference between the gypsy and Scotch fox being that the first is wild,

with a mighty brush, the other a sneak, with a gilt collar and without a

tail.

A Charlie o'er the water person attempts to be witty because the writer

has said that perhaps a certain old Edinburgh high-school porter, of the

name of Boee, was perhaps of the same blood as a certain Bui, a Northern

Kemp, who distinguished himself at the battle of Horinger Bay. A pretty

matter, forsooth, to excite the ridicule of a Scotchman! Why, is there a

beggar or trumpery fellow in Scotland who does not pretend to be

somebody, or related to somebody? Is not every Scotchman descended from

some king, kemp, or cow-stealer of old, by his own account at least?

Why, the writer would even go so far as to bet a trifle that the poor

creature who ridicules Boee's supposed ancestry has one of his own, at

least, as grand and as apocryphal as old Boee's of the high school.

The same Charlie o'er the water person is mightily indignant that

Lavengro should have spoken disrespectfully of William Wallace; Lavengro,

when he speaks of that personage, being a child of about ten years old,

and repeating merely what he had heard. All the Scotch, by-the-by, for a

great many years past, have been great admirers of William Wallace,

particularly the Charlie o'er the water people, who in their

nonsense-verses about Charlie generally contrive to bring in the name of

William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace. The writer begs leave to say that he

by no means wishes to bear hard against William Wallace, but he cannot

help asking why, if William, Willie, or Wullie Wallace was such a

particularly nice person, did his brother Scots betray him to a certain

renowned southern warrior, called Edward Longshanks, who caused him to be

hanged and cut into four in London, and his quarters to be placed over

the gates of certain towns? They got gold, it is true, and titles, very

nice things no doubt; but surely the life of a patriot is better than all

the gold and titles in the world--at least, Lavengro thinks so; but

Lavengro has lived more with gypsies than Scotchmen, and gypsies do not

betray their brothers. It would be some time before a gypsy would hand

over his brother to the harum-beck, {365} even supposing you would not

only make him a king, but a justice of the peace, and not only give him

the world, but the best farm on the Holkham estate; but gypsies are wild

foxes, and there is certainly a wonderful difference between the way of

thinking of the wild fox who retains his brush, and that of the scurvy

kennel creature who has lost his tail.

Ah! but thousands of Scotch, and particularly the Charlie o'er the water

people, will say: 'We didn't sell Willie Wallace; it was our forbears who

sold Willie Wallace. . . . If Edward Longshanks had asked us to sell

Wullie Wallace we would soon have shown him that--' Lord better ye, ye

poor trumpery set of creatures, ye would not have acted a bit better than

your forefathers; remember how ye have ever treated the few amongst ye

who, though born in the kennel, have shown something of the spirit of the

wood. Many of ye are still alive who delivered over men, quite as honest

and patriotic as William Wallace, into the hands of an English minister,

to be chained and transported for merely venturing to speak and write in

the cause of humanity, at the time when Europe was beginning to fling off

the chains imposed by kings and priests. And it is not so very long

since Burns, to whom ye are now building up obelisks rather higher than

he deserves, was permitted by his countrymen to die in poverty and misery

because he would not join with them in songs of adulation to kings and

the trumpery great. So say not that ye would have acted with respect to

William Wallace one whit better than your fathers; and you in particular,

ye children of Charlie, whom do ye write nonsense-verses about? A family

of dastard despots, who did their best, during a century and more, to

tread out the few sparks of independent feeling still glowing in

Scotland; but enough has been said about ye.

Amongst those who have been prodigal in abuse and defamation of

'Lavengro' have been your modern Radicals, and particularly a set of

people who filled the country with noise against the King and Queen,

Wellington and the Tories, in '32. About these people the writer will

presently have occasion to say a good deal, and also of real Radicals.

As, however, it may be supposed that he is one of those who delight to

play the sycophant to kings and queens, to curry favour with Tories, and

to bepraise Wellington, he begs leave to state that such is not the case.

About kings and queens he has nothing to say; about Tories simply that he

believes them to be a bad set; about Wellington, however, it will be

necessary for him to say a good deal of mixed import, as he will

subsequently frequently have occasion to mention him in connection with

what he has to say about pseudo-Radicals.

CHAPTER X--PSEUDO-RADICALS

About Wellington, then, he says, that he believes him at the present day

to be infinitely overrated. But there certainly was a time when he was

shamefully underrated. Now what time was that? Why, the time of

pseudo-Radicalism, par excellence, from '20 to '32. Oh! the abuse that

was heaped on Wellington by those who traded in Radical cant--your

newspaper editors and review writers! and how he was sneered at then by

your Whigs, and how faintly supported he was by your Tories, who were

half ashamed of him; for your Tories, though capital fellows as

followers, when you want nobody to back you, are the faintest creatures

in the world when you cry in your agony, 'Come and help me!' Oh!

assuredly Wellington was infamously used at that time, especially by your

traders in Radicalism, who howled at and hooted him; said he had every

vice--was no general--was beaten at Waterloo--was a poltroon--moreover a

poor illiterate creature, who could scarcely read or write; nay, a

principal Radical paper said bodily he could not read, and devised an

ingenious plan for teaching Wellington how to read. Now this was too

bad; and the writer, being a lover of justice, frequently spoke up for

Wellington, saying, that as for vice, he was not worse than his

neighbours; that he was brave; that he won the fight at Waterloo, from a

half-dead man, it is true, but that he did win it. Also, that he

believed he had read 'Rules for the Manual and Platoon Exercises' to some

purpose; moreover, that he was sure he could write, for that he the

writer had once written to Wellington, and had received an answer from

him; nay, the writer once went so far as to strike a blow for Wellington;

