BORROW AND THE BIBLE SOCIETY
That George Borrow should have become an agent for the Bible Society,
then in the third decade of its flourishing career, has naturally
excited doubts as to his moral honesty. The position was truly a
contrast to an earlier ideal contained in the letter to his Norwich
friend, Roger Kerrison, that we have already given, in which, with all
the zest of a Shelley, he declares that he intends to live in London,
'write plays, poetry, etc., abuse religion, and get myself prosecuted.'
But that was in 1824, and Borrow had suffered great tribulation in the
intervening eight years. He had acquired many languages, wandered far
and written much, all too little of which had found a publisher. There
was plenty of time for his religious outlook to have changed in the
interval, and in any case Borrow was no theologian. The negative outlook
of 'Godless Billy Taylor,' and the positive outlook of certain
Evangelical friends with whom he was now on visiting terms, were of
small account compared with the imperative need of making a living--and
then there was the passionate longing of his nature for a wider
sphere--for travelling activity which should not be dependent alone upon
the vagabond's crust. What matter if, as Harriet Martineau--most
generous and also most malicious of women, with much kinship with Borrow
in temperament--said, that his appearance before the public as a devout
agent of the Bible Society excited a 'burst of laughter from all who
remembered the old Norwich days'; what matter if another 'scribbling
woman,' as Carlyle called such strident female writers as were in vogue
in mid-Victorian days--Frances Power Cobbe--thought him 'insincere';
these were unable to comprehend the abnormal heart of Borrow, so
entirely at one with Goethe in _Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre_:
Bleibe nicht am Boden heften,
Frisch gewagt und frisch hinaus!
Kopf und Arm, mit heitern Kraften,
Ueberall sind sie zu Haus;
Wo wir uns der Sonne freuen,
Sind wir jede Sorge los;
Dass wir uns in ihr zerstreuen,
Darum ist die Welt so gross.[92]
Here was Borrow's opportunity indeed. Verily I believe that it would
have been the same had it been a society for the propagation of the
writings of Defoe among the Persians. With what zest would Borrow have
undertaken to translate _Moll Flanders_ and _Captain Singleton_ into the
languages of Hafiz and Omar! But the Bible Society was ready to his
hand, and Borrow did nothing by halves. A good hater and a staunch
friend, he was loyal to the Bible Society in no half-hearted way, and
not the most pronounced quarrel with forces obviously quite out of tune
with his nature led to any real slackening of that loyalty. In the end a
portion of his property went to swell the Bible Society's funds.[93]
When Borrow became one of its servants, the Bible Society was only in
its third decade. It was founded in the year 1804, and had the names of
William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, and Zachary Macaulay on its first
committee. To circulate the authorised version of the Bible without note
or comment was the first ideal that these worthy men set before them;
never to the entire satisfaction of the great printing organisations,
which already had a considerable financial interest in such a
circulation. For long years the words 'Sold under cost price' upon the
Bibles of the Society excited mingled feelings among those interested in
the book trade[94]. The Society's first idea was limited to Bibles in
the English tongue. This was speedily modified. A Bible Society was set
up in Nuremberg to which money was granted by the parent organisation. A
Bible in the Welsh language was circulated broadcast through the
Principality, and so the movement grew. From the first it had one of its
principal centres in Norwich, where Joseph John Gurney's house was open
to its committee, and at its annual gatherings at Earlham his sister
Elizabeth Fry took a leading part, while Wilberforce, Charles Simeon,
the famous preacher, and Legh Richmond, whose _Dairyman's Daughter_
Borrow failed to appreciate, were of the company. 'Uncles Buxton and
Cunningham are here,' we find one of Joseph John Gurney's daughters
writing in describing a Bible Society gathering. This was John
Cunningham, rector of Harrow, and it was his brother who helped Borrow
to his position in connection with the Society, as we shall see. At the
moment of these early meetings Borrow is but a boy, meeting Joseph
Gurney on the banks of the river near Earlham, and listening to his
discourse upon angling. The work of the Bible Society in Russia may be
said to have commenced when one John Paterson of Glasgow, who had been a
missionary of the Congregational body, went to St. Petersburg during
those critical months of 1812 that Napoleon was marching into Russia.
Paterson indeed, William Canton tells us,[95] was 'one of the last to
behold the old Tartar wall and high brick towers' and other splendours
of the Moscow which in a month or two were to be consumed by the flames.
