THREE VISITS TO SPAIN
From his journey to Russia Borrow had acquired valuable experience, but
nothing in the way of fame, although his mother had been able to record
in a letter to St. Petersburg that she had heard at a Bible Society
gathering in Norwich his name 'sounded through the hall' by Mr. Joseph
John Gurney and Mr. Cunningham, to her great delight. 'All this is very
pleasing to me,' she said, 'God bless you!' Even more pleasing to Borrow
must have been a letter from Mary Clarke, his future wife, who was able
to tell him that she heard Francis Cunningham refer to him as 'one of
the most extraordinary and interesting individuals of the present day.'
But these tributes were not all-satisfying to an ambitious man, and this
Borrow undoubtedly was. His Russian journey was followed by five weeks
of idleness in Norwich varied by the one excitement of attending a Bible
meeting at Oulton with the Reverend Francis Cunningham in the chair,
when 'Mr. George Borrow from Russia'[111] made one of the usual
conventional missionary speeches, Mary Clarke's brother, Breame Skepper,
being also among the orators. Borrow begged for more work from the
Society. He urged the desirability of carrying out its own idea of an
investigation in Portugal and perhaps also in Spain, and hinted that he
could write a small volume concerning what he saw and heard which might
cover the expense of the expedition.[112] So much persistency conquered.
Borrow sailed from London on 6th November 1835, and reached Lisbon on
12th November, this his first official visit to the Peninsula lasting
exactly eleven months. The next four years and six months were to be
spent mainly in Spain.[113] Broadly the time divides itself in the
following fashion:
1st Tour (_via_ Lisbon),
Nov. 1835 to Oct. 1836.
Lisbon.
Mafia.
Evora.
Badajoz.
Madrid.
2nd Tour (_via_ Cadiz),
Nov. 1836 to Sept. 1838.
Cadiz.
Lisbon.
Seville.
Madrid.
Salamanca.
Coruña.
Oviedo.
Toledo.
3rd Tour (_via_ Cadiz),
Dec. 1838 to March 1840.
Cadiz.
Seville.
Madrid.
Gibraltar.
Tangier.
What a world of adventure do the mere names of these places call up.
Borrow entered the Peninsula at an exciting period of its history.
Traces of the Great War in which Napoleon's legions faced those of
Wellington still abounded. Here and there a bridge had disappeared, and
some of Borrow's strange experiences on ferry-boats were indirectly due
to the results of Napoleon's ambition.[114] Everywhere there was still
war in the land. Portugal indeed had just passed through a revolution.
The partisans of the infant Queen Maria II. had been fighting with her
uncle Dom Miguel for eight years, and it was only a few short months
before Borrow landed at Lisbon that Maria had become undisputed queen.
Spain, to which Borrow speedily betook himself, was even in a worse
state. She was in the throes of a six years' war. Queen Isabel II., a
child of three, reigned over a chaotic country with her mother Dona
Christina as regent; her uncle Don Carlos was a formidable claimant to
the throne and had the support of the absolutist and clerical parties.
Borrow's political sympathies were always in the direction of
absolutism; but in religion, although a staunch Church of England man,
he was certainly an anti-clerical one in Roman Catholic Spain. In any
case he steered judiciously enough between contending factions,
describing the fanatics of either side with vigour and sometimes with
humour. Mr. Brandram's injunction to Borrow 'to be on his guard against
becoming too much committed to one particular party' seems to have been
unnecessary.
