GEORGE BORROW'S NORWICH--THE GURNEYS
Norwich may claim to be one of the most fascinating cities in the
kingdom. To-day it is known to the wide world by its canaries and its
mustard, although its most important industry is the boot trade, in
which it employs some eight thousand persons. To the visitor it has many
attractions. The lovely cathedral with its fine Norman arches, the
Erpingham Gate so splendidly Gothic, the noble Castle Keep so imposingly
placed with the cattle-market below--these are all as Borrow saw them
nearly a century ago. So also is the church of St. Peter Mancroft, where
Sir Thomas Browne lies buried. And to the picturesque Mousehold Heath
you may still climb and recall one of the first struggles for liberty
and progress that past ages have seen, the Norfolk rising under Robert
Kett which has only not been glorified in song and in picture, because--
Treason doth never prosper--what's the reason?
Why if it prosper none dare call it treason.
And Kett's so-called rebellion was destined to failure, and its leader
to cruel martyrdom. Mousehold Heath has been made the subject of
paintings by Turner and Crome, and of fine word pictures by George
Borrow. When Borrow and his parents lighted upon Norwich in 1814 and
1816 the city had inspiring literary associations. Before the invention
of railways it seemed not uncommon for a fine intellectual life to
emanate from this or that cathedral city. Such an intellectual life was
associated with Lichfield when the Darwins and the Edgeworths gathered
at the Bishop's Palace around Dr. Seward and his accomplished daughters.
Norwich has more than once been such a centre. The first occasion was in
the period of which we write, when the Taylors and the Gurneys
flourished in a region of ideas; the second was during the years from
1837 to 1849, when Edward Stanley held the bishopric. This later period
does not come into our story, as by that time Borrow had all but left
Norwich. But of the earlier period, the period of Borrow's more or less
fitful residence in Norwich--1814 to 1833--we are tempted to write at
some length. There were three separate literary and social forces in
Norwich in the first decades of the nineteenth century--the Gurneys of
Earlham, the Taylor-Austin group, and William Taylor, who was in no way
related to Mrs. John Taylor and her daughter, Sarah Austin. The Gurneys
were truly a remarkable family, destined to leave their impress upon
Norwich and upon a wider world. At the time of his marriage in 1773 to
Catherine Bell, John Gurney, wool-stapler of Norwich, took his young
wife, whose face has been preserved in a canvas by Gainsborough, to live
in the old Court House in Magdalen Street, which had been the home of
two generations of the Gurney family. In 1786 John Gurney went with his
continually growing family to live at Earlham Hall, some two or three
miles out of Norwich on the Earlham Road. Here that family of eleven
children--one boy had died in infancy--grew up. Not one but has an
interesting history, which is recorded by Mr. Augustus Hare and other
writers.[34] Elizabeth, the fourth daughter, married Joseph Fry, and as
Elizabeth Fry attained to a world-wide fame as a prison reformer. Hannah
married Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton of Slave Trade Abolition; Richenda, the
Rev. Francis Cunningham, who sent George Borrow upon his career; while
Louisa married Samuel Hoare of Hampstead. Of her Joseph John Gurney said
at her death in 1836 that she was 'superior in point of talent to any
other of my father's eleven children.' It is with the eleventh child,
however, that we have mainly to do, for this son, Joseph John Gurney,
alone appears in Borrow's pages. The picture of these eleven Quaker
children growing up to their various destinies under the roof of Earlham
Hall is an attractive one. Men and women of all creeds accepted the
catholic Quaker's hospitality. Mrs. Opie and a long list of worthies of
the past come before us, and when Mr. Gurney, in 1802, took his six
unmarried daughters to the Lakes Old Crome accompanied them as
drawing-master. There is, however, one picture in the story of
unforgettable charm, the episode of the courtship of Elizabeth Gurney by
Joseph Fry, and this I must quote from Mr. Augustus Hare's pleasant
book:
Mr. Fry had no intention of exposing himself to the possibility
of a refusal. He bought a very handsome gold watch and chain,
and laid it down upon a white seat--the white seat which still
exists--in the garden at Earlham. 'If Betsy takes up that
watch,' he said, 'it is a sign that she accepts me: if she does
not take it up by a particular hour, it will show that I must
leave Earlham.'
The six sisters concealed themselves in six laurel-bushes in
different parts of the grounds to watch. One can imagine their
intense curiosity and anxiety. At last the tall, graceful
Betsy, her flaxen hair now hidden under a Quaker cap, shyly
emerged upon the gravel walk. She seemed scarcely conscious of
her surroundings, as if, 'on the wings of prayer, she was being
wafted into the unseen.' But she reached the garden seat, and
there, in the sunshine, lay the glittering new watch. The sight
of it recalled her to earth. She could not, could not, take it,
and fled swiftly back to the house. But the six sisters
remained in their laurel-bushes. They felt sure she would
revoke, and they did not watch in vain. An hour elapsed, in
which her father urged her, and in which conscience seemed to
drag her forwards. Once again did the anxious sisters see Betsy
emerge from the house, with more faltering steps this time, but
still inwardly praying, and slowly, tremblingly, they saw her
take up the watch, and the deed was done. She never afterwards
regretted it, though it was a bitter pang to her when she
collected her eighty-six children in the garden at Earlham and
bade them farewell, and though she wrote in her journal as a
bride, 'I cried heartily on leaving Norwich; the very stones in
the street were dear to me.'
