When, at the end of his fifteenth year, George Borrow completed his term
of study at the Norwich Grammar School, his parents had considerable
difficulty in determining upon a profession for their erratic son. In
the solution of this problem he, himself, could help them but little
towards a satisfactory conclusion. His strange disposition and tastes
were a source of continual astonishment and mystification to the old
people. What, they asked themselves, could be done with a lad whose only
decided bent was in the direction of philological studies, who at an
early age had attained a knowledge of Erse, and whose great pleasure it
was to converse in Romany with the gipsies whom he met at the fair-ground
on Norwich Castle Hill? His father was anxious that he should enter the
Church; but George's unsettled disposition was an effectual bar against
his taking such a step, for he would never have been able to apply
himself with sufficient attention to the necessary routine course of
college study.
In the midst of the warm controversy that the question excited he fell
ill, and firmly believed that he was going to die. His near approach to
dissolution found him quite resigned. A listless willingness to let life
go, grew upon him during the dreary days of helpless inactivity.
"Death," he said, "appeared to him little else than a pleasant sleep, and
he wished for sleep." But a long life was before him, and, after
spending weeks upon his bed, his strength came back to him, and with it
the still unsolved problem of a suitable vocation. It was at last
decided that he should enter upon a legal career.
There is little doubt that the legal profession was one for which Borrow
was the least adapted, and of this he was well aware. When, however, in
1819, the time arrived for him to be articled to Messrs. Simpson and
Rackham of Tuck's Court, St. Giles, he apparently offered no objection,
and his recollections of the years when he was tied to a lawyer's desk
were always pleasant to him in after-life.
But these pleasant recollections had little to do with the duties of his
calling--they arose rather from the fact that his work was easy, and so
intermittent as to give him ample opportunity for indulging in his
day-dreams. Who can doubt the personal basis of that passage in
"Lavengro" in which he says: "Yes, very pleasant times were those, when
within the womb of a lofty desk, behind which I sat for some hours every
day, transcribing (when I imagined eyes were upon me) documents of every
description in every possible hand. Blackstone kept company with Ab
Gwilym--the polished English lawyer of the last century, who wrote long
and prosy chapters on the rights of things--with a certain wild Welshman,
who some four hundred years before that time indited immortal cowydds or
odes to the wives of Cambrian chieftains--more particularly to one
Morfydd, the wife of a certain hunch-backed dignitary called by the poet
facetiously Bwa Bach--generally terminating with the modest request of a
little private parlance beneath the greenwood bough, with no other
witness than the eos, or nightingale; a request which, if the poet may be
believed, rather a doubtful point, was seldom, very seldom, denied. And
by what strange chance had Gwilym and Blackstone, two personages so
exceedingly different, been thus brought together? From what the reader
already knows of me, he may be quite prepared to find me reading the
former; but what could have induced me to take up Blackstone, or rather
law?"
Yes, there was little in Borrow's nature that was in common with that of
the followers of the legal profession. What food for his wild
imagination could he find in the prosy records and dry-as-dust documents
of a lawyer's office? They contained words that to him, as to many of
his master's clients, were without meaning: his thoughts wandered beyond
their mazy entanglements into a realm where the law that restrained was
that of Nature alone, and whose only order was planned by the spirit that
sent forth shadows and dreams. He had been too much of a rover, had seen
too many strange sights in his young life, to be able to satisfy his
cravings for knowledge in musty law tomes and dusty deeds. His curiosity
had been aroused by many things he had seen in his early travels, he had
had glimpses into so many wide fields of interest that led his mind
astray. But none of these seemed to the steady-going old Militia captain
to show a practical opening for his second son, whom, therefore, we find
copying legal documents in a "strange old house occupying one side of a
long and narrow court," instead of going a-viking with the Norseman or
roving with the wild Welsh bard.
Borrow has left us a striking picture of the head of the firm of Simpson
and Rackham; a picture drawn with that wealth of detail and
uncompromising truthfulness which would have made the worthy gentleman
tremble had he known at the time what a keen observer he was receiving
beneath his roof. "A more respectable-looking individual was never
seen," writes his erstwhile pupil; "he really looked what he was, a
gentleman of the law--there was nothing of the pettifogger about him:
somewhat under middle size, and somewhat rotund in person, he was always
dressed in a full suit of black, never worn long enough to become
threadbare. His face was rubicund, and not without keenness; but the
most remarkable thing about him was his head, which was bald, and shone
like polished ivory, nothing more white, smooth and lustrous. Some
people have said that he wore false calves, probably because his black
silk stockings never exhibited a wrinkle; they might as well have said
that he waddled because his shoes creaked, for these last, which were
always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a different
hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot say that I ever saw
him walk fast."
And then follows a little glimpse into the provincial life of the old
Norfolk capital that shows how little change there has been in the aims
and habits of a certain portion of the middle class since the first
quarter of the century. "He had a handsome practice, and might have died
a very rich man, much richer than he did, had he not been in the habit of
giving rather expensive dinners to certain great people, who gave him
nothing in return, except their company."
This worthy old gentleman must have been sorely puzzled as to what he
should make of the tall, spare, serious-looking lad who was placed under
his charge. He confessed to the old captain that the latter's son was "a
very extraordinary youth, a most remarkable youth, indeed;" and we can
well believe him. On one occasion, Borrow showed a one-eyed beggar into
his master's private room, and installed him in an armchair "like a
justice of the peace." At another time, when invited to Mr. Simpson's
house, he electrified a learned archdeacon and the company generally by
maintaining that his favourite Ab Gwilym was a better poet than Ovid, and
that many of the classic writers were greatly over-valued. Borrow often
distinguished himself later on by his blunt way of expressing his
opinions, and the habit seems to have grown upon him early in life.