Borrow's three expeditions to Spain have more to be said for them than
had his journey to St. Petersburg. The work of the Bible Society was and
is at its highest point of human service when distributing either the
Old or the New Testament in Christian countries, Spain, England, or
another. Few there be to-day in any country who, in the interests of
civilisation, would deny to the Bible a wider distribution. In a remote
village of Spain a Bible Society's colporteur, carrying a coloured
banner, sold me a copy of Cipriano de Valera's New Testament for a
peseta. The villages of Spain that Borrow visited could even at that
time compare favourably morally and educationally, with the villages of
his own county of Norfolk at the same period. The morals of the
agricultural labourers of the English fen country eighty years ago were
a scandal, and the peasantry read nothing; more than half of them could
not read. They had not, moreover, the humanising passion for song and
dance that Andalusia knew. But this is not to deny that the Bible
Society under Borrow's instrumentality did a good work in Spain, nor
that they did it on the whole in a broad and generous way. Borrow admits
that there was a section of the Roman Catholic clergy 'favourably
disposed towards the circulation of the Gospel,'[115] and the Society
actually fixed upon a Roman Catholic version of the Spanish Bible, that
by Scio de San Miguel,[116] although this version Borrow considered a
bad translation. Much has been said about the aim of the Bible Society
to provide the Bible without notes or comment--in its way a most
meritorious aim, although then as now opposed to the instinct of a large
number of the priests of the Roman Church. It is true that their
attitude does not in any way possess the sanction of the ecclesiastical
authorities. It may be urged, indeed, that the interpretation of the
Bible by a priest, usually of mature judgment, and frequently of a
higher education than the people with whom he is associated, is at least
as trustworthy as its interpretation at the hands of very partially
educated young women and exceedingly inadequately equipped young men who
to-day provide interpretation and comment in so many of the Sunday
Schools of Protestant countries.[117]
Behold George Borrow, then, first in Portugal and a little later in
Spain, upon his great mission--avowedly at first a tentative
mission--rather to see what were the prospects for Bible distribution
than to distribute Bibles. But Borrow's zeal knew no such limitations.
Before very long he had a shop in one of the principal streets of
Madrid--the Calle del Principe--much more in the heart of things than
the very prosperous Bible Society of our day ventures upon.[118]
Meanwhile he is at present in Portugal not very certain of his
movements, and he writes to his old friend Dr. Bowring the following
letter with a request with which Bowring complied, although in the
coldest manner:
To Dr. John Bowring.
EVORA IN THE ALEMTEJO, _27 Decr. 1835._
DEAR SIR,--Pray excuse me for troubling you with these lines. I
write to you, as usual, for assistance in my projects,
convinced that you will withhold none which it may be in your
power to afford, more especially when by so doing you will
perhaps be promoting the happiness of our fellow creatures. I
returned from dear, glorious Russia about three months since,
after having edited there the Manchu New Testament in eight
volumes. I am now in Portugal, for the Society still do me the
honour of employing me. For the last six weeks I have been
wandering amongst the wilds of the Alemtejo and have introduced
myself to its rustics, banditti, etc., and become very popular
amongst them, but as it is much more easy to introduce oneself
to the cottage than the hall (though I am not entirely unknown
in the latter), I want you to give or procure me letters to the
most liberal and influential minds of Portugal. I likewise want
a letter from the Foreign Office to Lord De Walden, in a word,
I want to make what interest I can towards obtaining the
admission of the Gospel of Jesus into the public schools of
Portugal which are about to be established. I beg leave to
state that this is _my plan_, and not other persons', as I was
merely sent over to Portugal to observe the disposition of the
people, therefore I do not wish to be named as an Agent of the
B.S., but as a person who has plans for the mental improvement
of the Portuguese; should I receive _these letters_ within the
space of six weeks it will be time enough, for before setting
up my machine in Portugal I wish to lay the foundation of
something similar in Spain. When you send the Portuguese
letters direct thus:
Mr. George Borrow,
to the care of Mr. Wilby,
Rua Dos Restauradores, Lisbon.
I start for Spain to-morrow, and I want letters something
similar (there is impudence for you) for Madrid, _which I
should like to have as soon as possible_. I do not much care at
present for an introduction to the Ambassador at Madrid, as I
shall not commence operations seriously in Spain until I have
disposed of Portugal. I will not apologise for writing to you
in this manner, for you know me, but I will tell you one
thing, which is that the letter which you procured for me, on
my going to St. Petersburg, from Lord Palmerston, assisted me
wonderfully. I called twice at your domicile on my return; the
first time you were in Scotland, the second in France, and I
assure you I cried with vexation. Remember me to Mrs. Bowring
and God bless you.
G. BORROW.
_P.S._--I am told that Mendizábal is liberal, and has been in
England; perhaps he would assist me.