In 1803--the year of Borrow's birth--John Gurney became a partner in the
great London Bank of Overend and Gurney, and his son, Joseph John, in
that same year went up to Oxford. In 1809 Joseph returned to take his
place in the bank, and to preside over the family of unmarried sisters
at Earlham, father and mother being dead, and many members of the family
distributed. Incidentally, we are told by Mr. Hare that the Gurneys of
Earlham at this time drove out with four black horses, and that when
Bishop Bathurst, Stanley's predecessor, required horses for State
occasions to drive him to the cathedral, he borrowed these, and the more
modest episcopal horses took the Quaker family to their meeting-house.
It does not come within the scope of this book, discursive as I choose
to make it, to trace the fortunes of these eleven remarkable Gurney
children, or even of Borrow's momentary acquaintance, Joseph John
Gurney. His residence at Earlham, and his life of philanthropy, are a
romance in a way, although one wonders whether if the name of Gurney had
not been associated with so much of virtue and goodness the crash that
came long after Joseph John Gurney's death would have been quite so full
of affliction for a vast multitude. Joseph John Gurney died in 1847, in
his fifty-ninth year; his sister, Mrs. Fry, had died two years earlier.
The younger brother and twelfth child--Joseph John being the
eleventh--Daniel Gurney, the last of the twelve children, lived till
1880, aged eighty-nine. He had outlived by many years the catastrophe to
the great banking firm with which the name of Gurney is associated. This
great firm of Overend and Gurney, of which yet another brother, Samuel,
was the moving spirit, was organised nine years after his death--in
1865--into a joint-stock company, which failed to the amount of eleven
millions in 1866. At the time of the failure, which affected all
England, much as did the Liberator smash a generation later, the only
Gurney in the directorate was Daniel Gurney, to whom his sister, Lady
Buxton, allowed a pension of £2000 a year. This is a long story to tell
by way of introduction to one episode in _Lavengro_. Dr. Knapp places
this episode in the year 1817, when Borrow was but fourteen years of age
and Gurney was twenty-nine. I need not apologise at this point for a
very lengthy quotation from a familiar book:
At some distance from the city, behind a range of hilly ground
which rises towards the south-west, is a small river, the
waters of which, after many meanderings, eventually enter the
principal river of the district, and assist to swell the tide
which it rolls down to the ocean. It is a sweet rivulet, and
pleasant it is to trace its course from its spring-head, high
up in the remote regions of Eastern Anglia, till it arrives in
the valley behind yon rising ground; and pleasant is that
valley, truly a good spot, but most lovely where yonder bridge
crosses the little stream. Beneath its arch the waters rush
garrulously into a blue pool, and are there stilled for a time,
for the pool is deep, and they appear to have sunk to sleep.
Farther on, however, you hear their voice again, where they
ripple gaily over yon gravelly shallow. On the left the hill
slopes gently down to the margin of the stream. On the right is
a green level, a smiling meadow, grass of the richest decks the
side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the
nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a
broad shadow upon the face of the pool; through yon vista you
catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old English hall. It
has a stately look, that old building, indistinctly seen, as it
is, among those umbrageous trees; you might almost suppose it
an earl's home; and such it was, or rather upon its site stood
an earl's home, in days of old, for there some old Kemp, some
Sigurd, or Thorkild, roaming in quest of a hearthstead, settled
down in the grey old time, when Thor and Freya were yet gods,
and Odin was a portentous name. Yon old hall is still called
the Earl's Home, though the hearth of Sigurd is now no more,
and the bones of the old Kemp, and of Sigrith his dame, have
been mouldering for a thousand years in some neighbouring
knoll; perhaps yonder, where those tall Norwegian pines shoot
up so boldly into the air. It is said that the old earl's
galley was once moored where is now that blue pool, for the
waters of that valley were not always sweet; yon valley was
once an arm of the sea, a salt lagoon, to which the war-barks
of 'Sigurd, in search of a home,' found their way.
I was in the habit of spending many an hour on the banks of
that rivulet with my rod in my hand, and, when tired with
angling, would stretch myself on the grass, and gaze upon the
waters as they glided past, and not unfrequently, divesting
myself of my dress, I would plunge into the deep pool which I
have already mentioned, for I had long since learned to swim.
And it came to pass, that on one hot summer's day, after
bathing in the pool, I passed along the meadow till I came to a
shallow part, and, wading over to the opposite side, I adjusted
my dress, and commenced fishing in another pool, beside which
was a small clump of hazels.
