A WANDERING CHILDHOOD
We do not need to inquire too deeply as to Borrow's possible gypsy
origin in order to account for his vagabond propensities. The lives of
his parents before his birth, and the story of his own boyhood,
sufficiently account for the dominant tendency in Borrow. His father and
mother were married in 1793. Almost every year they changed their
domicile. In 1801 a son was born to them--they still continued to change
their domicile. Captain Borrow followed his regiment from place to
place, and his family accompanied him on these journeys. Dover,
Colchester, Sandgate, Canterbury, Chelmsford--these are some of the
towns where the Borrows sojourned. It was the merest accident--the Peace
of Amiens, to be explicit--that led them back to East Dereham in 1803,
so that the second son was born in his grandfather's house. George was
only a month old when he was carried off to Colchester; in 1804 he was
in the barracks of Kent, in 1805 of Sussex, in 1806 at Hastings, in 1807
at Canterbury, and so on. The indefatigable Dr. Knapp has recorded every
detail for all who love the minute, the meticulous, in biography. The
whole of the first thirteen years of Borrow's life is filled up in this
way, until in 1816 he and his parents found a home of some permanence in
Norwich. In 1809-10 they were at East Dereham, in 1810-11 at Norman
Cross, in 1812 wandering from Harwich to Sheffield, and in 1813
wandering from Sheffield to Edinburgh; in 1814 they were in Norwich, and
in 1815-16 in Ireland. In this last year they returned to Norwich, the
father to retire on full pay, and to live in Willow Lane until his
death. How could a boy, whose first twelve years of life had been made
up of such continual wandering, have been other than a restless,
nomad-loving man, envious of the free life of the gypsies, for whom
alone in later life he seemed to have kindliness? Those twelve years are
to most boys merely the making of a moral foundation for good or ill; to
Borrow they were everything, and at least four personalities captured
his imagination during that short span, as we see if we follow his
juvenile wanderings more in detail to Dereham, Norman Cross, Edinburgh,
and Clonmel, and the personalities are Lady Fenn, Ambrose Smith, David
Haggart, and Murtagh. Let us deal with each in turn:
A. EAST DEREHAM AND LADY FENN.--In our opening chapter we referred to
the lines in _Lavengro_, where Borrow recalls his early impressions of
his native town, or at least the town in the neighbourhood of the hamlet
in which he was born. Borrow, we may be sure, would have repudiated
'Dumpling Green' if he could. The name had a humorous suggestion. To
this day they call boys from Norfolk 'Norfolk Dumplings' in the
neighbouring shires. But East Dereham was something to be proud of. In
it had died the writer who, through the greater part of Borrow's life,
remained the favourite poet of that half of England which professed the
Evangelical creed in which Borrow was brought up. Cowper was buried here
by the side of Mary Unwin, and every Sunday little George would see his
tomb just as Henry Kingsley was wont to see the tombs in Chelsea Old
Church. The fervour of devotion to Cowper's memory that obtained in
those early days must have been a stimulus to the boy, who from the
first had ambitions far beyond anything that he was to achieve. Here was
his first lesson. The second came from Lady Fenn--a more vivid
impression for the child. Twenty years before Borrow was born Cowper had
sung her merits in his verse. She and her golden-headed cane are
commemorated in _Lavengro_. Dame Eleanor Fenn had made a reputation in
her time. As 'Mrs. Teachwell' and 'Mrs. Lovechild' she had published
books for the young of a most improving character, _The Child's
Grammar_, _The Mother's Grammar_, _A Short History of Insects_, and
_Cobwebs to Catch Flies_ being of the number. The forty-fourth edition
of _The Child's Grammar_ by Mrs. Lovechild appeared in 1851, and the
twenty-second edition of _The Mother's Grammar_ in 1849. But it is her
husband that her name most recalls to us. Sir John Fenn gave us the
delightful Paston Letters--of which Horace Walpole said that 'they make
all other letters not worth reading.' Walpole described 'Mr. Fenn of
East Dereham in Norfolk' as 'a smatterer in antiquity, but a very good
sort of man.' Fenn, who held the original documents of the Letters, sent
his first two volumes, when published, to Buckingham Palace, and the
King acknowledged the gifts by knighting the editor, who, however, died
in 1794, before George Borrow was born. His widow survived until 1813,
and Borrow was in his seventh or eighth year when he caught these
notable glimpses of his 'Lady Bountiful,' who lived in 'the
half-aristocratic mansion' of the town. But we know next to nothing of