During this eleven months' stay in the Peninsula Borrow made his way to
Madrid, and here he interviewed the British Minister, Sir George
Villiers, afterwards fourth Earl of Clarendon, and had received a quite
remarkable encouragement from him for the publication and distribution
of the Bible. He also interviewed the Spanish Prime Minister,
Mendizábal, 'whom it is as difficult to get nigh as it is to approach
the North Pole,' and he has given us a picturesque account of the
interview in _The Bible in Spain_. It was agreed that 5000 copies of the
Spanish Testament were to be reprinted from Scio's text at the expense
of the Bible Society, and all these Borrow was to handle as he thought
fit. Then Borrow made his way to Granada, where, under date 30th August
1836, his autograph may be read in the visitors' book of the Alhambra:
_George Borrow Norvicensis._
Here he studied his friends the gypsies, now and probably then, as we
may assume from his _Zincali_, the sordid scum on the hillside of that
great city, but now more assuredly than then unutterably demoralised by
the numerous but curious tourists who visit this rabble under police
protection, the very policeman or gendarme not despising a peseta for
his protective services. But Borrow's hobbies included the Romanies of
every land, and a year later he produced and published a gypsy version
of the Gospel of St. Luke.[119] In October 1836 Borrow was back in
England. He found that the Bible Society approved of him. In November of
the same year he left London for Cadiz on his second visit to Spain. The
journey is described in _The Bible in Spain_;[120] but here, from my
Borrow Papers, is a kind letter that Mr. Brandram wrote to Borrow's
mother on the occasion:
[Illustration: PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE BORROW TO THE REV. SAMUEL
BRANDRAM.]
NO. 10 EAST STREET, _Jany. 11, 1837._
MY DEAR MADAM,--I have the joyful news to send you that your
son has again safely arrived at Madrid. His journey we were
aware was exceedingly perilous, more perilous than we should
have allowed him to take had we sooner known the extent of the
danger. He begs me to write, intending to write to you himself
without delay. He has suffered from the intense cold, but
nothing beyond inconvenience. Accept my congratulations, and my
best wishes that your dear son may be preserved to be your
comfort in declining years--and may the God of all consolation
himself deign to comfort your heart by the truths of that holy
volume your son is endeavouring, in connection with our
Society, to spread abroad.--Believe me, dear Madam, yours
faithfully,
A. BRANDRAM.
Mrs. Borrow, Norwich.
A brilliant letter from Seville followed soon after, and then he went on
to Madrid, not without many adventures. 'The cold nearly killed me,' he
said. 'I swallowed nearly two bottles of brandy; it affected me no more
than warm water.' This to kindly Mr. Brandram, who clearly had no
teetotaller proclivities, for the letter, as he said, 'filled his heart
with joy and gladness.' Meanwhile those five thousand copies of the New
Testament were a-printing, Borrow superintending the work with the
assistance of a new friend, Dr. Usóz. 'As soon as the book is printed
and issued,' he tells Mr. Brandram, 'I will ride forth from Madrid into
the wildest parts of Spain, ...' and so, after some correspondence with
the Society which is quite entertaining, he did. The reader of _The
Bible in Spain_ will note some seventy separate towns and villages that
Borrow visited, not without countless remarkable adventures on the way.
'I felt some desire,' he says in _The Romany Rye_, 'to meet with one of
those adventures which upon the roads of England are generally as
plentiful as blackberries in autumn.' Assuredly in this tour of Spanish
villages Borrow met with no lack of adventures. The committee of the
Bible Society authorised this tour in March 1837, and in May Borrow
started off on horseback attended by his faithful servant, Antonio. This
tour was to last five months, and 'if I am spared,' he writes to his
friend Hasfeld, 'and have not fallen a prey to sickness, Carlists,
banditti, or wild beasts, I shall return to Madrid.' He hopes a little
later, he tells Hasfeld, to be sent to China. We have then a glimpse of
his servant, the excellent Antonio, which supplements that contained in
_The Bible of Spain_. 'He is inordinately given to drink, and is of so
quarrelsome a disposition that he is almost constantly involved in some
broil.'[121] Not all his weird experiences were conveyed in his letters
to the Bible Society's secretary. Some of these letters, however--the
more highly coloured ones--were used in _The Bible in Spain_, word for
word, and wonderful reading they must have made for the secretary, who
indeed asked for more, although, with a view to keeping Borrow
humble--an impossible task--Mr. Brandram takes occasion to say 'Mr.