And there I sat upon the bank, at the bottom of the hill which
slopes down from 'the Earl's Home'; my float was on the waters,
and my back was towards the old hall. I drew up many fish,
small and great, which I took from off the hook mechanically,
and flung upon the bank, for I was almost unconscious of what I
was about, for my mind was not with my fish. I was thinking of
my earlier years--of the Scottish crags and the heaths of
Ireland--and sometimes my mind would dwell on my studies--on
the sonorous stanzas of Dante, rising and falling like the
waves of the sea--or would strive to remember a couplet or two
of poor Monsieur Boileau.
'Canst thou answer to thy conscience for pulling all those fish
out of the water and leaving them to gasp in the sun?' said a
voice, clear and sonorous as a bell.
I started, and looked round. Close behind me stood the tall
figure of a man, dressed in raiment of quaint and singular
fashion, but of goodly materials. He was in the prime and
vigour of manhood; his features handsome and noble, but full of
calmness and benevolence; at least I thought so, though they
were somewhat shaded by a hat of finest beaver, with broad
drooping eaves.
'Surely that is a very cruel diversion in which thou indulgest,
my young friend?' he continued.
'I am sorry for it, if it be, sir,' said I, rising; 'but I do
not think it cruel to fish.'
'What are thy reasons for thinking so?'
'Fishing is mentioned frequently in Scripture. Simon Peter was
a fisherman.'
'True; and Andrew his brother. But thou forgettest; they did
not follow fishing as a diversion, as I fear thou doest.--Thou
readest the Scriptures?'
'Sometimes.'
'Sometimes?--not daily?--that is to be regretted. What
profession dost thou make?--I mean to what religious
denomination dost thou belong, my young friend?'
'Church.'
'It is a very good profession--there is much of Scripture
contained in its liturgy. Dost thou read aught beside the
Scriptures?'
'Sometimes.'
'What dost thou read besides?'
'Greek, and Dante.'
'Indeed! then thou hast the advantage over myself; I can only
read the former. Well, I am rejoiced to find that thou hast
other pursuits beside thy fishing. Dost thou know Hebrew?'
'No.'
'Thou shouldest study it. Why dost thou not undertake the
study?'
'I have no books.'
'I will lend thee books, if thou wish to undertake the study. I
live yonder at the hall, as perhaps thou knowest. I have a
library there, in which are many curious books, both in Greek
and Hebrew, which I will show to thee, whenever thou mayest
find it convenient to come and see me. Farewell! I am glad to
find that thou hast pursuits more satisfactory than thy cruel
fishing.'
And the man of peace departed, and left me on the bank of the
stream. Whether from the effect of his words or from want of
inclination to the sport, I know not, but from that day I
became less and less a practitioner of that 'cruel fishing.' I
rarely flung line and angle into the water, but I not
unfrequently wandered by the banks of the pleasant rivulet. It
seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed
myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the
extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight
interest for me: and I had discernment enough to perceive that
yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not
from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long
been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I
might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those
calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely
different. As it was, I fell in with other queer companions,
from whom I received widely different impressions than those I
might have derived from him. When many years had rolled on,
long after I had attained manhood, and had seen and suffered
much, and when our first interview had long been effaced from
the mind of the man of peace, I visited him in his venerable
hall, and partook of the hospitality of his hearth. And there
I saw his gentle partner and his fair children, and on the
morrow he showed me the books of which he had spoken years
before by the side of the stream. In the low quiet chamber,
whose one window, shaded by a gigantic elm, looks down the
slope towards the pleasant stream, he took from the shelf his
learned books, Zohar and Mishna, Toldoth Jesu and Abarbenel.
'I am fond of these studies,' said he, 'which, perhaps, is not
to be wondered at, seeing that our people have been compared to
the Jews. In one respect I confess we are similar to them: we
are fond of getting money. I do not like this last author, this
Abarbenel, the worse for having been a money-changer. I am a
banker myself, as thou knowest.'
And would there were many like him, amidst the money-changers
of princes! The hall of many an earl lacks the bounty, the
palace of many a prelate the piety and learning, which adorn
the quiet Quaker's home!
It is doubtful if Borrow met Joseph John Gurney more than on the one
further occasion to which he refers above. At the commencement of his
engagement with the Bible Society he writes to its secretary, Mr. Jowett
(March 18, 1833), to say that he must procure from Mr. Cunningham 'a
letter of introduction from him to John Gurney,' and this second and
last interview must have taken place at Earlham before his departure for
Russia.
But if Borrow was to come very little under the influence of Joseph John
Gurney, his destiny was to be considerably moulded by the action of
Gurney's brother-in-law, Cunningham, who first put him in touch with the
Bible Society. Joseph John Gurney and his sisters were the very life of
the Bible Society in those years.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] See _The Gurneys of Earlham_ by Augustus J. C. Hare, 2 vols., 1895;
_Memoirs of Joseph Gurney; with Selections from his Journal and
Correspondence_, edited by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, 2 vols., 1834.