Borrow in East Dereham, from which indeed he departed in his eighth
year. There are, however, interesting references to his memories of the
place in _Lavengro_. The first is where he recalls to his author friend,
who had offered him comet wine of 1811, his recollection of gazing at
the comet from the market-place of 'pretty D----' in 1811.[23] The
second reference is when he goes to church with the gypsies and dreams
of an incident in his childhood:
It appeared as if I had fallen asleep in the pew of the old
church of pretty Dereham. I had occasionally done so when a
child, and had suddenly woke up. Yes, surely, I had been asleep
and had woke up; but no! if I had been asleep I had been waking
in my sleep, struggling, striving, learning and unlearning in
my sleep. Years had rolled away whilst I had been asleep--ripe
fruit had fallen, green fruit had come on whilst I had been
asleep--how circumstances had altered, and above all myself
whilst I had been asleep. No, I had not been asleep in the old
church! I was in a pew, it is true, but not the pew of black
leather in which I sometimes fell asleep in days of yore, but
in a strange pew; and then my companions, they were no longer
those of days of yore. I was no longer with my respectable
father and mother, and my dear brother, but with the gypsy cral
and his wife, and the gigantic Tawno, the Antinous of the dusky
people. And what was I myself? No longer an innocent child but
a moody man, bearing in my face, as I knew well, the marks of
my strivings and strugglings; of what I had learnt and
unlearnt.
But Borrow, as I have said, left Dereham in his eighth year, and the
author of a _History of East Dereham_ thus accounts for several
inaccuracies in his memory, both as to persons and things.
B. NORMAN CROSS AND AMBROSE SMITH.--In _Lavengro_ Borrow recalls
childish memories of Canterbury and of Hythe, at which latter place he
saw the church vault filled with ancient skulls as we may see it there
to-day. And after that the book which impressed itself most vividly upon
his memory was _Robinson Crusoe_. How much he came to revere Defoe the
pages of _Lavengro_ most eloquently reveal to us. 'Hail to thee, spirit
of Defoe! What does not my own poor self owe to thee?' In 1810-11 his
father was in the barracks at Norman Cross in Huntingdonshire. Here the
Government had bought a large tract of land, and built upon it a huge
wooden prison, and overlooking this a substantial barrack also of wood,
the only brick building on the land being the house of the Commandant.
The great building was destined for the soldiers taken prisoners in the
French wars. The place was constructed to hold 5000 prisoners, and 500
men were employed by the War Office in 1808 upon its construction. The
first batch of prisoners were the victims of the battle of Vimeiro in
that year. Borrow's description of the hardships of the prisoners has
been called in question by a later writer, Arthur Brown,[24] who denies
the story of bad food and 'straw-plait hunts,' and charges Borrow with
recklessness of statement. 'What could have been the matter with the man
to write such stuff as this?' asks Brown in reference to Borrow's story
of bad meat and bad bread: which was not treating a great author with
quite sufficient reverence. Borrow was but recalling memories of
childhood, a period when one swallow does make a summer. He had
doubtless seen examples of what he described, although it may not have
been the normal condition of things. Brown's own description of the
Norman Cross prison was interwoven with a love romance, in which a
French officer fell in love with a girl of the neighbouring village of
Yaxley, and after Waterloo returned to England and married her. When he
wrote his story a very old man was still living at Yaxley, who
remembered, as a boy, having often seen the prisoners on the road, some
very well dressed, some in tatters, a few in uniform. The milestone is
still pointed out which marked the limit beyond which the
officer-prisoners might not walk. The buildings were destroyed in 1814,
when all the prisoners were sent home, and the house of the Commandant,
now a private residence, alone remains to recall this episode in our
history. But Borrow's most vivid memory of Norman Cross was connected
with the viper given to him by an old man, who had rendered it harmless
by removing the fangs. It was the possession of this tame viper that
enabled the child of eight--this was Borrow's age at the time--to
impress the gypsies that he met soon afterwards, and particularly the
boy Ambrose Smith, whom Borrow introduced to the world in _Lavengro_ as
Jasper Petulengro. Borrow's frequent meetings with Petulengro[25] are no
doubt many of them mythical. He was an imaginative writer, and Dr.
