CHAPTER XXIX

JANUARY 1869–1881

THE death of his wife was a last blow to Borrow, and he soon retired from

the world. At first he appears to have sought consolation in books, to

judge from the number of purchases he made about this time; but it was,

apparently, with pitiably unsuccessful results. In a letter to a friend

Miss Cobbe gives a picture in his lonliness:

“Poor old Borrow is in a sad state,” she wrote. “I hope he is

starting in a day or two for Scotland. I sent C. with a note begging

him to come and eat the Welsh mutton you sent me to-day, and he sent

back word, ‘Yes.’ Then, an hour afterwards, he arrived, and in a

most agitated manner said he had come to say ‘he would rather not.

He would not trouble anyone with his sorrows.’ I made him sit down,

and talked as gently to him as possible, saying: ‘It won’t be a

trouble Mr. Borrow, it will be a pleasure to me.’ But it was all of

no use. He was so cross, so _rude_, I had the greatest difficulty in

talking to him. I asked about his servant, and he said I could not

help him. I asked him about Bowring, and he said: ‘Don’t speak of

it.’ (It was some dispute with Sir John Bowring, who was an

acquaintance of mine, and with whom I offered to mediate.) ‘I asked

him would he look at the photos of the Siamese,’ and he said: ‘Don’t

show them to me!’ So, in despair, as he sat silent, I told him I had

been at a pleasant dinner-party the night before, and had met Mr L—,

who told me of certain curious books of mediæval history. ‘Did he

know them?’ ‘No, and he _dare said_ Mr L— did not, either! Who was

Mr L—?’ I described that _obscure_ individual, (one of the foremost

writers of the day), and added that he was immensely liked by

everybody. Whereupon Borrow repeated at least twelve times,

‘Immensely liked! As if a man could be immensely liked!’ quite

insultingly. To make a diversion (I was very patient with him as he

was in trouble), ‘I said I had just come home from the Lyell’s and

had heard—’ . . . But there was no time to say what I had heard! Mr

Borrow asked: ‘Is that old Lyle I met here once, the man who stands

at the door (of some den or other) and _bets_?’ I explained who Sir

Charles was, {459a} (of course he knew very well), but he went on and

on, till I said gravely: ‘I don’t think you will meet those sort of

people here, Mr Borrow. We don’t associate with blacklegs,

exactly.’” {459b}

In the Autumn of 1870 Borrow became acquainted with Charles G. Leland

(“Hans Breitmann”) as the result of receiving from him the following

letter:—

BRIGHTON, 24_th_ _October_ 1870.

DEAR SIR,—During the eighteen months that I have been in England, my

efforts to find some mutual friend who would introduce me to you have

been quite in vain. As the author of two or three works which have

been kindly received in England, I have made the acquaintance of many

literary men and enjoyed much hospitality; but I assure you very

sincerely that my inability to find you out or get at you has been a

source of great annoyance to me. As you never published a book which

I have not read through five times—excepting _The Bible in Spain_ and

_Wild Wales_, which I have only read once—you will perfectly

understand why I should be so desirous of meeting you.

As you have very possibly never heard of me before, I would state

that I wrote a collection of Ballads satirising Germany and the

Germans under the title of _Hans Breitmann_.

I never before in my life solicited the favour of any man’s

acquaintance, except through the regular medium of an introduction.

If my request to be allowed the favour of meeting and seeing you does

not seem too _outré_, I would be to glad to go to London, or wherever

you may be, if it can be done without causing you any inconvenience,

and if I should not be regarded as an intruder. I am an American,

and among us such requests are _parfaitment_ (sic) _en régle_.

I am, . . .

CHARLES G. LELAND.

Borrow replied on 2nd Nov.:

SIR,

I have received your letter and am gratified by the desire you

express to make my acquaintance.

Whenever you please to come I shall be happy to see you.

Truly yours,

GEORGE BORROW. {460a}

The meeting unquestionably took place at Hereford Square, and Leland

found Borrow “a tall, large, fine-looking man who must have been handsome

in his youth.” {460b} The result of the interview was that Leland sent

to Borrow a copy of his _Ballads_ and also _The Music Lesson of

Confucius_, then about to appear. At the same time he wrote to Borrow

drawing his attention to one of the ballads written in German Romany

_jib_, and enquiring if it were worth anything. Whilst deprecating his

“impudence” in writing a Romany _gili_ and telling, as a pupil might a

master, of his interest in and his association with the gypsies, he

continues: “My dear Mr Borrow, for all this you are entirely responsible.