Paterson was back again in St. Petersburg before the French were at the
gates of Moscow, and it is noteworthy that while Moscow was burning and
the Czar was on his way to join his army, this remarkable Scot was
submitting to Prince Galitzin a plan for a Bible Society in St.
Petersburg, and a memorial to the Czar thereon:
The plan and memorial were examined by the Czar on the 18th (of
December); with a stroke of his pen he gave his sanction--'So
be it, Alexander'; and as he wrote, the last tattered remnants
of the Grand Army struggled across the ice of the Niemen.[96]
The Society was formed in January 1813, and when the Czar returned to
St. Petersburg in 1815, after the shattering of Napoleon's power, he
authorised a new translation of the Bible into modern Russian. From
Russia it was not a far cry, where the spirit of evangelisation held
sway, to Manchuria and to China. To these remote lands the Bible Society
desired to send its literature. In 1822 the gospel of St. Matthew was
printed in St. Petersburg in Manchu. Ten years later the type of the
whole New Testament in that language was lying in the Russian capital.
'All that was required was a Manchu scholar to see the work through the
press'.[97] Here came the chance for Borrow. At this period there
resided at Oulton Hall, Suffolk, but a few miles from Norwich, a family
of the name of Skepper, Edward and Anne his wife, with their two
children, Breame and Mary. Mary married in 1817 one Henry Clarke, a
lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He died a few months afterwards of
consumption. Of this marriage there was a posthumous child, Henrietta
Mary, born but two months after her father's death. Mary Clarke, as she
now was, threw herself with zest into all the religious enthusiasms of
the locality, and the Rev. Francis Cunningham, Vicar of St. Margaret's,
Lowestoft, was one of her friends. Borrow had met Mary Clarke on one of
his visits to Lowestoft, and she had doubtless been impressed with his
fine presence, to say nothing of the intelligence and varied learning of
the young man. The following note, the first communication I can find
from Borrow to his future wife, indicates how matters stood at the time:
To Mrs. Clarke
ST. GILES, NORWICH, 22 _October 1832._
DEAR MADAM,--According to promise I transmit you a piece of
Oriental writing, namely the tale of Blue Beard, translated
into Turkish by myself. I wish it were in my power to send you
something more worthy of your acceptance, but I hope you will
not disdain the gift, insignificant though it be. Desiring to
be kindly remembered to Mr. and Mrs. Skepper and the remainder
of the family,--I remain, dear Madam, your most obedient humble
servant,
GEORGE BORROW.
That Borrow owed his introduction to Mr. Cunningham to Mrs. Clarke is
clear, although Cunningham, in his letter to the Bible Society urging
the claims of Borrow, refers to the fact that a 'young farmer' in the
neighbourhood had introduced him. This was probably her brother, Breame
Skepper. Dr. Knapp was of the opinion that Joseph John Gurney obtained
Borrow his appointment, but the recently published correspondence of
Borrow with the Bible Society makes it clear that Cunningham wrote--on
27th December 1832--recommending Borrow to the secretary, the Rev.
Andrew Brandram. How little he knew of Borrow is indicated by the fact
that he referred to him as 'independent in circumstances.' Brandram told
Caroline Fox many years afterwards that Gurney had effected the
introduction, but this was merely a lapse of memory. In fact we find
Borrow asking to be allowed to meet Gurney before his departure. In any
case he has himself told us, in one of the brief biographies of himself
that he wrote, that he promptly walked to London, covering the whole
distance of 112 miles in twenty-seven hours, and that his expenses
amounted to 5-1/2d. laid out in a pint of ale, a half-pint of milk, a
roll of bread, and two apples. He reached London in the early morning,
called at the offices of the Bible Society in Earl Street, and was
kindly received by Andrew Brandram and Joseph Jowett, the two
secretaries. He was asked if he would care to learn Manchu, and go to
St. Petersburg. He was given six months for the task, and doubtless also
some money on account. He returned to Norwich more luxuriously--by mail
coach. In June 1833 we find a letter from Borrow to Jowett, dated from
Willow Lane, Norwich, and commencing, 'I have mastered Manchu, and I
should feel obliged by your informing the committee of the fact, and
also my excellent friend, Mr. Brandram.' A long reply to this by Jowett
is among my Borrow Papers, but the Bible Society clearly kept copies of
its letters, and a portion of this one has been printed.[98] It shows
that Borrow went through much heart-burning before his destiny was
finally settled. At last he was again invited to London, and found
himself as one of two candidates for the privilege of going to Russia.