for the last time he used his fists was upon a Radical sub-editor, who

was mobbing Wellington in the street, from behind a rank of grimy

fellows; but though the writer spoke up for Wellington to a certain

extent when he was shamefully underrated, and once struck a blow for him

when he was about being hustled, he is not going to join in the loathsome

sycophantic nonsense which it has been the fashion to use with respect to

Wellington these last twenty years. Now what have those years been to

England? Why the years of ultra-gentility, everybody in England having

gone gentility mad during the last twenty years, and no people more so

than your pseudo-Radicals. Wellington was turned out, and your Whigs and

Radicals got in, and then commenced the period of ultra-gentility in

England. The Whigs and Radicals only hated Wellington as long as the

patronage of the country was in his hands, none of which they were

tolerably sure he would bestow on them; but no sooner did they get it

into their own, than they forthwith became admirers of Wellington. And

why? Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by foreign princes,

and a very genteel personage. Formerly many of your Whigs and Radicals

had scarcely a decent coat on their backs; but now the plunder of the

country was at their disposal, and they had as good a chance of being

genteel as any people. So they were willing to worship Wellington

because he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of the

country out of their hands. And Wellington has been worshipped, and

prettily so, during the last fifteen or twenty years. He is now a noble

fine-hearted creature; the greatest general the world ever produced; the

bravest of men; and--and--mercy upon us! the greatest of military

writers! Now the present writer will not join in such sycophancy. As he

was not afraid to take the part of Wellington when he was scurvily used

by all parties, and when it was dangerous to take his part, so he is not

afraid to speak the naked truth about Wellington in these days, when it

is dangerous to say anything about him but what is sycophantically

laudatory. He said, in '32, that as to vice, Wellington was not worse

than his neighbours; but he is not going to say, in '54, that Wellington

was a noble-hearted fellow; for he believes that a more cold-hearted

individual never existed. His conduct to Warner, the poor Vaudois, and

Marshal Ney, showed that. He said, in '32, that he was a good general

and a brave man; but he is not going, in '54, to say that he was the best

general, or the bravest man the world ever saw. England has produced a

better general--France two or three--both countries many braver men. The

son of the Norfolk clergyman was a braver man; Marshal Ney was a braver

man. Oh, that Battle of Copenhagen! Oh, that covering the retreat of

the Grand Army! And though he said in '32 that he could write, he is not

going to say in '54 that he is the best of all military writers. On the

contrary, he does not hesitate to say that any Commentary of Julius

Caesar, or any chapter in Justinus, more especially the one about the

Parthians, is worth the ten volumes of Wellington's Despatches; though he

has no doubt that, by saying so, he shall especially rouse the

indignation of a certain newspaper, at present one of the most genteel

journals imaginable--with a slight tendency to Liberalism, it is true,

but perfectly genteel--which is nevertheless the very one which, in '32,

swore bodily that Wellington could neither read nor write, and devised an

ingenious plan for teaching him how to read.

Now, after the above statement no one will venture to say, if the writer

should be disposed to bear hard upon Radicals, that he would be

influenced by a desire to pay court to princes, or to curry favour with

Tories, or from being a blind admirer of the Duke of Wellington; but the

writer is not going to declaim against Radicals, that is, real

Republicans, or their principles; upon the whole, he is something of an

admirer of both. The writer has always had as much admiration for

everything that is real and honest as he has had contempt for the

opposite. Now, real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, a much

finer thing than Toryism, a system of common robbery, which is,

nevertheless, far better than Whiggism {368}--a compound of petty

larceny, popular instruction, and receiving of stolen goods. Yes, real

Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, and your real Radicals and

Republicans are certainly very fine fellows, or rather were fine fellows,

for the Lord only knows where to find them at the present day--the writer

does not. If he did he would at any time go five miles to invite one of

them to dinner, even supposing that he had to go to a workhouse in order

to find the person he wished to invite. Amongst the real Radicals of

England, those who flourished from the year '16 to '20, there were

certainly extraordinary characters, men partially insane, perhaps, but

honest and brave--they did not make a market of the principles which they

professed, and never intended to do so; they believed in them, and were

willing to risk their lives in endeavouring to carry them out. The

writer wishes to speak in particular of two of these men, both of whom

perished on the scaffold--their names were Thistlewood and Ings. {369}

Thistlewood, the best known of them, was a brave soldier, and had served

with distinction as an officer in the French service; he was one of the

excellent swordsmen of Europe; had fought several duels in France, where

it is no child's play to fight a duel; but had never unsheathed his sword

for single combat, but in defence of the feeble and insulted. He was

kind and open-hearted, but of too great simplicity; he had once ten

thousand pounds left him, all of which he lent to a friend, who

disappeared and never returned him a penny. Ings was an uneducated man,

of very low stature, but amazing strength and resolution; he was a kind

husband and father, and though a humble butcher, the name he bore was one

of the royal names of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. These two men, along

with five others, were executed, and their heads hacked off, for levying

war against George the Fourth; the whole seven dying in a manner which

extorted cheers from the populace; the most of them uttering

philosophical or patriotic sayings. Thistlewood, who was, perhaps, the

most calm and collected of all, just before he was turned off, said: 'We

are now going to discover the great secret.' Ings, the moment before he

was choked, was singing 'Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled.' Now, there was

no humbug about those men, nor about many more of the same time and of

the same principles. They might be deluded about Republicanism, as

Algernon Sidney was, and as Brutus was, but they were as honest and brave

as either Brutus or Sidney, and as willing to die for their principles.

But the Radicals who succeeded them were beings of a very different

description; they jobbed and traded in Republicanism, and either parted

with it, or at the present day are eager to part with it for a

consideration. In order to get the Whigs into power, and themselves

places, they brought the country by their inflammatory language to the

verge of a revolution, and were the cause that many perished on the

scaffold; by their incendiary harangues and newspaper articles they

caused the Bristol conflagration, for which six poor creatures were

executed; they encouraged the mob to pillage, pull down and burn, and

then rushing into garrets looked on. Thistlewood tells the mob the Tower

is a second Bastile; let it be pulled down. A mob tries to pull down the

Tower; but Thistlewood is at the head of that mob; he is not peeping from

a garret on Tower Hill like Gulliver at Lisbon. Thistlewood and Ings say

to twenty ragged individuals, Liverpool and Castlereagh are two

satellites of despotism; it would be highly desirable to put them out of

the way. And a certain number of ragged individuals are surprised in a

stable in Cato Street, making preparations to put Castlereagh and

Liverpool out of the way, and are fired upon with muskets by Grenadiers,

and are hacked at with cutlasses by Bow Street runners; but the twain who

encouraged those ragged individuals to meet in Cato Street are not far

off, they are not on the other side of the river, in the Borough, for

example, in some garret or obscure cellar. The very first to confront

the Guards and runners are Thistlewood and Ings; Thistlewood whips his

long thin rapier through Smithers' lungs, and Ings makes a dash at

Fitzclarence with his butcher's knife. Oh, there was something in those

fellows!--honesty and courage!--but can as much be said for the inciters

of the troubles of '32. No; they egged on poor ignorant mechanics and

rustics, and got them hanged for pulling down and burning, whilst the

highest pitch to which their own daring ever mounted was to mob

Wellington as he passed in the streets.

Now, these people were humbugs, which Thistlewood and Ings were not.