More than twenty years ago your books had an incredible influence on me,

and now you see the results.” After telling him that he can _never_

thank him sufficiently for the instructions he has given in _The Romany

Rye_ as to how to take care of a horse on a thirty mile ride, he

concludes—“With apologies for the careless tone of this letter, and with

sincere thanks for your kindness in permitting me to call on you and for

your courteous note,—I am your sincere admirer.”

The account that Leland gives of this episode in his _Memoirs_ is

puzzling and contradictory in the light of his first letter. He writes:

“There was another hard old character with whom I became acquainted

in those days, and one who, though not a Carlyle, still, like him,

exercised in a peculiar way a great influence on English literature.

This was George Borrow. I was in the habit of reading a great deal

in the British Museum, where he also came, and there I was introduced

to him. {461a} [Leland seems to be in error here; see _ante_, page

460.] He was busy with a venerable-looking volume in old Irish, and

made the remark to me that he did not believe there was a man living

who could read old Irish with ease (which I now observe to myself was

‘fished’ out of Sir W. Betham). We discussed several Gypsy words and

phrases. I met him in the same place several times.” {461b}

Leland states that he sent a note to Borrow, care of John Murray, asking

permission to dedicate to him his forthcoming book, _The English Gypsies

and Their Language_; but received no reply, although Murray assured him

that the letter had been received by Borrow. “He received my note on the

Saturday,” Leland writes—“never answered it—and on Monday morning

advertised in all the journals his own forthcoming work on the same

subject.” {461c} Had Borrow asked him to delay publishing his own book,

Leland says he would have done so, “for I had so great a respect for the

Nestor of Gypsyism, that I would have been very glad to have gratified

him with such a small sacrifice.” {462a}

However Borrow may have heard that Leland had in preparation a book on

the English Gypsies, he seemed to feel that it was a trespass upon ground

that was peculiarly his own. Having revised and prepared for the press

the new edition of the Gypsy St Luke for the Bible Society (published

December 1872), and the one-volume editions of _Lavengro_ and _The Romany

Rye_, he set to work to forestall Leland with his own _Romano Lavo-Lil_.

In spite of his haste, however, Borrow was beaten in the race, and Leland

got his volume out first. When the _Romano Lavo-Lil_ {462b} appeared in

March 1874, Borrow found what, in all probability he had not dreamed of,

that the thirty-three years intervening between its publication and that

of _The Zincali_, had changed the whole literary world as regards “things

of Egypt.” In 1841 Borrow had produced a unique book, such as only one

man in England could have written, and that man himself {462c}; but in

1874 he found himself not only out of date, but out-classed.

The title very thoroughly explains the scope of the work. The Vocabulary

had existed in manuscript for many years. For some reason, difficult to

explain, Borrow had omitted from this Vocabulary a number of the gypsy

words that appeared in _Lavengro_ and _The Romany Rye_. In spite of this

“Mr Borrow’s present vocabulary makes a goodly show,” wrote F. H. Groome,

“. . . containing no fewer than fourteen hundred words, of which about

fifty will be entirely new to those who only know Romany in books.”

{463a}

After praising the Gypsy songs as the best portion of the book, Groome

proceeds:

“Of his prose I cannot say so much. It is the Romany of the study

rather than of the tents [!] Mr Borrow has attempted to rehabilitate

English Romany by enduing it with forms and inflections, of which

some are still rarely to be heard, some extinct, and others

absolutely incorrect; while Mr Leland has been content to give it as

it really is. Of the two methods I cannot doubt that most readers

will agree with me in thinking that Mr Leland’s is the more

satisfactory.” {463b}

The _Athenæum_ sternly rebuked Borrow for seeming “to make the mistake of

confounding the amount of Rommanis which he has collected in this book

with the actual extent of the language itself.” The reviewer pays a

somewhat grudging tribute to other portions of the book, the accounts of

the Gypsyries and the biographical particulars of the Romany worthies,

but the work suffers by comparison with those of Paspati and Leland. He

acknowledges that Borrow was one of the pioneers of those who gave

accounts of the Gypsies in English, who gave to many their present taste

for Gypsy matters,

“but,” he proceeds, “we cannot allow merely sentimental

considerations to prevent us from telling the honest truth. The fact

is that the _Romano Lavo-Lil_ is nothing more than a _réchauffé_ of

the materials collected by Mr Borrow at an early stage of his

investigations, and nearly every word and every phrase may be found

in one form or another in his earlier works. Whether or not Mr

Borrow _has_ in the course of his long experience become the _deep_

Gypsy which he has always been supposed to be, we cannot say; but it

is certain that his present book contains little more than he gave to

the public forty years ago, and does not by any means represent the

present state of knowledge on the subject. But at the present day,

when comparative philology has made such strides, and when want of

accurate scholarship is as little tolerated in strange and remote

languages as in classical literature, the _Romano Lavo-Lil_ is, to

speak mildly, an anachronism.”

This notice, if Borrow read it, must have been very bitter to him. All

the loyalty to, and enthusiasm for, Borrow cannot disguise the fact that

his work, as far as the Gypsies were concerned, was finished. He had

first explored the path, but others had followed and levelled it into a

thoroughfare, and Borrow found his facts and theories obsolete—a

humiliating discovery to a man so shy, so proud, and so sensitive.

The _Romano Lavo-Lil_ was Borrow’s swan song. He lived for another seven

years; but as far as the world was concerned he was dead. In an obituary

notice of Robert Latham, Mr Watts-Dunton tells a story that emphasizes

how thoroughly his existence had been forgotten. At one of Mrs Procter’s

“at homes” he was talking of Latham and Borrow, but when he happened to

mention that both men were still alive, that is in the early Seventies,

and that quite recently he had been in the company of each on separate

occasions, he found that he had lost caste in the eyes of his hearers for

talking about men as alive “who were well known to have been dead years

ago.” {464}

There is an interesting picture of Borrow as he appeared in the

Seventies, given by F. H. Groome, who writes:

“The first time I ever saw him was at Ascot, the Wednesday evening of

the Cup week in, I think, the year 1872. I was stopping at a wayside

inn, half-a-mile on the Windsor road, just opposite which inn there

was a great encampment of Gypsies. One of their lads had on the

Tuesday affronted a soldier; so two or three hundred redcoats came

over from Windsor, intending to wreck the camp. There was a babel of

cursing and screaming, much brandishing of belts and tent-rods, when

suddenly an arbiter appeared, a white-haired, brown-eyed, calm

Colossus, speaking Romany fluently, and drinking deep draughts of

ale—in a quarter of an hour Tommy Atkins and Anselo Stanley were

sworn friends over a loving-quart. “Mr Burroughs,” said one of the

Gypsies (it is the name by which Gypsies still speak of him), and I

knew that at last I had met him whom of all men I most wished to

meet. Matty Cooper, the ‘celebrated Windsor Frog’ (_vide_ Leland),

presented me as ‘a young gentleman, _Rya_, a scholard from Oxford’;

and ‘H’m,’ quoth Colossus, ‘a good many fools come from Oxford.’ It

was a bad beginning, but it ended well, by his asking me to walk with

him to the station, and on the way inviting me to call on him in

London. I did so, but not until nearly a twelve-month afterwards,

when I found him in Hereford Square, and when he set strong ale

before me, as again on the occasion of my third and last meeting with

him in the tent of our common acquaintance, Shadrach Herne, at the

Potteries, Notting Hill. Both these times we had much talk together,

but I remember only that it was partly about East Anglia, and more

about ‘things of Egypt.’ Conversations twenty years old are easy to

imagine, hard to reproduce . . . Probably Borrow asked me the Romany

for ‘frying-pan,’ and I modestly answered, ‘Either _maasalli_ or

_tasseromengri_’ (this is password No. 1), and then I may have asked

him the Romany for ‘brick,’ to which he will have answered, that

‘there is no such word’ (this is No. 2). But one thing I do

remember, that he was frank and kindly, interesting and interested; I

was only a lad, and he was verging on seventy. I could tell him

about a few ‘travellers’ whom he had not recently seen—Charlie

Pinfold, the hoary polygamist, Plato and Mantis Buckland, Cinderella

Petulengro, and Old Tom Oliver (‘Ha! so he has seen Tom Oliver,’ I

seem to remember that).” {466a}

There was nothing now to keep Borrow in London. Nobody wanted to read

his books, other stars had risen in the East. His publisher had

exclaimed with energy, as Borrow himself would relate, “I want to meet

with good writers, but there are none to be had: I want a man who can

write like Ecclesiastes.” There is something tragic in the account that

Mr Watts-Dunton gives of his last encounter with Borrow:

“The last time I ever saw him,” he writes, “was shortly before he

left London to live in the country. It was, I remember well, on

Waterloo Bridge, where I had stopped to gaze at a sunset of singular

and striking splendour, whose gorgeous clouds and ruddy mists were

reeling and boiling over the West-End. Borrow came up and stood

leaning over the parapet, entranced by the sight, as well he might

be. Like most people born in flat districts, he had a passion for

sunsets. Turner could not have painted that one, I think, and

certainly my pen could not describe it . . . I never saw such a

sunset before or since, not even on Waterloo Bridge; and from its

association with ‘the last of Borrow,’ I shall never forget it.”

{466b}

In 1874 Borrow withdrew to Oulton, there to end his lonely life, his

spirit seeming to enjoy the dreary solitude of the Cottage, with its

mournful surroundings. His stepdaughter, the Henrietta of old, remained

in London with her husband, and Borrow’s loneliness was complete.

Sometimes he was to be seen stalking along the highways at a great pace,

wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a Spanish cloak, a tragic figure of

solitude and despair, speaking to no one, no one daring to speak to him,

who locally was considered as “a funny tempered man.”

In a fragment of a letter from Edward FitzGerald to W. B. Donne (June

1874), there is an interesting reference to Borrow:—

“Wait!” he writes. “I have one little thing to tell you, which,

little as it is, is worth all the rest, if you don’t know already.

“_Borrow_—has got back to his own Oulton Lodge. My Nephew, Edmund

Kerrich, now Adjutant to some Volunteer Battalion, wants a house

_near_, not _in_, Lowestoft: and got some Agent to apply for

Borrow’s—who sent word that he is himself there—an old Man—wanting

Retirement, etc. This was the account Edmund got.

“I saw in some Athenæum a somewhat contemptuous notice of G. B.’s

‘Rommany Lil’ or whatever the name is. I can easily understand that

B. should not meddle with _science_ of any sort; but some years ago

he would not have liked to be told so, however Old Age may have

cooled him now.” {467}

Borrow sent a message to FitzGerald through Edmund Kerrich of Geldeston,

asking him to visit Oulton Cottage. The reply shows all the sweetness of

the writer’s nature:—

LITTLE GRANGE, WOODBRIDGE,

_Jan._ 10/75.

DEAR BORROW,—My nephew Kerrich told me of a very kind invitation that

you sent to me, through him, some while ago. I think the more of it

because I imagine, from what I have heard, that you have slunk away

from human company as much—as I have! For the last fifteen years I

have not visited any one of my very oldest friends, except the

daughters of my old [?friend] George Crabbe, and Donne—once only, and

for half a day, just to assure myself by—my own eyes how he was after

the severe illness he had last year, and which he never will quite

recover from, I think; though he looked and moved better than I

expected.

Well—to tell you all about _why_ I have thus fallen from my company

would be a tedious thing, and all about one’s self too—whom,

Montaigne says, one never talks about without detriment to the person

talked about. Suffice to say, ‘so it is’; and one’s friends, however

kind and ‘loyal’ (as the phrase goes), do manage to exist and enjoy

themselves pretty reasonably without one.

So with me. And is it not much the same with you also? Are you not

glad now to be mainly alone, and find company a heavier burden than

the grasshopper? If one ever had this solitary habit, it is not

likely to alter for the better as one grows older—as one grows _old_.

I like to think over my old friends. There they are, lingering as

ineffaceable portraits—done in the prime of life—in my memory.

Perhaps we should not like one another so well after a fifteen-years

separation, when all of us change and most of us for the worse. I do

not say _that_ would be your case; but you must, at any rate, be less

inclined to disturb the settled repose into which you, I suppose,

have fallen. I remember first seeing you at Oulton, some twenty-five

years ago; then at Donne’s in London; then at my own happy home in

Regent’s Park; then _ditto_ at Gorleston—after which, I have seen

nobody, except the nephews and nieces left me by my good sister

Kerrich.