Graydon's letters, as well as yours, are deeply interesting,' Graydon
being a hated rival, as we shall see. The question of L.S.D. was also
not forgotten by the assiduous secretary. 'I know you are no
accountant,' he writes, 'but do not forget there are some who are,' and
a financial document was forwarded to Borrow about this time which we
reproduce in facsimile.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF AN ACCOUNT OF GEORGE BORROW'S EXPENSES IN
SPAIN MADE OUT BY THE BIBLE SOCIETY]
But now Borrow was happy, for next to the adventures of five glorious
months in the villages between Madrid and Coruña nothing could be more
to the taste of Borrow than a good wholesome quarrel. He was imprisoned
by order of the Spanish Government and released on the intervention of
the British Embassy.[122] He tells the story so graphically in _The
Bible in Spain_ that it is superfluous to repeat it; but here he does
not tell of the great quarrel with regard to Lieutenant Graydon that led
him to attack that worthy zealot in a letter to the Bible Society. This
attack did indeed cause the Society to recall Graydon, whose zealous
proclamation of anti-Romanism must however have been more to the taste
of some of its subscribers than Borrow's trimming methods. Moreover,
Graydon worked for love of the cause and required no salary, which must
always have been in his favour. Borrow was ten days in a Madrid prison,
and there, as ever, he had extraordinary adventures if we may believe
his own narrative, but they are much too good to be torn from their
context. Suffice to say here that in the actual correspondence we find
breezy controversy between Borrow and the Society. Borrow thought that
the secretary had called the accuracy of his statements in question as
to this or that particular in his conduct. Ever a fighter, he appealed
to the British Embassy for confirmation of his word, and finally Mr.
Brandram suggested he should come back to England for a time and talk
matters over with the members of the committee. In the beginning of
September 1838 Borrow was again in England, when he issued a lengthy and
eloquent defence of his conduct and a report on 'Past and Future
Operations in Spain.'[123] In December of the same year Borrow was
again on his way to Cadiz upon his third and last visit to Spain.
Borrow reached Cadiz on this his last visit on 31st December 1838, and
went straight to Seville, where he arrived on 2nd January 1839. Here he
took a beautiful little house, 'a paradise in its way,' in the Plazuela
de la Pila Seca, and furnished it--clearly at the expense of his friend
Mrs. Clarke of Oulton, who must have sent him a cheque for the purpose.
He had been corresponding regularly with Mrs. Clarke, who had told him
of her difficulties with lawyers and relatives, and Borrow had advised
her to cut the Gordian knot and come to Spain. But Mrs. Clarke and her
daughter, Henrietta, did not arrive from England until June.
In the intervening months Borrow had been working more in his own
interests than in those of the patient Bible Society, for he started to
gather material for his _Gypsies of Spain_, and this book was for the
most part actually written in Seville. It was at this period that he had
the many interviews with Colonel Elers Napier that we quote at length in
our next chapter.
A little later he is telling Mr. Brandram of his adventure with the
blind girl of Manzanares who could talk in the Latin tongue, which she
had been taught by a Jesuit priest, an episode which he retold in _The
Bible in Spain_. 'When shall we hear,' he asks, 'of an English rector
instructing a beggar girl in the language of Cicero?' To which Mr.
Brandram, who was rector of Beckenham, replied 'Cui bono?' The letters
of this period are the best that he ever wrote, and are incorporated
more exactly than the earlier ones in _The Bible in Spain_.
[Illustration: WHERE BORROW LIVED IN MADRID
The house of Maria Diaz in the Calle del Santiago. Borrow occupied the
third floor front. A laundry is now in possession.]
[Illustration: THE CALLE DEL PRINCIPE, MADRID
Where Borrow opened a shop for the sale of New Testaments, which was
finally closed by order of the Government.]
Four letters to his mother within the period of his second and third
Spanish visits may well be presented together here from my Borrow
Papers:
To Mrs. Ann Borrow
MADRID, _July 27, 1838._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I am in perfect health though just returned
from a long expedition in which I have been terribly burnt by
the sun. In about ten days I sold nearly a thousand Testaments
among the labourers of the plains and mountains of Castille and
La Mancha. Everybody in Madrid is wondering and saying such a
thing is a miracle, as I have not entered a town, and the
country people are very poor and have never seen or heard of
the Testament before. But I confess to you that I dislike my
situation and begin to think that I have been deceived; the
B.S. have had another person on the sea-coast who has nearly
ruined their cause in Spain by circulating seditious handbills
and tracts. The consequence has been that many of my depots
have been seized in which I kept my Bibles in various parts of
the country, for the government think that he is employed by
me; I told the B.S. all along what would be the consequence of
employing this man, but they took huff and would scarce believe
me, and now all my words are come true; I do not blame the
government in the slightest degree for what they have done in
many points, they have shown themselves to be my good friends,
but they have been driven to the step by the insane conduct of
the person alluded to. I told them frankly in my last letter
that I would leave their service if they encouraged him; for I
will not be put in prison again on his account, and lose
another servant by the gaol fever, and then obtain neither
thanks nor reward. I am going out of town again in a day or
two, but I shall now write very frequently, therefore be not
alarmed for I will run into no danger. Burn this letter and
speak to no one about it, nor any others that I may send. God
bless you, my dear mother.