They raved and foamed against kings, queens, Wellington, the aristocracy,

and what not, till they had got the Whigs into power, with whom they were

in secret alliance, and with whom they afterwards openly joined in a

system of robbery and corruption, more flagitious than the old Tory one,

because there was more cant about it; for themselves they got

consulships, commissionerships, and in some instances governments; for

their sons clerkships in public offices; and there you may see those sons

with the never-failing badge of the low scoundrel-puppy, the gilt chain

at the waistcoat pocket; and there you may hear and see them using the

languishing tones, and employing the airs and graces which wenches use

and employ who, without being in the family way, wish to make their

keepers believe that they are in the family way. Assuredly great is the

cleverness of your Radicals of '32, in providing for themselves and their

families. Yet, clever as they are, there is one thing they cannot

do--they get governments for themselves, commissionerships for their

brothers, clerkships for their sons, but there is one thing beyond their

craft--they cannot get husbands for their daughters, who, too ugly for

marriage, and with their heads filled with the nonsense they have imbibed

from gentility novels, go over from Socinus to the Pope, becoming sisters

in fusty convents, or having heard a few sermons in Mr. Platitude's

'chapelle,' seek for admission at the establishment of mother S---, who,

after employing them for a time in various menial offices, and making

them pluck off their eyebrows hair by hair, generally dismisses them on

the plea of sluttishness; whereupon they return to their papas to eat the

bread of the country, with the comfortable prospect of eating it still in

the shape of a pension after their sires are dead. Papa (ex uno disce

omnes) living as quietly as he can; not exactly enviably it is true,

being now and then seen to cast an uneasy and furtive glance behind, even

as an animal is wont who has lost by some mischance a very sightly

appendage; as quietly however as he can, and as dignifiedly, a great

admirer of every genteel thing and genteel personage, the Duke in

particular, whose 'Despatches,' bound in red morocco, you will find on

his table. A disliker of coarse expressions and extremes of every kind,

with a perfect horror for revolutions and attempts to revolutionize,

exclaiming now and then, as a shriek escapes from whipped and bleeding

Hungary, a groan from gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from

down-trodden but scowling Italy, 'Confound the revolutionary canaille,

why can't it be quiet!' In a word, putting one in mind of the parvenu in

the 'Walpurgis Nacht.' The writer is no admirer of Gothe, but the idea

of that parvenu was certainly a good one. Yes, putting one in mind of

the individual who says:

'Wir waren wahrlich auch nicht dumm,

Und thaten oft was wir nicht sollten;

Doch jetzo kehrt sich alles um und um,

Und eben da wir's fest erhalten wollten.'

('We were no fools, as every one discern'd,

And stopp'd at nought our projects in fulfilling;

But now the world seems topsy-turvy turn'd,

To keep it quiet just when we were willing.')

Now, this class of individuals entertain a mortal hatred for 'Lavengro'

and its writer, and never lose an opportunity of vituperating both. It

is true that such hatred is by no means surprising. There is certainly a

great deal of difference between Lavengro and their own sons; the one

thinking of independence and philology, whilst he is clinking away at

kettles, and hammering horse-shoes in dingles; the others stuck up at

public offices with gilt chains at their waistcoat-pockets, and giving

themselves the airs and graces of females of a certain description. And

there certainly _is_ a great deal of difference between the author of

'Lavengro' and themselves--he retaining his principles and his brush;

they with scarlet breeches on, it is true, but without their

republicanism and their tails. Oh, the writer can well afford to be

vituperated by your pseudo-Radicals of '32!

Some time ago the writer was set upon by an old Radical {371} and his

wife; but the matter is too rich not to require a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER XI--THE OLD RADICAL

'This very dirty man, with his very dirty face,

Would do any dirty act, which would get him a place.'

Some time ago the writer was set upon by an old Radical and his wife; but

before he relates the manner in which they set upon him, it will be as

well to enter upon a few particulars tending to elucidate their reasons

for doing so.

The writer had just entered into his eighteenth year, when he met at the

table of a certain Anglo-Germanist {372a} an individual apparently

somewhat under thirty, of middle stature, a thin and weaselly figure, a

sallow complexion, a certain obliquity of vision, and a large pair of

spectacles. This person, who had lately come from abroad, and had

published a volume of translations, {372b} had attracted some slight

notice in the literary world, and was looked upon as a kind of lion in a

small provincial capital. After dinner he argued a great deal, spoke

vehemently against the Church, and uttered the most desperate Radicalism

that was perhaps ever heard, saying he hoped that in a short time there

would not be a king or queen in Europe, and inveighing bitterly against

the English aristocracy, and against the Duke of Wellington in

particular, whom he said, if he himself was ever president of an English

republic--an event which he seemed to think by no means improbable--he

would hang for certain infamous acts of profligacy and bloodshed which he

had perpetrated in Spain. Being informed that the writer was something

of a philologist, to which character the individual in question laid

great pretensions, he came and sat down by him, and talked about

languages and literature. The writer, who was only a boy, was a little

frightened at first, but, not wishing to appear a child of absolute

ignorance, he summoned what little learning he had, and began to blunder

out something about the Celtic languages and their literature, and asked

the Lion who he conceived Finn Ma Coul to be? and whether he did not

consider the 'Ode to the Fox,' by Red Rhys of Eryry, to be a masterpiece

of pleasantry? Receiving no answer to these questions from the Lion,

who, singular enough, would frequently, when the writer put a question to

him, look across the table and flatly contradict some one who was talking

to some other person, the writer dropped the Celtic languages and

literature, and asked him whether he did not think it a funny thing that

Temugin, generally called Genghis Khan, should have married the daughter

of Prester John? {373} The Lion, after giving a side-glance at the

writer through his left spectacle glass, seemed about to reply, but was

unfortunately prevented, being seized with an irresistible impulse to

contradict a respectable doctor of medicine, who was engaged in

conversation with the master of the house at the upper and further end of

the table, the writer being a poor ignorant lad, sitting, of course, at

the bottom. The doctor, who had served in the Peninsula, having observed

that Ferdinand the Seventh was not quite so bad as had been represented,

the Lion vociferated that he was ten times worse, and that he hoped to

see him and the Duke of Wellington hanged together. The doctor who,

being a Welshman, was somewhat of a warm temper, growing rather red, said

that at any rate he had been informed that Ferdinand the Seventh knew

sometimes how to behave himself like a gentleman. This brought on a long

dispute, which terminated rather abruptly. The Lion having observed that

the doctor must not talk about Spanish matters with one who had visited

every part of Spain, the doctor bowed, and said that he was right, for

that he believed no people in general possessed such accurate information

about countries as those who had travelled them as bagmen. On the Lion

asking the doctor what he meant, the Welshman, whose under jaw began to

move violently, replied that he meant what he said. Here the matter

ended, for the Lion, turning from him, looked at the writer. The writer,

imagining that his own conversation hitherto had been too trivial and

commonplace for the Lion to consider it worth his while to take much

notice of it, determined to assume a little higher ground, and after

repeating a few verses of the Koran, and gabbling a little Arabic, asked

the Lion what he considered to be the difference between the Hegira and

the Christian era, adding that he thought the general computation was in

error by about one year; and being a particularly modest person, chiefly

he believes owing to his having been at school in Ireland, absolutely

blushed at finding that the Lion returned not a word in answer. 'What a

wonderful individual I am seated by,' thought he, 'to whom Arabic seems a

vulgar speech, and a question about the Hegira not worthy of an answer!'

not reflecting that as lions come from the Saharra, they have quite

enough of Arabic at home, and that the question about the Hegira was

rather mal a propos to one used to prey on the flesh of hadjis. 'Now I

only wish he would vouchsafe me a little of his learning,' thought the

boy to himself, and in this wish he was at last gratified, for the Lion,

after asking him whether he was acquainted at all with the Sclavonian

languages, and being informed that he was not, absolutely dumbfoundered

him by a display of Sclavonian erudition.