Knapp's worst banality is to suggest that he 'invented nothing.' But
Petulengro was a very real person, who lived the usual roving gypsy
life. There is no reason to assume otherwise than that Borrow did
actually meet him at Norman Cross when he was eight years old, and
Ambrose a year younger, and not thirteen as Borrow states. In the
original manuscript of _Lavengro_ in my possession, as in the copy of it
in Mrs. Borrow's handwriting that came into the possession of Dr. Knapp,
'Ambrose' is given instead of 'Jasper,' and the name was altered as an
afterthought. It is of course possible that Borrow did not actually meet
Jasper until his arrival in Norwich, for in the first half of the
nineteenth century various gypsy families were in the habit of
assembling their carts and staking their tents on the heights above
Norwich, known as Mousehold Heath, that glorious tract of country that
has been rendered memorable in history by the tragic life of Kett the
tanner, and has been immortalised in painting by Turner and Crome. Here
were assembled the Smiths and Hernes and Boswells, names familiar to
every student of gypsy lore. Jasper Petulengro, as Borrow calls him, or
Ambrose Smith, to give him his real name, was the son of F[=a]den Smith,
and his name of Ambrose was derived from his uncle, Ambrose Smith, who
was transported for stealing harness. Ambrose was twice married, and it
was his second wife, Sanspirella Herne, who comes into the Borrow story.
He had families by both his wives. Ambrose had an extraordinary varied
career. It will be remembered by readers of the _Zincali_ that when he
visited Borrow at Oulton in 1842 he complained that 'There is no living
for the poor people, brother, the chokengres (police) pursue us from
place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly
that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the wayside, and
ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon.' After a time Ambrose
left the eastern counties and crossed to Ireland. In 1868 he went to
Scotland, and there seems to have revived his fortunes. In 1878 he and
his family were encamped at Knockenhair Park, about a mile from Dunbar.
Here Queen Victoria, who was staying at Broxmouth Park near by with the
Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, became interested in the gypsies, and paid
them a visit.[26] This was in the summer of 1878. Ambrose was then a
very old man. He died in the following October. His wife, Sanspi or
Sanspirella, received a message of sympathy from the Queen. Very shortly
after Ambrose's death, however, most of the family went off to America,
where doubtless they are now scattered, many of them, it may be, leading
successful lives, utterly oblivious of the association of one of their
ancestors with Borrow and his great book. Ambrose Smith was buried in
Dunbar cemetery, the Christian service being read over his grave, and
his friends erected a stone to him which bears the following
inscription, the hymn not being very accurately rendered:
In Memory of
AMBROSE SMITH, who died 22nd
October 1878, aged 74 years.
Also
THOMAS, his son,
who died 28th May 1879, aged 48 years.
'Nearer my Father's House,
Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the Great White Throne,
Nearer the Jasper Sea.
'Nearer the bound of life
Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the Cross,
Nearer gaining the Crown.
'Feel thee near me when my feet
Are slipping over the brink;
For it may be I'm nearer home,
Nearer now than I think.'[27]
In December 1912 a London newspaper contained an account of a gypsy
meeting at which Jasper Petulengro was present. Not only was this
obviously impossible, but no relative of Ambrose Smith is apparently
alive in England who could by any chance have justified the imposition.