A sense of duty towards those who were responsible for his upbringing,
does not seem to have been a strong point with George Borrow. He
disliked the profession to which he was apprenticed, and it is evident
that his mind was as absent from his duties as was his heart. He was
always dreaming of sagas and sea-rovers, battles and bards. Shut up in
his dull and dusty desk, he would
"catch in sudden gleams
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all (his) boyish dreams."
No one will deny that "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,"
for have we not all thought such thoughts, and dreamt our dreams? But
they are not as a rule conducive to the attainment of a mastery of the
details and subtleties of law.
One day an old countryman from the coast brought George a book of Danish
ballads, left at his coast-line cottage by a crew of shipwrecked Danes.
Once possessed of this work, he could not rest satisfied until he had
mastered the Danish language in order that he might unearth its
historical and legendary treasures. "The Danes, the Danes!" he exclaims
to himself, as he holds the priceless volume in his hands. "And was I at
last to become acquainted, and in so singular a manner, with the speech
of a people which had, as far back as I could remember, exercised the
strongest influence over my imagination. For the book was a book of
ballads, about the deeds of knights and champions, and men of huge
stature; ballads which from time immemorial had been sung in the North,
and which some two centuries before the time of which I am speaking, had
been collected by one Anders Vedel, who lived with a certain Tycho Brahe,
and assisted him in making observations upon the heavenly bodies, at a
place called Uranias Castle on the little island of Hveen, in the
Cattegat."
No, Borrow was never meant to be a lawyer; but no calling that was
possible to him could have suited him so well at the time with which we
are dealing. Apparently the tasks set him were so light that he had
ample opportunity for the pursuance of the philological investigations
that he delighted in. His efforts in this direction attracted the
attention of Dr. William Taylor, who had returned to his native city
after his wanderings in France and Germany. As is well known, the
accomplished scholar and translator was an intimate friend of Southey's,
and it was to the poet he wrote: "A Norwich young man is construing with
me Schiller's 'Wilhelm Tell,' with the view of translating it for the
press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he has learnt German with
extraordinary rapidity; indeed, he has the gift of tongues, and though
not yet eighteen understands twelve languages--English, Welsh, Erse,
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, and
Portuguese."
Describing Taylor, when he and Lavengro are discussing together the
possibility of becoming a good German scholar without being an ardent
smoker, Borrow writes: "The forehead of the elder individual was high,
and perhaps appeared more so than it really was, from the hair being
carefully brushed back, as if for the purpose of displaying to the best
advantage that part of the cranium; his eyes were large and full, and of
a light brown, and might have been called heavy and dull, had they not
been occasionally lighted up by a sudden gleam not so brilliant, however,
as that which at every inhalation shone from the bowl of a long clay pipe
which he was smoking, but which, from a certain sucking sound which about
this time began to be heard from the bottom, appeared to be giving notice
that it would soon require replenishment from a certain canister which,
together with a lighted taper, stood upon the table beside him."
That the elderly German student and his youthful emulator were kindred
spirits, there is no doubt; and Taylor seems to have instilled into
Borrow's mind many of his own tastes and admirations. Amongst these was
a sincere admiration for Southey, whom Borrow, with his love of
superlatives, looked upon not so much as a poet as England's best prose
writer, and probably the purest and most noble character to which she had
ever given birth.
We have no sure knowledge of whether, while in Norwich, Borrow made the
acquaintance of Old Crome. We know, however, that he was an enthusiastic
admirer of the self-taught master of the Old Norwich School of artists.
Still, he may never have been brought into immediate contact with him;
for Crome was in his forty-sixth year when Borrow's family first appeared
in Norwich, and George was then but a young lad. But before 1821, when
Old Crome died, Borrow must have learnt a good deal both of the painter
and his pictures, for the admiration that he afterwards expressed can
hardly have been entirely the outcome of the artist's posthumous fame.
"He has painted," writes Borrow, "not pictures of the world, but English
pictures, such as Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural
pieces, with trees that might well tempt the little birds to perch upon
them; thou needest not run to Rome, brother" (this was written of the
time when his brother John was leaving England to study art upon the
Continent), "where lives the old Mariolater, after pictures of the world,
whilst at home there are pictures of England; nor needest thou even go to
London, the big city, in search of a master, for thou hast one at home in
the old East Anglian town, who can instruct thee, while thou needest
instruction; better stay at home, brother, at least for a season, and
toil and strive 'midst groanings and despondency till thou hast attained
excellence, even as he has done--the little dark man with the dark-brown
coat and the top-boots, whose name will one day be considered the chief
ornament of the old town, and whose works will at no distant period rank
amongst the proudest pictures of England--and England against the
world!--thy master, my brother, all too little considered master--Crome."
It would almost appear from the details of the dark-brown coat and
top-boots that Borrow must have met Crome at some period of his Norwich
life. From the foregoing eulogy, one would gather that his brother John
was a pupil of the old painter. This may well have been the case, for
Crome had many such pupils, amongst whom, as has lately been shown, were,
in earlier years, some of the sisters Gurney of Earlham.