Years rolled by--the writer was a good deal about, sometimes in London,

sometimes in the country, sometimes abroad; in London he occasionally met

the man of the spectacles, who was always very civil to him, and, indeed,

cultivated his acquaintance. The writer thought it rather odd that,

after he himself had become acquainted with the Sclavonian languages and

literature, the man of the spectacles talked little or nothing about

them. In a little time, however, the matter ceased to cause him the

slightest surprise, for he had discovered a key to the mystery. In the

meantime the man of the spectacles was busy enough; he speculated in

commerce, failed, and paid his creditors twenty pennies in the pound;

published translations, of which the public at length became heartily

tired; having, indeed, got an inkling of the manner in which those

translations were got up. He managed, however, to ride out many a storm,

having one trusty sheet-anchor--Radicalism. This he turned to the best

advantage--writing pamphlets and articles in reviews, all in the Radical

interest, and for which he was paid out of the Radical fund; which

articles and pamphlets, when Toryism seemed to reel on its last legs,

exhibited a slight tendency to Whiggism. Nevertheless, his abhorrence of

desertion of principle was so great in the time of the Duke of

Wellington's administration, that when S--- {374} left the Whigs and went

over, he told the writer, who was about that time engaged with him in a

literary undertaking, that the said S--- was a fellow with a character so

infamous, that any honest man would rather that you should spit in his

face than insult his ears with the mention of the name of S---.

The literary project having come to nothing--in which, by-the-by, the

writer was to have all the labour, and his friend all the credit,

provided any credit should accrue from it--the writer did not see the

latter for some years, during which time considerable political changes

took place; the Tories were driven from, and the Whigs placed in, office,

both events being brought about by the Radicals coalescing with the

Whigs, over whom they possessed great influence for the services which

they had rendered. When the writer next visited his friend he found him

very much altered; his opinions were by no means so exalted as they had

been--he was not disposed even to be rancorous against the Duke of

Wellington, saying that there were worse men than he, and giving him some

credit as a general; a hankering after gentility seeming to pervade the

whole family, father and sons, wife and daughters, all of whom talked

about genteel diversions--gentility novels, and even seemed to look with

favour on high Churchism, having in former years, to all appearance, been

bigoted Dissenters. In a little time the writer went abroad, as, indeed,

did his friend; not, however, like the writer, at his own expense, but at

that of the country--the Whigs having given him a travelling appointment,

which he held for some years, during which he is said to have received

upwards of twelve thousand pounds of the money of the country, for

services which will, perhaps, be found inscribed on certain tablets when

another Astolfo shall visit the moon. This appointment, however, he lost

on the Tories resuming power--when the writer found him almost as radical

and patriotic as ever, just engaged in trying to get into Parliament,

into which he got by the assistance of his Radical friends, who, in

conjunction with the Whigs, were just getting up a crusade against the

Tories, which they intended should be a conclusive one.

A little time after the publication of 'The Bible in Spain,' the Tories

being still in power, this individual, full of the most disinterested

friendship for the author, was particularly anxious that he should be

presented with an official situation in a certain region a great many

miles off. 'You are the only person for that appointment,' said he; 'you

understand a great deal about the country, and are better acquainted with

the two languages spoken there than anyone in England. Now, I love my

country, and have, moreover, a great regard for you, and as I am in

Parliament, and have frequent opportunities of speaking to the Ministry,

I shall take care to tell them how desirable it would be to secure your

services. It is true they are Tories, but I think that even Tories would

give up their habitual love of jobbery in a case like yours, and for once

show themselves disposed to be honest men and gentlemen; indeed, I have

no doubt they will, for having so deservedly an infamous character, they

would be glad to get themselves a little credit by a presentation which

could not possibly be traced to jobbery or favouritism.' The writer

begged his friend to give himself no trouble about the matter, as he was

not desirous of the appointment, being in tolerably easy circumstances,

and willing to take some rest after a life of labour. All, however, that

he could say was of no use, his friend indignantly observing that the

matter ought to be taken entirely out of his hands, and the appointment

thrust upon him for the credit of the country. 'But may not many people

be far more worthy of the appointment than myself?' said the writer.

'Where?' said the friendly Radical. 'If you don't get it it will be made

a job of, given to the son of some steward, or, perhaps, to some quack

who has done dirty work. I tell you what, I shall ask it for you, in

spite of you; I shall, indeed!' and his eyes flashed with friendly and

patriotic fervour through the large pair of spectacles which he wore.

And, in fact, it would appear that the honest and friendly patriot put

his threat into execution. 'I have spoken,' said he, 'more than once to

this and that individual in Parliament, and everybody seems to think that

the appointment should be given to you. Nay, that you should be forced

to accept it. I intend next to speak to Lord A---.' {376a} And so he

did, at least, it would appear so. On the writer calling upon him one

evening, about a week afterwards, in order to take leave of him, as the

writer was about to take a long journey for the sake of his health, his

friend no sooner saw him than he started up in a violent fit of

agitation, and glancing about the room, in which there were several

people, amongst others two Whig members of Parliament, said: 'I am glad

you are come, I was just speaking about you. This,' said he, addressing

the two members, 'is so-and-so, the author of so-and-so, the well-known

philologist; as I was telling you, I spoke to Lord A--- this day about

him, and said that he ought forthwith to have the head appointment in

---; {376b} and what did the fellow say? Why, that there was no

necessity for such an appointment at all, and if there were, why--And

then he hummed and ha'd. Yes,' said he, looking at the writer, 'he did,

indeed. What a scandal! what an infamy! But I see how it will be, it

will be a job. The place will be given to some son of a steward or to

some quack, as I said before. Oh, these Tories! Well, if this does not

make one--' Here he stopped short, crunched his teeth, and looked the

image of desperation.

Seeing the poor man in this distressed condition, the writer begged him

to be comforted, and not to take the matter so much to heart; but the

indignant Radical took the matter very much to heart, and refused all

comfort whatsoever, bouncing about the room, and, whilst his spectacles

flashed in the light of four spermaceti candles, exclaiming, 'It will be

a job--a Tory job! I see it all, I see it all, I see it all!'