I have said that it is probable that Borrow did not meet Jasper or
Ambrose until later days in Norwich. I assume this as possible because
Borrow misstates the age of his boy friend in _Lavengro_. Ambrose was
actually a year younger than Borrow, whereas when George was eight years
of age he represents Ambrose as 'a lad of some twelve or thirteen
years,' and he keeps up this illusion on more than one later occasion.
However, we may take it as almost certain that Borrow received his first
impression of the gypsies in these early days at Norman Cross.
C. EDINBURGH AND DAVID HAGGART.--Three years separated the sojourn of
the Borrow family at Norman Cross from their sojourn in Edinburgh--three
years of continuous wandering. The West Norfolk Militia were watching
the French prisoners at Norman Cross for fifteen months. After that we
have glimpses of them at Colchester, at East Dereham again, at Harwich,
at Leicester, at Huddersfield, concerning which place Borrow
incidentally in _Wild Wales_ writes of having been at school, in
Sheffield, in Berwick-on-Tweed, and finally the family are in Edinburgh,
where they arrive on 6th April 1813. We have already referred to
Borrow's presence at the High School of Edinburgh, the school sanctified
by association with Walter Scott and so many of his illustrious
fellow-countrymen. He and his brother were at the High School for a
single session, that is, for the winter session of 1813-14, although
with the licence of a maker of fiction he claimed, in _Lavengro_, to
have been there for two years. But it is not in this brief period of
schooling of a boy of ten that we find the strongest influence that
Edinburgh gave to Borrow. Rather may we seek it in the acquaintanceship
with the once too notorious David Haggart. Seven years later than this
all the peoples of the three kingdoms were discussing David Haggart, the
Scots Jack Sheppard, the clever young prison-breaker, who was hanged at
Edinburgh in 1821 for killing his jailer in Dumfries prison. How much
David Haggart filled the imagination of every one who could read in the
early years of last century is demonstrated by a reference to the
Library Catalogue of the British Museum, where we find pamphlet after
pamphlet, broadsheet after broadsheet, treating of the adventures,
trial, and execution of this youthful jailbird. Even George Combe, the
phrenologist, most famous in his day, sat in judgment upon the young man
while he was in prison, and published a pamphlet which made a great
impression upon prison reformers. Combe submitted his observations to
Haggart in jail, and told the prisoner indeed that he had a greater
development of the organs of benevolence and justice than he had
anticipated. There cannot be a doubt but that Combe started in a
measure, through his treatment of this case, the theory that many of our
methods of punishment led to the making of habitual criminals.[28] But
by far the most valuable publication with regard to Haggart is one that
Borrow must have read in his youth. This was a life of Haggart written
by himself,[29] a little book that had a wide circulation, and
containing a preface by George Robertson, Writer to the Signet, dated
Edinburgh, 20th July 1821. Mr. Robertson tells us that a portion of the
story was written by Haggart, and the remainder taken down from his
dictation. The profits of this book, Haggart arranged, were to go in
part to the school of the jail in which he was confined, and part to be
devoted to the welfare of his younger brothers and sister. From this
little biography we learn that Haggart was born in Golden Acre, near
Canon-Mills, in the county of Edinburgh in 1801, his father, John
Haggart, being a gamekeeper, and in later years a dog-trainer. The boy
was at school under Mr. Robin Gibson at Canon-Mills for two years. He
left school at ten years of age, and from that time until his execution
seems to have had a continuous career of thieving. He tells us that
before he was eleven years old he had stolen a bantam cock from a woman
belonging to the New Town of Edinburgh. He went with another boy to
Currie, six miles from Edinburgh, and there stole a pony, but this was
afterwards returned. When but twelve years of age he attended Leith
races, and it was here that he enlisted in the Norfolk Militia, then
stationed in Edinburgh Castle. This may very well have brought him into
contact with Borrow in the way described in _Lavengro_. He was only,
however, in the regiment for a year, for when it was sent back to
England the Colonel in command of it obtained young Haggart's discharge.