G. B.
To Mrs. Ann Borrow, Willow Lane, St. Giles, Norwich (Inglaterra)
MADRID, _August 5, 1838._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I merely write this to inform you that I am
back to Madrid from my expedition. I have been very successful
and have sold a great many Testaments. Indeed all the villages
and towns within thirty miles have been supplied. In Madrid
itself I can do nothing as I am closely watched by order of the
government and not permitted to sell, so that all I do is by
riding out to places where they cannot follow me. I do not
blame them, for they have much to complain of, though nothing
of me, but if the Society will countenance such men as they
have lately done in the South of Spain they must expect to reap
the consequences. It is very probable that I may come to
England in a little time, and then you will see me; but do not
talk any more about yourself being 'no more seen,' for it only
serves to dishearten me, and God knows I have enough to make me
melancholy already. I am in a great hurry and cannot write any
more at present.--I remain, dear mother, yours affectionately,
GEORGE BORROW.
To Mrs. Ann Borrow
(No date.)
MY DEAR MAMA,--As I am afraid that you may not have received my
last letter in consequence of several couriers having been
stopped, I write to inform you that I am quite well.
I have been in some difficulties. I was selling so many
Testaments that the priests became alarmed, and prevailed on
the government to put a stop to my selling any more; they were
likewise talking of prosecuting me as a witch, but they have
thought better of it. I hear it is very cold in England, pray
take care of yourself, I shall send you more in a few
weeks.--God bless you, my dear mama,
G. B.
It was in the middle of his third and last visit to Spain that Borrow
wrote this next letter to his mother which gives the first suggestion of
the romantic and happy termination of his final visit to the Peninsula:
To Mrs. Ann Borrow
SEVILLE, SPAIN, _April 27, 1839._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I should have written to you before I left
Madrid, but I had a long and dangerous journey to make, and I
wished to get it over before saying anything to you. I am now
safely arrived, by the blessing of God, in Seville, which, in
my opinion, is the most delightful town in the world. If it
were not a strange place with a strange language I know you
would like to live in it, but it is rather too late in the day
for you to learn Spanish and accommodate yourself to Spanish
ways. Before I left Madrid I accomplished a great deal, having
sold upwards of one thousand Testaments and nearly five hundred
Bibles, so that at present very few remain; indeed, not a
single Bible, and I was obliged to send away hundreds of people
who wanted to purchase, but whom I could not supply. All this
has been done without the slightest noise or disturbance or
anything that could give cause of displeasure to the
government, so that I am now on very good terms with the
authorities, though they are perfectly aware of what I am
about. Should the Society think proper to be guided by the
experience which I have acquired, and my knowledge of the
country and the people, they might if they choosed sell at
least twelve thousand Bibles and Testaments yearly in Spain,
but let them adopt or let any other people adopt any other
principle than that on which I act and everything will
miscarry. All the difficulties, as I told my friends the time I
was in England, which I have had to encounter were owing to the
faults and imprudencies of other people, and, I may say, still
are owing. Two Methodist schoolmasters have lately settled at
Cadiz, and some little time ago took it into their heads to
speak and preach, as I am informed, against the Virgin Mary;
information was instantly sent to Madrid, and the blame, or
part of it, was as usual laid to me; however, I found means to
clear myself, for I have powerful friends in Madrid, who are
well acquainted with my views, and who interested themselves
for me, otherwise I should have been sent out of the country,
as I believe the two others have been or will be. I have said
nothing on this point in my letters home, as people would
perhaps say that I was lukewarm, whereas, on the contrary, I
think of nothing but the means best adapted to promote the
cause; but I am not one of those disposed to run a ship on a
rock when only a little skill is necessary to keep her in the
open sea.