And a job it proved, and a very pretty job, but no Tory job. Shortly

afterwards the Tories were out, and the Whigs were in. From that time

the writer heard not a word about the injustice done to the country in

not presenting him with the appointment to ---; the Radical, however, was

busy enough to obtain the appointment, not for the writer, but for

himself, and eventually succeeded, partly through Radical influence, and

partly through that of a certain Whig lord, for whom the Radical had

done, on a particular occasion, work of a particular kind. So, though

the place was given to a quack, and the whole affair a very pretty job,

it was one in which the Tories had certainly no hand.

In the meanwhile, however, the friendly Radical did not drop the writer.

Oh, no! On various occasions he obtained from the writer all the

information he could about the country in question, and was particularly

anxious to obtain from the writer, and eventually did obtain, a copy of a

work {376c} written in the court language of that country, edited by the

writer--a language exceedingly difficult, which the writer, at the

expense of a considerable portion of his eyesight, had acquired, at least

as far as by the eyesight it could be acquired. What use the writer's

friend made of the knowledge he had gained from him, and what use he made

of the book, the writer can only guess; but he has little doubt that when

the question of sending a person to --- was mooted in a Parliamentary

Committee--which it was at the instigation of the Radical supporters of

the writer's friend--the Radical, on being examined about the country,

gave the information which he had obtained from the writer as his own,

and flashed the book and its singular characters in the eyes of the

Committee; and then, of course, his Radical friends would instantly say,

'This is the man! there is no one like him. See what information he

possesses; and see that book written by himself in the court language of

Serendib. This is the only man to send there. What a glory, what a

triumph it would be to Britain, to send out a man so deeply versed in the

mysterious lore of ---, as our illustrious countryman--a person who with

his knowledge could beat with their own weapons the wise men of ---! Is

such an opportunity to be lost? Oh, no! surely not! If it is it will be

an eternal disgrace to England, and the world will see that Whigs are no

better than Tories.'

Let no one think the writer uncharitable in these suppositions. The

writer is only too well acquainted with the antecedents of the

individual, to entertain much doubt that he would shrink from any such

conduct, provided he thought that his temporal interest would be

forwarded by it. The writer is aware of more than one instance in which

he has passed off the literature of friendless young men for his own,

after making them a slight pecuniary compensation, and deforming what was

originally excellent by interpolations of his own. This was his especial

practice with regard to translation, of which he would fain be esteemed

the king. This Radical literato is slightly acquainted with four or five

of the easier dialects of Europe, on the strength of which knowledge he

would fain pass for a universal linguist, publishing translations of

pieces originally written in various difficult languages; which

translations, however, were either made by himself from literal

renderings done for him into French or German, or had been made from the

originals into English, by friendless young men, and then deformed by his

alterations.

Well, the Radical got the appointment, and the writer certainly did not

grudge it him. He, of course, was aware that his friend had behaved in a

very base manner towards him, but he bore him no ill-will, and invariably

when he heard him spoken against, which was frequently the case, took his

part when no other person would; indeed, he could well afford to bear him

no ill-will. He had never sought for the appointment, nor wished for it,

nor, indeed, ever believed himself qualified for it. He was conscious,

it is true, that he was not altogether unacquainted with the language and

literature of the country with which the appointment was connected. He

was likewise aware that he was not altogether deficient in courage and in

propriety of behaviour. He knew 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 who has lost his tail; yet he never

believed himself adapted for the appointment, being aware that he had no

aptitude for the doing of dirty work, if called to do it, nor pliancy

which would enable him to submit to scurvy treatment, whether he did

dirty work or not--requisites, at the time of which he is speaking,

indispensable in every British official; requisites, by-the-by, which his

friend, the Radical, possessed in a high degree; but though he bore no

ill-will towards his friend, his friend bore anything but good-will

towards him; for from the moment that he had obtained the appointment for

himself, his mind was filled with the most bitter malignity against the

writer, and naturally enough; for no one ever yet behaved in a base

manner towards another, without forthwith conceiving a mortal hatred

against him. You wrong another, know yourself to have acted basely, and

are enraged, not against yourself--for no one hates himself--but against

the innocent cause of your baseness; reasoning very plausibly, 'But for

that fellow, I should never have been base; for had he not existed I

could not have been so, at any rate against him;' and this hatred is all

the more bitter, when you reflect that you have been needlessly base.

Whilst the Tories are in power the writer's friend, of his own accord,

raves against the Tories because they do not give the writer a certain

appointment, and makes, or says he makes, desperate exertions to make

them do so; but no sooner are the Tories out, with whom he has no

influence, and the Whigs in, with whom he, or rather his party, has

influence, than he gets the place for himself, though, according to his

own expressed opinion--an opinion with which the writer does not, and

never did, concur--the writer was the only person competent to hold it.

Now had he, without saying a word to the writer, or about the writer with

respect to the employment, got the place for himself when he had an

opportunity, knowing, as he very well knew, himself to be utterly

unqualified for it, the transaction, though a piece of jobbery, would not

have merited the title of a base transaction; as the matter stands,

however, who can avoid calling the whole affair not only a piece

of--come, come, out with the word--scoundrelism on the part of the

writer's friend, but a most curious piece of uncalled-for scoundrelism?

and who, with any knowledge of fallen human nature, can wonder at the

writer's friend entertaining towards him a considerable portion of gall

and malignity!

This feeling on the part of the writer's friend was wonderfully increased

by the appearance of Lavengro, many passages of which the Radical in his

foreign appointment applied to himself and family--one or two of his

children having gone over to Popery, the rest become members of Mr.

Platitude's chapel, and the minds of all being filled with ultra notions

of gentility.

The writer, hearing that his old friend had returned to England, to

apply, he believes, for an increase of salary, and for a title, called

upon him, unwillingly, it is true, for he had no wish to see a person for

whom, though he bore him no ill-will, he could not avoid feeling a

considerable portion of contempt, the truth is, that his sole object in

calling was to endeavour to get back a piece of literary property which

his friend had obtained from him many years previously, and which, though

he had frequently applied for it, he never could get back. Well, the

writer called; he did not get his property, which, indeed, he had

scarcely time to press for, being almost instantly attacked by his good

friend and his wife--yes, it was then that the author was set upon by an

old Radical and his wife--the wife, who looked the very image of shame

and malignity, did not say much, it is true, but encouraged her husband

in all he said. Both of their own accord introduced the subject of

'Lavengro.' The Radical called the writer a grumbler, just as if there

had ever been a greater grumbler than himself until, by the means above

described, he had obtained a place: he said that the book contained a

melancholy view of human nature--just as if anybody could look in his

face without having a melancholy view of human nature. On the writer

quietly observing that the book contained an exposition of his

principles, the pseudo-Radical replied, that he cared nothing for his

principles--which was probably true, it not being likely that he would

care for another person's principles after having shown so thorough a

disregard for his own. The writer said that the book, of course, would

give offence to humbugs; the Radical then demanded whether he thought him

a humbug?--the wretched wife was the Radical's protection, even as he

knew she would be; it was on her account that the writer did not kick his

good friend; as it was, he looked at him in the face and thought to

himself, 'How is it possible I should think you a humbug, when only last

night I was taking your part in a company in which everybody called you a

humbug?'