These dates coincide with Borrow's presence in Edinburgh. Haggart's
history for the next five or six years was in truth merely that of a
wandering pickpocket, sometimes in Scotland, sometimes in England, and
finally he became a notorious burglar. Incidentally he refers to a girl
with whom he was in love. Her name was Mary Hill She belonged to
Ecclefechan, which Haggart more than once visited. He must therefore
have known Carlyle, who had not then left his native village. In 1820 we
find him in Edinburgh, carrying on the same sort of depredations both
there and at Leith--now he steals a silk plaid, now a greatcoat, and now
a silver teapot. These thefts, of course, landed him in jail, out of
which he breaks rather dramatically, fleeing with a companion to Kelso.
He had, indeed, more than one experience of jail. Finally, we find him
in the prison of Dumfries destined to stand his trial for 'one act of
house-breaking, eleven cases of theft, and one of prison-breaking.'
While in prison at Dumfries he planned another escape, and in the
attempt to hit a jailer named Morrin on the head with a stone he
unexpectedly killed him. His escape from Dumfries jail after this
murder, and his later wanderings, are the most dramatic part of his
book. He fled through Carlisle to Newcastle, and then thought that he
would be safer if he returned to Scotland, where he found the rewards
that were offered for his arrest faced him wherever he went. He turned
up again in Edinburgh, where he seems to have gone about freely,
although reading everywhere the notices that a reward of seventy guineas
was offered for his apprehension. Then he fled to Ireland, where he
thought that his safety was assured. At Dromore he was arrested and
brought before the magistrate, but he spoke with an Irish brogue, and
declared that his name was John McColgan, and that he came from Armagh.
He escaped from Dromore jail by jumping through a window, and actually
went so far as to pay three pound ten shillings for his passage to
America, but he was afraid of the sea, and changed his mind, and lost
his passage money at the last moment. After this he made a tour right
through Ireland, in spite of the fact that the Dublin _Hue and Cry_ had
a description of his person which he read more than once. His assurance
was such that in Tullamore he made a pig-driver apologise before the
magistrate for charging him with theft, although he had been living on
nothing else all the time he was in Ireland. Finally, he was captured,
being recognised by a policeman from Edinburgh. He was brought from
Ireland to Dumfries, landed in Calton jail, Edinburgh, and was tried and
executed. In addition to composing this biography Haggart wrote while in
Edinburgh jail a rather long set of verses, of which I give the
following two as specimens (the original autograph is in Lord Cockburn's
copy in the British Museum):
Able and willing, you all will find
Though bound in chains, still free in mind,
For with these things I'll ne'er be grieved
Although of freedom I'm bereaved.
Now for the crime that I'm condemn'd,
The same I never did intend,
Only my liberty to take,
As I thought my life did lie at stake.
D. IRELAND AND MURTAGH.--We may pass over the brief sojourn in Norwich
that was Borrow's lot in 1814, when the West Norfolk Militia left
Scotland. When Napoleon escaped from Elba the West Norfolk Regiment was
despatched to Ireland, and Captain Borrow again took his family with
him. We find the boy with his family at Clonmel from May to December of
1815. Here Borrow's elder brother, now a boy of fifteen, was promoted
from Ensign to Lieutenant, gaining in a year, as Dr. Knapp reminds us, a
position that it had taken his father twelve years to attain. In
January 1816 the Borrows moved to Templemore, returning to England in
May of that year. Borrow, we see, was less than a year in Ireland, and
he was only thirteen years of age when he left the country. But it seems
to have been the greatest influence that guided his career. Three of the
most fascinating chapters in _Lavengro_ were one outcome of that brief
sojourn, a thirst for the acquirement of languages was another, and
perhaps a taste for romancing a third. Borrow never came to have the
least sympathy with the Irish race, or its national aspirations. As the
son of a half-educated soldier he did not come in contact with any but
the vagabond element of Ireland, exactly as his father had done before
him.[30] Captain Borrow was asked on one occasion what language is being
spoken:
'Irish,' said my father with a loud voice, 'and a bad language
it is.... There's one part of London where all the Irish
live--at least the worst of them--and there they hatch their
villainies to speak this tongue.'