I hope Mrs. Clarke will write shortly; tell her if she wishes
for a retreat I have found one here for her and Henrietta. I
have my eye on a beautiful one at fifteen pence a day. I call
it a small house, though it is a paradise in its way, having a
stable, court-yard, fountain, and twenty rooms. She has only to
write to my address at Madrid and I shall receive the letter
without fail. Henrietta had better bring with her a Spanish
grammar and pocket dictionary, as not a word of English is
spoken here. The house-dog--perhaps a real English bulldog
would be better--likewise had better come, as it may be useful.
God bless you therefore for the present, my dearest mother.
GEORGE BORROW.
Borrow had need of friends more tolerant of his idiosyncrasies than the
'powerful friends' he describes to his mother, for the Secretary of the
Bible Society was still in a critical mood:--
You narrate your perilous journey to Seville, and say at the
beginning of the description, 'my usual wonderful good fortune
accompanying us.' This is a mode of speaking to which we are
not accustomed--it savours, some of our friends would say, a
little of the profane.[124]
On 29th July 1839 Borrow was instructed by his Committee to return to
England, but he was already on the way to Tangier, whence in September
he wrote a long and interesting letter to Mr. Brandram, which was
afterwards incorporated in _The Bible in Spain_. He had left Mrs. Clarke
and her daughter in Seville, and they joined him at Gibraltar later. We
find him _en route_ for Tangier, staying two days with Mr. John M.
Brackenbury, the British Consul in Cadiz, who found him a most
fascinating man.
His Tangier life is fully described in _The Bible in Spain_. Here he
picked up a Jewish youth, Hayim Ben Attar, who returned to Spain as his
servant, and afterwards to England.
Borrow, at the end of September, was back again in Seville, in his house
near the cathedral, in the Plazuela de la Pila Seca, which, when I
visited Seville in the spring of this year (1913), I found had long been
destroyed to make way for new buildings. Here he received the following
letter from Mr. George Browne of the Bible Society:--
To Mr. Borrow
BIBLE HOUSE, _Oct. 7, 1839._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--Mr. Brandram and myself being both on the eve
of a long journey, I have only time to inform you that yours of
the 2d ult. from Tangier, and 21st from Cadiz came to hand this
morning. Before this time you have doubtless received Mr.
Brandram's letter, accompanying the resolution of the Comee.,
of which I apprised you, but which was delayed a few days, for
the purpose of reconsideration. We are not able to suggest
precisely the course you should take in regard to the books
left at Madrid and elsewhere, and how far it may be absolutely
necessary or not for you to visit that city again before you
return. The books you speak of, as at Seville, may be sent to
Gibraltar rather than to England, as well as any books you may
deem it expedient or find it necessary to bring out of the
country. As soon as your arrangements are completed we shall
look for the pleasure of seeing you in this country. The haste
in which I am compelled to write allows me to say no more than
that my best wishes attend you, and that I am, with sincere
regard, yours truly,
G. BROWNE.
I thank you for your kind remembrance of Mrs. Browne. Did I
thank you for your letter to her? She feels, I assure you, very
much obliged. Your description of Tangier will be another
interesting 'morceau' for her.
'Where is Borrow?' asked the Bible Society meanwhile of the Consuls at
Seville and Cadiz, but Borrow had ceased to care. He hoped to become a
successful author with his _Gypsies_; he would at any rate secure
independence by marriage, which must have been already mooted. In
November he and Mrs. Clarke were formally betrothed, and would have
been married in Spain, but a Protestant marriage was impossible there.
When preparing to leave Seville he had one of those fiery quarrels, with
which his life was to be studded. This time it was with an official of
the city over a passport, and the official promptly locked him up, for
thirty hours. Hence the following letter in response to his complaint.
The writer is Mr., afterwards Sir, George Jerningham, then Secretary of
Legation at Madrid, who it may be mentioned came from Costessey, four
miles from Norwich. It is written from the British Legation, and is
dated 23rd December 1839:
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your two
letters, the one without date, the second dated the _19th
November_ (which however ought to have been _December_),
respecting the outrageous conduct pursued towards you at
Seville by the Alcalde of the district in which you resided. I
lost no time in addressing a strong representation thereon to
the Spanish Minister, and I have to inform you that he has
acquainted me with his having written to Seville for exact
information upon the whole subject, and that he has promised a
further answer to my representation as soon as his inquiries
shall have been answered. In the meantime I shall not fail to
follow up your case with proper activity.