The Radical, probably observing something in the writer's eye which he

did not like, became all on a sudden abjectly submissive, and, professing

the highest admiration for the writer, begged him to visit him in his

government; this the writer promised faithfully to do, and he takes the

present opportunity of performing his promise.

This is one of the pseudo-Radical calumniators of 'Lavengro' and its

author; were the writer on his death-bed he would lay his hand on his

heart and say, that he does not believe that there is one trait of

exaggeration in the portrait which he has drawn. This is one of the

pseudo-Radical calumniators of 'Lavengro' and its author; and this is one

of the genus, who, after having railed against jobbery for perhaps a

quarter of a century, at present batten on large official salaries which

they do not earn. England is a great country, and her interests require

that she should have many a well-paid official both at home and abroad;

but will England long continue a great country if the care of her

interests both at home and abroad, is in many instances entrusted to

beings like him described above, whose only recommendation for an

official appointment was that he was deeply versed in the secrets of his

party and of the Whigs?

Before he concludes, the writer will take the liberty of saying of

'Lavengro' that it is a book written for the express purpose of

inculcating virtue, love of country, learning, manly pursuits, and

genuine religion, for example, that of the Church of England, and for

awakening a contempt for nonsense of every kind, and a hatred for

priestcraft, more especially that of Rome.

And in conclusion, with respect to many passages of his book, in which he

has expressed himself in terms neither measured nor mealy, he will beg

leave to observe, in the words of a great poet, who lived a profligate

life it is true, but who died a sincere penitent--thanks, after God, to

good Bishop Burnet--

'All this with indignation I have hurl'd

At the pretending part of this proud world,

Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise

False freedoms, formal cheats, and holy lies,

Over their fellow fools to tyrannize.'

ROCHESTER.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD

Footnotes:

{0a} 'Lavengro,' i. 265.

{0b} _Ibid._, i. 340.

{0c} His 'Celebrated Trials' was published March 19, 1825.

{0d} Accounts of this fight, extracted from the _Times _and _Morning

Herald_, are given in Hone's 'Every Day Book,' vol. i., 1826.

{0e} References to the attempts of the authorities to suppress this fair

will be found in the _Times _of Tuesday, May 24, 1825, and a description

of the fair of 1825 is given in Hone's 'Every Day Book' of the following

year (1826).

{0f} Borrow says '_two _or _three _days passed by in much the same

manner as the first.' Since one of these days was Sunday, the latter

seems the more probable; but if only two days passed, then Borrow must

have left London one day later--_i.e._, Wednesday, May 25, 1825.

{0g} The fair-town lay, therefore, to the east of Willenhall.

{0h} For these astronomical calculations I am indebted to my colleague,

Mr. W. E. Plummer, of the Liverpool Observatory.

{0i} 'Life of Borrow,' i. 104.

{0j} His calculation, for instance, gives one day too many at Salisbury,

and places the poison episode and the Sunday with the preacher, which

were two consecutive days, on the 8th and 12th respectively!

{0k} This is the date given in Knapp's 'Life of Borrow,' and also as a

page heading in his edition of 'Lavengro,' p. 289. But in a note to his

edition of 'The Romany Rye,' p. 385, he says that the fair was 'on

Easter-Monday' (April 3).

{0l} Thorpe's 'Environs of London,' p. 48.

{0m} See chapter xxiv.

{0n} 'Life of Borrow,' i. 103. 'There were _Sells _at Norwich; their

great artist was John Sell Cotman.' And there have been _Sells

_elsewhere--_nomen omen_! to borrow one of Mr. Groome's favourite

quotations.

{0o} 'The Romany Rye,' Appendix, chapter ix.

{0p} _Ibid._, Appendix, chapter ii. 'He eats his own bread, and is one

of the very few men in England who are independent in every sense of the

word.'

{0q} It looks as if he met Jasper by appointment at the Welsh border.

But extraordinary rencontres are commonplace in Borrow's career. He

meets the Apple-woman's Armenian customer and restores his purse, he

meets Ardrey as he is leaving London, and later at the inn on the Great

North Road, where he also meets the Man in Black, Mr. Platitude, and the

Postillion. He meets the Apple-woman's son after leaving Salisbury, and

six days later meets Slingsby, whom he had met as a boy at Tamworth. He

meets Mrs. Herne--or, rather, she meets him--in the Shropshire dingle; he

meets his Irish friend Murtagh at Horncastle, at the same fair; and in

the person of Jack Dale, he meets the pseudo-Quaker's son, who many years

ago had robbed the old Chinese scholar from whom Borrow had just parted.

{0r} Christmas Day.

{0s} Irishman.

{0t} Guineas.

{0u} Borrow had accompanied the preacher and his wife to the Welsh

border, where he meets Mr. Petulengro and _turns back._

{0v} 'Lavengro,' ii. 262.

{0w} _Ibid._, ii. 263.

{0x} _Ibid._, ii. 264.

{0y} _Ibid._, chapter x.

{0z} 'The Romany Rye,' chapter xii.

{0z1} Lavengro, ii. 281.

{0z2} 'Lavengro,' ed. Knapp, notes, p. 567. '"Mumpers' Dingle," near

Willenhall, Staffordshire. The place is properly Momber or Monmer Lane,

and is now occupied by the "Monmer Lane Ironworks," hence totally

obliterated.'

{0z3} 'Lavengro,' ii. 249.

{0z4} See the 'Gypsy List' appended to Knapp's ed. of 'The Romany Rye.'

{0z5} 'Wild Wales,' iii. 352.

{0z6} 'Lavengro' was published February 7, 1851.

{5a} 'The earthern jugs out of which the people of Norfolk drink are

called gotches.'--WRIGHT: 'Provincial Dict.'

{5b} Barberini.

{6a} By Gregorio Leti, 2 v., 12o, 1667.

{6b} Clement XIV., d. 1774.

{21} L'Alcoran des Cordeliers: c'est a dire Recueil des plus notables

bourdes et blasphemes de ceux qui ont ose comparer Sainct Francois a

Jesus Christ; tire du grand livre des conformitez, iadis compose par

frere Barthelemi de Pise.--12o, Geneve, 1578.

{23} The British and Foreign Bible Society. Borrow acted as the

Society's agent in Russia and Spain, 1833-1839.

{26a} Rome.

{26b} Sir Thomas Dereham, d. 1739.

{27} 'Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence,

from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825.' 6 vols., 8o, published

March 19, 1825.

{29a} _I.e._ Petulengro, the gypsy word for 'smith.'

{29b} In the autograph MS. 'Ambrose' is written throughout (Kn.).