And Borrow followed his father's prejudices throughout his life,
although in the one happy year in which he wrote _The Bible in Spain_ he
was able to do justice to the country that had inspired so much of his
work:
Honour to Ireland and her 'hundred thousand welcomes'! Her
fields have long been the greenest in the world; her daughters
the fairest; her sons the bravest and most eloquent. May they
never cease to be so.[31]
In later years Orangemen were to him the only attractive element in the
life of Ireland, and we may be sure that he was not displeased when his
stepdaughter married one of them. Yet the creator of literature works
more wisely than he knows, and Borrow's books have won the wise and
benign appreciation of many an Irish and Roman Catholic reader, whose
nationality and religion Borrow would have anathematised. Irishmen may
forgive Borrow much, because he was one of the first of modern English
writers to take their language seriously.[32] It is true that he had but
the most superficial knowledge of it. He admits--in _Wild Wales_--that
he only knew it 'by ear.' The abundant Irish literature that has been so
diligently studied during the last quarter of a century was a closed
book to Borrow, whose few translations from the Irish have but little
value. Yet the very appreciation of Irish as a language to be seriously
studied in days before Dr. Sigerson, Dr. Douglas Hyde, and Dr. Kuno
Meyer had waxed enthusiastic and practical kindles our gratitude. Then
what a character is Murtagh. We are sure there was a Murtagh, although,
unlike Borrow's other boyish and vagabond friend Haggart, we know
nothing about him but what Borrow has to tell. Yet what a picture is
this where Murtagh wants a pack of cards:
'I say, Murtagh!'
'Yes, Shorsha dear!'
'I have a pack of cards.'
'You don't say so, Shorsha ma vourneen?--you don't say that you
have cards fifty-two?'
'I do, though; and they are quite new--never been once used.'
'And you'll be lending them to me, I warrant?'
'Don't think it!--But I'll sell them to you, joy, if you like.'
'Hanam mon Dioul! am I not after telling you that I have no
money at all?'
'But you have as good as money, to me, at least; and I'll take
it in exchange.'
'What's that, Shorsha dear?'
'Irish!'
'Irish?'
'Yes, you speak Irish; I heard you talking it the other day to
the cripple. You shall teach me Irish.'
'And is it a language-master you'd be making of me?'
'To be sure!--what better can you do?--it would help you to
pass your time at school. You can't learn Greek, so you must
teach Irish!'
Before Christmas, Murtagh was playing at cards with his brother
Denis, and I could speak a considerable quantity of broken
Irish.[33]
With what distrust as we learn again and again in _Lavengro_ did Captain
Borrow follow his son's inclination towards languages, and especially
the Irish language, in his early years, although seeing that he was well
grounded in Latin. Little did the worthy Captain dream that this, and
this alone, was to carry down his name through the ages:
Ah, that Irish! How frequently do circumstances, at first sight
the most trivial and unimportant, exercise a mighty and
permanent influence on our habits and pursuits!--how frequently
is a stream turned aside from its natural course by some little
rock or knoll, causing it to make an abrupt turn! On a wild
road in Ireland I had heard Irish spoken for the first time;
and I was seized with a desire to learn Irish, the acquisition
of which, in my case, became the stepping-stone to other
languages. I had previously learnt Latin, or rather Lilly; but
neither Latin nor Lilly made me a philologist.
Borrow was never a philologist, but this first inclination was to lead
him to Spanish, to Welsh, and above all to Romany, and to make of him
the most beloved traveller and the strangest vagabond in all English
literature.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] This episode, rescued from the manuscript that came into Dr.
Knapp's possession, is only to be found in his _Life of Borrow_. He does
not include it in his edition of _Lavengro_. That Borrow revisited East
Dereham in later manhood we learn from Mr. S. H. Baldrey. See p. 420.