Borrow was still in Seville, hard at work upon the _Gypsies_, all
through the first three months of the year 1840. In April the three
friends left Cadiz for London. A letter of this period from Mr.
Brackenbury, the British Consul at Cadiz, is made clear by these facts:
To George Borrow, Esq.
BRITISH CONSULATE, CADIZ, _January 27th, 1840._
MY DEAR SIR,--I received on the 19th your very acceptable
letter without date, and am heartily rejoiced to find that you
have received satisfaction for the insult, and that the Alcalde
is likely to be punished for his unjustifiable conduct. If you
come to Cadiz your baggage may be landed and deposited at the
gates to be shipped with yourselves wherever the steamer may
go, in which case the authorities would not examine it, if you
bring it into Cadiz it would be examined at the gates--or, if
you were to get it examined at the Custom House at Seville and
there sealed with the seal of the Customs--it might then be
transhipped into the steamer or into any other vessel without
being subjected to any examination. If you take your horse, the
agents of the steamer ought to be apprized of your intention,
that they may be prepared, which I do not think they generally
are, with a suitable box.
Consuls are not authorised to unite Protestant subjects in the
bonds of Holy Matrimony in popish countries--which seems a
peculiar hardship, because popish priests could not, if they
would--hence in Spain no Protestants can be legally married.
Marriages solemnised abroad according to the law of that land
wheresoever the parties may at the time be inhabitants are
valid--but the law of Spain excludes their priests from
performing these ceremonies where both parties are
Protestants--and where one is a Papist, except a dispensation
be obtained from the Pope. So you must either go to
Gibraltar--or wait till you arrive in England. I have
represented the hardship of such a case more than once or twice
to Government. In my report upon the Consular Act, 6 Geo. IV.
cap. 87--eleven years ago--I suggested that provision should be
made to legalise marriages solemnised by the Consul within the
Consulate, and that such marriages should be registered in the
Consular Office--and that duly certified copies thereof should
be equivalent to certificates of marriages registered in any
church in England. These suggestions not having been acted
upon, I brought the matter under the consideration of Lord John
Russell (I being then in England at the time of his altering
the Marriage Act), and proposed that Consuls abroad should have
the power of magistrates and civil authorities at home for
receiving the declarations of British subjects who might wish
to enter into the marriage state--but they feared lest the
introduction of such a clause, simple and efficacious as it
would have been, might have endangered the fate of the Bill;
and so we are as Protestants deprived of all power of being
legally married in Spain.
What sort of a horse is your hack?--What colour? What age?
Would he carry me?--What his action? What his price? Because if
in all these points he would suit me, perhaps you would give me
the refusal of him. You will of course enquire whether your
Arab may be legally exported.
All my family beg to be kindly remembered to you.--I am, my
dear sir, most faithfully yours,
J. M. BRACKENBURY.
There is a young gentleman here, who is in Spain partly on
account of his health--partly for literary purposes. I will
give him, with your leave, a line of introduction to you
whenever he may go to Seville. He is the Honourable R. Dundas
Murray, brother of Lord Elibank, a Scottish nobleman.
FOOTNOTES:
[111] _Norfolk Chronicle_, 17th October 1835.
[112] Secretary Samuel Brandram, writing to Borrow from the office of
the Bible Society in October 1835, gave clear indication that the
Society was uncertain how next to utilise Borrow's linguistic and
missionary talents. Should he go to Portugal or to China was the
question. In November the committee had decided on Portugal, although
they thought it probable that Borrow would 'eventually go to China,'
'With Portugal he is already acquainted,' said Mr. Brandram in a letter
of introduction to the Rev. E. Whitely, the British chaplain in Oporto.
So that Borrow must really have wandered into Portugal in that earlier
and more melancholy apprenticeship to vagabondage concerning which there
is so much surmise and so little knowledge. Had he lied about his
acquaintance with Portugal he would certainly have been 'found out' by
this Portuguese acquaintance, with whom he had much social intercourse.
[113] The reader who finds Borrow's _Bible in Spain_ insufficient for
his account of that period, and I am not of the number, may turn to the
_Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society_, from which we have
already quoted, or to Mr. Herbert Jenkins's _Life of George Borrow_. In
the former book the greater part of 500 closely-printed pages is taken
up with repetitions of the story as told in _The Bible in Spain_, or
with additions which Borrow deliberately cancelled in the work in
question. In Mr. Jenkins's _Life_ he will find that out of a solid
volume of 496 pages exactly 212 are occupied with Borrow's association
with the Peninsula and his work therein. To the enthusiast who desires
to supplement _The Bible in Spain_ with valuable annotation I cordially
commend both these volumes.