{29c} Correctly _kekaviako saster_, 'kettle-prop.'

{30a} It should be 'blanket.'

{30b} Plenty of gypsies.

{31a} Correct.

{31b} 'Gentlemen and ladies.'

{31c} Let it be.

{32} Jade.

{33} Borrow is fond of using 'Roman' and 'Roumanian' in the sense of

'Romany'; but no gypsy ever does so.

{34a} Knapp quotes from Borrow's MSS. the rest of this ditty:

'Sore the chavies 'dre their ten

Are chories and lubbenies--tatchipen.'

The song may be translated:

There's a wizard and witch of evil fame,

And Petulengro it is their name;

Within their tent each lass and youth

Is a wanton or thief--I tell you truth.

{34b} Tent.

{36a} See 'Lavengro,' i. 158, note.

{36b} Lady.

{36c} His real name seems to have been Anselo Herne. See p. 72.

{36d} Brother.

{38} The girl she is black. See p. 182, note.

{39a} See Introduction.

{39b} _Ibid._

{40} Better _gaujo_, 'gentile.'

{41} Smiths.

{43a} Only used by gypsies in the phrase 'Romani chal.'

{43b} According to Knapp, this song was built up from a slender prose

draft, three separate versions of it occurring in his MSS.

{44a} 'People.' Not Anglo Romani. The English gypsies use the loan

word _foki_.

{44b} Better _trupos_.

{44c} Better _raati_.

{44d} For _hotcher_, 'to burn,' but the right word for 'roast' is _pek_.

{44e} _Boshimengro_, fiddler.

{44f} _Tarni juvel_, 'young woman.'

{45a} The apothecary.

{45b} Lit., entrail.

{46a} The best of Borrow's songs, here or elsewhere. Knapp gives no

account of it, but the Romani is evidently Borrow's own, and does not

admit of our taking it for a modernization of a genuine old gypsy song.

Imitating the uncouth lilt of the original, this piece may be translated:

Said the gipsy girl to her mother dear,

'O mother dear, a sad load I bear.'

'And who gave thee that load to bear,

My gypsy girl, my own daughter dear?'

'O mother dear, 'twas a lord so proud,

A lord so rich of gentile blood,

That on a mettled stallion rode--

'Twas he gave me this heavy load.'

'Thou harlot young, thou harlot vile,

Begone! my tent no more defile;

Had gypsy seed within thee sprung,

No angry word had left my tongue,

But thou art a harlot base and lewd,

To stain thyself with gentile blood!'

{46b} Pronounced _chy_, 'girl.'

{46c} Better _kabni_, 'enceinte.'

{46d} 'What,' incorrectly for _kon_, 'who.'

{46e} Better _barvalo_, 'rich.'

{46f} Lit., 'what's,' incorrectly for _te_, 'that.'

{46g} Read _kister'd_, 'rode.'

{46h} Better _jal_, 'go.'

{46i} Better _avri_, 'out.'

{46j} Pronounced _chee_, 'nothing.'

{46k} Read _gorjiko_.

{47a} Incorrectly for _baulay_, 'pigs.'

{47b} Better _balovas_, 'pigmeat.'

{48} Lit., 'sweet bee.'

{49} 'Tell their fortunes,' but no gypsy would say anything except

_dukker lende_.

{50} Jasper's real name. See p. 29 note.

{51a} King.

{51b} Book.

{52} See Introduction.

{54a} East Dereham.

{54b} Better _krallis_, 'king.'

{57} See Introduction.

{59a} 'Cuckooing,' a made-up word.

{59b} Fortune-telling.

{59c} Authorship.

{61a} Ghost (Borrovian Gy.).

{61b} See 'Lavengro,' i. 139.

{62a} Lady.

{62b} _Cf._ 'King Lear,' II. iv. 56:

'O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!

Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,

Thy elements below!'

{63} Gypsy girls.

{64} 'My God's book,' the Bible.

{65a} Steal.

{65b} Better _hokker_, 'lie.'

{66} Harlot.

{67} God.

{68a} Kiss.

{68b} Uncles.

{69} Father (Spanish Gy.); the true word is _dad_.

{70} Law (Spanish Gy.).

{71a} Enceinte.

{71b} Uncles and brothers.

{71c} Tent.

{72} Generally speaking, there is no purer gypsy clan than the Hernes.

{73a} Read 'Boswell.'

{73b} See pp. 261-264.

{73c} Fighting-man.

{74a} Hill-town, _i.e._, Norfolk.

{74b} July 17, 1820. See 'Lavengro,' chap. xxvi.

{75} Lovell.

{77a} Better _pokonyes_, 'justice of the peace.'

{77b} Bow Street runners--Gy. _prastermengre_.

{77c} Better _patrin_; the use of this word in the proper sense of

'leaf' is not so rare among English gypsies.

{81} Gypsies nowadays are generally married in church. They like the

pomp.

{84} Simpson, member of the firm of Simpson and Rackham, Norwich, where

Borrow served his articles.

{87} See pp. 88, 147, 164, and Introduction; 'Lavengro,' ii. 44, _et

seq._

{89} Good.

{97} 'Dictionarium novum Latino-Armenium.' Fo., Romae, 1714.

{101} Borrow quotes this sentence, with an added expletive, in his

'Romano Lavo-Lil,' p. 110.

{108} Borrow places these words on the title-page of the present book.

{109} A right-handed blow. See 'Lavengro,' ii. 289.

{116} Rather late for an Easter vestry meeting!

{119} Properly _sar_ '_shan_, 'how art thou?'

{120} By God (Borrovian Romani).

{138a} Wordsworth's.

{138b} 'The Excursion.'

{141} The Swan Hotel at Stafford. In 'Lavengro,' ii. 386, the inn is

described as upwards of thirty miles distant from the dingle, on the

great North road.

{146} Louis Jeremiah Abershaw, hanged on Kennington Common, August 3,

1795. The Bald-faced Stag near Kingston was his headquarters.

{147a} See Introduction.

{147b} See Camden Pelham's 'Life and Adventures of Galloping Dick.'

Philadelphia, 1863.

{148} See p. 27, note.

{149} Gaol (cant).

{152} _I.e._, highwayman.

{161} John Broughton, pugilist (1705-1789).

{162a} April 11, 1750.

{162b} At Broughton's funeral Johnson and Big Ben acted as his

pall-bearers, with Humphries, Mendoza, Ward, and Ryan.

{163a} His real name was Francis Arden (Kn.).

{163b} Liverpool.

{164} Chester.

{165} See 'Lavengro,' i. 399; ii. 57.

{166} See Introduction.

{168} Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawah, Borrow's old school-fellow at

Norwich (1816-1818).

{182a} Probably meant for 'gypsydom,' but properly old cant for

'London.' Rome is here Shelta, or Gaelic back-slang for _mor_, 'great.'