[24] _The French Prisoners of Norman Cross: A Tale_, by the Rev. Arthur
Brown, Rector of Catfield, Norfolk. London: Hodder Brothers, 18 New
Bridge Street, E.C., 1895. Mr. Brown remarks that there were sixteen
casernes, whereas Borrow says in _Lavengro_ that there were five or six.
'They looked,' he says, 'from outside exactly like a vast congeries of
large, high carpenter's shops, with roofs of glaring red tiles, and
surrounded by wooden palisades, very lofty and of prodigious strength.'
[25] The _Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_ teaches me that the name
should be spelt Pétulengro.
[26] See _In Gipsy Tents_ by Francis Hindes Groome, p. 17. The late
Queen herself writes (_More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the
Highlands_, Smith, Elder and Co., 1884, p. 370), under the date Monday,
August 26th: 'At half-past three started with Beatrice, Leopold, and the
Duchess in the landau and four, the Duke, Lady Ely, General Ponsonby,
and Mr. Yorke going in the second carriage, and Lord Haddington riding
the whole way. We drove through the west part of Dunbar, which was very
full, and where we were literally pelted with small nosegays, till the
carriage was full of them; then for some distance past the village of
Belhaven, Knockindale Hill (Knockenhair Park), where were stationed in
their best attire the queen of the gypsies, an oldish woman with a
yellow handkerchief on her head, and a youngish, very dark, and truly
gypsy-like woman in velvet and a red shawl, and another woman. The queen
is a thorough gypsy, with a scarlet cloak and a yellow handkerchief
around her head. Men in red hunting-coats, all very dark, and all
standing on a platform here, bowed and waved their handkerchiefs. George
Smith told Mr. Myers that "the queen" was Sanspirella, that the
"gypsy-like woman in velvet and a red shawl" was Bidi, and the other
woman Delaia. The men were Ambrose, Tommy, and Alfred.'
[27] I am indebted to an admirable article by Thomas William Thompson in
the _Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_, New Series, vol. iii, No, 3,
January 1910, for information concerning the later life of Jasper
Pétulengro.
[28] _Phrenological Observations on the Cerebral Development of David
Haggart, who was lately executed at Edinburgh for murder, and whose life
has since been published._ By George Combe, Esq. Edinburgh: W. and C.
Tait, 1821.
[29] _The Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias John Morison,
alias Barney McCone, alias John McColgan, alias Daniel O'Brien, alias
The Switcher_, written by himself while under sentence of death.
Edinburgh: Printed for W. and C. Tait by James Ballantyne and Co., 1821.
In the British Museum Library there is a copy with an autograph note by
Lord Cockburn on the fly-leaf, which runs as follows:
'This youngster was my client when he was tried and convicted. He was a
great villain. His life is almost all lies, and its chief curiosity
consists in the strange spirit of lying, the indulgence of which formed
his chief pleasure to the very last. The manuscript poem and picture of
himself (bound up at the end of the _Life_) were truly composed and
written by him. Being an enormous miscreant the phrenologists got hold
of him, and made the notorious facts of his character into evidence of
the truth of their system. He affected some decent poetry just before he
was hanged, and therefore the Saints took up his memory and wrote
monodies on him. His piety and the composition of the lies in this book
broke out at the same time. H. C.'
[30] Although Captain Borrow was never as ignorant as one or two of
Borrow's biographers, who call the Irish language 'Erse.'
[31] _The Bible in Spain_, ch. xx.
[32] Dr. Johnson was the first as Borrow was the second to earn this
distinction. Johnson, as reported by Boswell, says:
'_I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated. Ireland
is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety and learning,
and surely it would be very acceptable to all those who are curious on
the origin of nations or the affinities of languages to be further
informed of the evolution of a people so ancient and once so
illustrious. I hope that you will continue to cultivate this kind of
learning which has too long been neglected, and which, if it be suffered
to remain in oblivion for another century, may perhaps never be
retrieved._'
[33] _Lavengro._