[114] Who that has visited Spain can for a moment doubt but that, if
Napoleon had really conquered the Peninsula and had been able to put his
imprint upon it as he did upon Italy, the Spain of to-day would have
become a much greater country than it is at present--than it will be in
a few short years.
[115] _The Bible in Spain_, ch. xlii.
[116] The Old and New Testament, in ten volumes, were first issued in
Spanish at Valencia in 1790-93. When in Madrid I picked up on a
second-hand bookstall a copy of a cheap Spanish version of Scio's New
Testament, which bears a much earlier date than the one Borrow carried.
It was published, it will be noted, two years before Borrow published
his translation of Klinger's ribald book _Faustus_:--
'El Nuevo Testamento, Traducido al Español de la Vulgata Latina por el
Rmo. P. Philipe Scio de S. Miguel. Paris: En la Imprenta de J. Smith,
1823,'
[117] This kind of interpretation is not restricted to the youthful
Sunday School teacher. At a meeting of the Bible Society held at
Norwich--Borrow's own city--on 29th May 1913, Mrs. Florence Barclay, the
author of many popular novels, thus addressed the gathering. I quote
from the _Eastern Daily Press_: 'She had heard sometimes a shallow form
of criticism which said that it was impossible that in actual reality
any man should have lived and breathed three days and three nights in
the interior of a fish. Might she remind the meeting that the Lord Jesus
Christ, who never made mistakes, said Himself, "As Jonah was three days
and three nights in the interior of the sea monster." Please note that
in the Greek the word was not "whale," but "sea monster." And then, let
us remember, that we were told that the Lord God had prepared the great
fish in order that it should swallow Jonah. She did suggest that if mere
man nowadays could construct a submarine, which went down to the depths
of the ocean and came up again when he pleased, it did not require very
much faith to believe that Almighty God could specially prepare a great
fish which should rescue His servant, to whom He meant to give another
chance, from the depths of the sea, and land him in due course upon the
shore. (Applause).' These crude views, which ignored the symbolism of
Nineveh as a fish, now universally accepted by educated people, were
not, however, endorsed by Dr. Beeching, the learned Dean of Norwich, who
in the same gathering expressed the point of view of more scholarly
Christians:--'He would not distinguish inspired writing from fiction. He
would say there could be inspired fiction just as well as inspired
facts, and he would point to the story of the prodigal son as a
wonderful example from the Bible of inspired fiction. There were a good
many other examples in the Old Testament, and he had not the faintest
doubt that the story of Jonah was one. It was on the same level as the
prodigal son. It was a story told to teach the people a distinct truth.'
[118] When in Madrid in May 1913 I called upon Mr. William Summers, the
courteous Secretary of the Madrid Branch of the British and Foreign
Bible Society in the Flor Alta. Mr. Summers informs me that the issues
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Bibles and Testaments, in
Spain for the past three years are as follows:
Year. Bibles. Testaments. Portions. Total. 1910, 5,309 8,971 70,594
84,874 1911, 5,665 11,481 79,525 96,671 1912, 9,083 11,842 85,024
105,949
The Calle del Principe is now rapidly being pulled down and new
buildings taking the place of those Borrow knew.
[119] _Embeo e Majaro Lucas. El Evangelio segun S. Lucas traducido al
Romani ó dialecto de los Gitanos de España_, 1857. Two later copies in
my possession bear on their title-pages 'Lundra, 1871' and 'Lundra,
1872.' But the Bible Society in Spain has long ceased to handle or to
sell any gypsy version of St. Luke's Gospel.
[120] And in Darlow's _Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society_,
pp. 180-4.
[121] Darlow, _Letters of George Borrow to the Bible Society_.
[122] The story of all the negotiations concerning this imprisonment and
release is told by Dr. Knapp (_Life_, vol. i, pp. 279-297), and is
supplemented by Mr. Herbert Jenkins by valuable documents from the
Foreign Office Papers at the Record Office.
[123] Printed by Mr. Darlow in _Letters of George Borrow to the Bible
Society_, pp. 359-379.
[124] Darlow, _George Borrow's Letters to the Bible Society_, p. 414.