{182b} 'The girl she is black,

She lies on her back.'

which looks like a translation of some English ditty.

{183} Sham sailors (old cant).

{189} Fair, straightforward (dialect).

{199} See after, in the jockey's tale, p. 252.

{224} See Introduction.

{226a} Donkey-boy.

{226b} Transported.

{231} See Introduction.

{245} A witch hag. See Ralston's 'Russian Folk tales,' pp. 137, 399.

{250a} In Hungarian gypsy, properly _gulo rai_, 'sweet sir.'

{250b} German cant.

{252} The English rogue described in 'The Life of Meriton Latroon,' a

witty extravagant [by Richard Head], 4 vols. London, 1665-80.

{264} Mistress (cant).

{271} _I.e._, mathematics.

{279} John Thurtell, Borrow's old Norwich crony, 1817-20, hanged at

Hertford, January 9, 1824, for the murder of William Weare.

{280} Hertford.

{281a} July 17, 1820, at North Walsham, Norfolk. See 'Lavengro.'

{281b} _Cf._ the lines from a song which Borrow may have heard in

Ireland:

'And by this time to-morrow you'll see

Your Larry will be dead as mutton.

All for what? 'Caze his courage was good!'

{288a} Thimble-rigger.

{288b} Greenwich fair. See Introduction and 'Lavengro,' vol. ii., p.

22.

{291} Borrow really heard this tale in Cornwall, from the guide Cronan,

in January, 1854.

{296} Tipperary.

{303a} Civita Vecchia.

{303b} The Duke d'Angouleme.

{311a} South.

{311b} Boston.

{311c} Spalding.

{313} We first hear of this Appendix in a letter to Murray, dated Nov.

11, 1852, in which Borrow expresses his intention of 'adding some notes'

to the present work. The result is this extraordinary 'Malebolgia,' as

Professor Knapp terms it, into which Borrow has thrust all those who had

incurred his ill-will, even for the most trivial of reasons. His enmity

with Rome dates from his Spanish experiences as colporteur of the Bible

Society in 1838 and 1839. 'Mr. Flamson' is placed in the pillory,

because he had offended Borrow by carrying a railway line through his

Oulton grounds; and Scott, apparently for no better reason than his

neglect to acknowledge a presentation copy of the 'Romantic Ballads.'

The 'Lord-Lieutenant' experiences Borrow's resentment because he did not

see his way to making 'Lavengro' a magistrate; and the 'Old Radical' is

gibbeted because he obtained an official position which Borrow desired

for himself.

{314a} Twenty. George Borrow was born July, 1803, and his father died

February, 1824.

{314b} Borrovian for 'gypsydom.'

{321a} 'Canning (1827),' (Kn.).

{321b} _Ibid._

{321c} 'Viscount Goderich' (Kn.).

{322} Little Father (Russian).

{323} The full text and translation of this pointless little song are

given in the 'Romano Lavo-lil,' pp. 200, 201.

{326} This was written in 1854. (G.B.)

{327} An obscene oath. (G.B.)

{328} See 'Muses' Library,' pp. 86, 87. London, 1738 (G. B.).

Reprinted from the original edition in the Early English Text Society

(1870).

{329} Genteel with them seems to be synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo;

if so, the manner in which it has been applied for ages ceases to

surprise, for genteel is heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold,

glittering armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and lust, should

always be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls the

Baron genteel:

'La furent li gentil Baron,' etc.

And he certainly could not have applied the word better than to the

strong Norman thief, aimed cap-a-pie, without one particle of ruth or

generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility, that is heathenism,

should have no such feelings; and, indeed, the admirers of gentility

seldom or never associate any such feelings with it. It was from the

Norman, the worst of all robbers and miscreants, who built strong

castles, garrisoned them with devils, and tore out poor wretches' eyes,

as the Saxon Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word

genteel. What could ever have made the English such admirers of

gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during three hundred years,

they suffered enough by it. Their genteel Norman landlords were their

scourgers, their torturers, the plunderers of their homes, the

dishonourers of their wives, and the deflowerers of their daughters.

Perhaps, after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for

gentility. (G.B.)

{330} Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-89), M.P. for Norwich, 1847-54.

{331} Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as

genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the

ideas which enlightened minds associate with these words. Gentle and

gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is

glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody can

be genteel. (G.B.)

{332} A favourite figure of Carlyle's, but both he and Borrow took the

_mot_ from a report of Thurtell's trial: Q. 'What do you mean by

respectable?' A. 'He kept a gig.'

{337} Perry. (Kn.)

{340} _Gorgiko_, 'gentile,' used here as a nickname.

{348} The writer has been checked in print by the Scotch with being a

Norfolk man. Surely, surely, these latter times have not been exactly

the ones in which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of

any county in England with the place of their birth, more especially

those who have had the honour of being born in Norfolk--times in which

British fleets, commanded by Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything

but laurels from foreign shores. It would have been well for Britain had

she had the old Norfolk man to dispatch to the Baltic or the Black Sea,

lately, instead of Scotch admirals. (G. B.)

{355} The 'whiffler' was the official sword-flourisher of the

Corporation.

{357a} Tom Cribb (1781-1848), champion pugilist.

{357b} Thomas Winter (1795-1851), pugilist.

{360} See Introduction.

{365} _Harman-beck_, 'constable' (old cant); modern slang, _beak_.

{368} As the present work will come out in the midst of a vehement

political contest, people may be led to suppose that the above was

written expressly for the time. The writer, therefore, begs to state

that it was written in the year 1854. He cannot help adding that he is

neither Whig, Tory, nor Radical, and cares not a straw what party governs

England, provided it is governed well. But he has no hopes of good

government from the Whigs. It is true that amongst them there is one

very great man, Lord Palmerston, who is indeed the sword and buckler, the

chariots and the horses of the party; but it is impossible for his

lordship to govern well with such colleagues as he has--colleagues which

have been forced upon him by family influence, and who are continually

pestering him into measures anything but conducive to the country's

honour and interest. If Palmerston would govern well, he must get rid of

them; but from that step, with all his courage and all his greatness, he

will shrink. Yet how proper and easy a step it would be! He could

easily get better, but scarcely worse, associates. They appear to have

one object in view, and only one--jobbery. It was chiefly owing to a

most flagitious piece of jobbery, which one of his lordship's principal

colleagues sanctioned and promoted, that his lordship experienced his

late parliamentary disasters (G. B.).

{369} The Cato Street conspirators, a reminiscence of Borrow's

'Celebrated Trials.'

{371} Sir John Bowring.

{372a} William Taylor of Norwich.

{372b} 'Specimens of the Russian Poets,' translated by John Bowring.

12mo., London, 1821.

{373} A fact (G. B.).

{374} Southey.

{376a} Aberdeen.

{376b} China.

{376c} Manchu New Testament.