The examination consisted of a Manchu hymn, of which Borrow's version
seems to have proved the more acceptable, and he afterwards printed it
in his _Targum_. Finally, on the 5th of July 1833, Borrow received a
letter from Jowett offering him the appointment, with a salary of £200 a
year and expenses. The letter contained his first lesson in the then
unaccustomed discipline of the Evangelical vocabulary. Borrow had spoken
of the prospect of becoming 'useful to the Deity, to man, and to
himself.'
'Doubtless you meant,' commented Jowett, 'the prospect of glorifying
God,' and Jowett frankly tells him that his tone of confidence in
speaking of himself 'had alarmed some of the excellent members of our
committee.' Borrow adapted himself at once, and is congratulated by
Jowett in a later communication upon the 'truly Christian' spirit of his
next letter.
By an interesting coincidence there was living in Norwich at the moment
when Borrow was about to leave it, a man who had long identified himself
with good causes in Russia, and had lived in that country for a
considerable period of his life. John Venning[99] was born in Totnes in
1776, and he is buried in the Rosary Cemetery at Norwich, where he died
in 1858, after twenty-eight years' residence in that city. He started
for St. Petersburg four years after John Howard had died, ostensibly on
behalf of the commercial house with which he was associated, but with
the intention of carrying on the work of that great man in prison
reform. Alexander I. was on the throne, and he made Venning his friend,
frequently conversing with him upon religious subjects. He became the
treasurer of a society for the humanising of Russian prisons; but when
Nicholas became Czar in 1825 Venning's work became more difficult,
although the Emperor was sympathetic. Venning returned to England in
1830, and thus opportunely, in 1833, was able to give his
fellow-townsman letters of introduction to Prince Galitzin and other
Russian notables, so that Borrow was able to set forth under the
happiest auspices--with an entire change of conditions from those eight
years of semi-starvation that he was now to leave behind him for ever.
Borrow left London for St. Petersburg on 31st July 1833, not forgetting
to pay his mother before he left the £17 he had had to borrow during his
time of stress. Always devoted to his mother, Borrow sent her sums of
money at intervals from the moment the power of earning came to him. We
shall never know, we can only surmise something of the self-sacrificing
devotion of that mother during the years in which Borrow had failed to
find remunerative work. Wherever he wandered there had always been a
home in the Willow Lane cottage. It is probable that much the greater
part of the period of his eight years of penury was spent under her
roof. Yet we may be sure that the good mother never once reproached her
son. She had just that touch of idealism in her character that made for
faith and hope. In any case never more was Borrow to suffer penury, or
to be a burden on his mother. Henceforth she was to be his devoted care
to her dying day.
FOOTNOTES:
[92]
Keep not standing, fixed and rooted,
Briskly venture, briskly roam;
Head and hand, where'er thou foot it,
And stout heart, are still at home.
In each land the sun does visit;
We are gay whate'er betide.
To give room for wandering is it,
That the world was made so wide.
--Carlyle's translation.
[93] Through the will of his stepdaughter, Henrietta MacOubrey.
[94] Although the Bible Society then as now purchased all the sheets of
its Bibles from the three authorised sources of production--the King's
printers who hold a patent, and the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, which hold licences to print--these exclusive privileges
being granted in order that the text of the Bible should be maintained
with accuracy.
[95] Let me here acknowledge with gratitude my indebtedness to that fine
work _The History of the British Foreign Bible Society_ (1904-10,
Murray), by William Canton, which is worthy of the accomplished author
of _The Invisible Playmate_. An earlier history of the Society, by the
Rev. George Browne, published in 1859, has necessarily been superseded
by Mr. Canton's book.
[96] Canton's _History of the Bible Society_, vol. i. 195.
[97] _Ibid._, vol. ii. 127.
[98] In _Letters from George Borrow to the Bible Society_ (Hodder and
Stoughton), 1911.
[99] See _Memoirs of John Venning, Esq., formerly of St. Petersburgh and
late of Norwich. With Numerous Notices from his Manuscripts relative to
the Imperial Family of Russia_. By Thulia S. Henderson. London: Knight
and Son, 1862. Borrow's name is not once mentioned, but there is a
slight reference to him on pages 148 and 149.