So shall things rest? I could not go to you, after refusing all this

while to go to older—if not better—friends, fellow Collegians, fellow

schoolfellows; and yet will you still believe me (as I hope _they_

do)

Yours and theirs sincerely,

EDWARD FITZGERALD.

Borrow was still a remarkably robust man. Mr Watts-Dunton tells how,

“At seventy years of age, after breakfasting at eight o’clock in

Hereford Square, he would walk to Putney, meet one or more of us at

Roehampton, roam about Wimbledon and Richmond Park with us, bathe in

the Fen Ponds with a north-east wind cutting across the icy water

like a razor, run about the grass afterwards like a boy to shake off

some of the water-drops, stride about the park for hours, and then,

after fasting for twelve hours, eat a dinner at Roehampton that would

have done Sir Walter Scott’s eyes good to see. Finally, he would

walk back to Hereford Square, getting home late at night. And if the

physique of the man was bracing, his conversation, unless he happened

to be suffering from one of his occasional fits of depression, was

still more so. Its freshness, raciness and eccentric whim no pen

could describe. There is a kind of humour the delight of which is

that while you smile at the pictures it draws, you smile quite as

much or more to think that there is a mind so whimsical, crotchetty,

and odd as to draw them. This was the humour of Borrow.” {469a}

He was seventy years of age when, one March day during a bitterly-cold

east wind, he stripped and plunged into one of the Fen Ponds in Richmond

Park, which was covered with ice, and dived and swam under the water for

a time, reappearing some distance from the spot where he had entered the

water. {469b}

The remaining years of Borrow’s life were spent in Suffolk. He would

frequently go to Norwich, however; for the old city seemed to draw him

irresistibly from his hermitage. He would take a lodging there, and

spend much of his time occupying a certain chair in the Norfolk Hotel in

St Giles. There were so many old associations with Norwich that made it

appear home to him. He was possessed of sentiment in plenty, it had

caused his old mother to wish that “dear George would not have such

fancies about _the old house_” in Willow Lane.

Later, Dr and Mrs MacOubrey removed to Oulton (about 1878), and Borrow’s

life became less dismal and lonely; but he was nearing his end.

Sometimes there would be a flash of that old unconquerable spirit. His

stepdaughter relates how,

“on the 21st of November [1878], the place [the farm] having been

going to decay for fourteen months, Mr Palmer [the tenant] called to

demand that Mr Borrow should put it in repair; otherwise he would do

it himself and send in the bills, saying, ‘I don’t care for the old

farm or you either,’ and several other insulting things; whereupon Mr

Borrow remarked very calmly, ‘Sir, you came in by that door, you can

go out by it’—and so it ended.” {470a}

It was on an occasion such as this that Borrow yearned for a son to knock

the rascal down. He was an infirm man, his body feeling the wear and

tear of the strenuous open-air life he had led. In 1879, according to

Mrs MacOubrey, he was “unable to walk as far as the white gate,” the

boundary of his estate. He was obviously breaking-up very rapidly. The

surroundings appear to have reflected the gloomy nature of the master of

the estate. The house was dilapidated, “with everything about it more or

less untidy,” {470b} although at this period his income amounted to

upwards of five hundred pounds a year.

“During his latter years,” writes Mr W. A. Dutt, “his tall, erect,

somewhat mysterious figure was often seen in the early hours of

summer mornings or late at night on the lonely pathways that wind in

and out from the banks of Oulton Broad . . . the village children

used to hush their voices and draw aside at his approach. They

looked upon him with fear and awe. . . . In his heart, Borrow was

fond of the little ones, though it amused him to watch the impression

his strange personality made upon them. Older people he seldom spoke

to when out on his solitary rambles; but sometimes he would flash out

such a glance from beneath his broad-brimmed hat and shaggy eyebrows

as would make timid country folk hasten on their way filled with

vague thoughts and fears of the evil eye.” {470c}

Even to the last the old sensitiveness occasionally flashed out, as on

the occasion of a visit from the Vicar of Lowestoft, who drove over with

an acquaintance of Borrow’s to make the hermit’s acquaintance. The

visitor was so incautious as to ask the age of his host, when, with

Johnsonian emphasis, came the reply: “Sir, I tell my age to no man!”

This occurred some time during the year 1880. Immediately his

discomfited guest had departed, Borrow withdrew to the summer-house,

where he drew up the following apothegm on “People’s Age”:—

“Never talk to people about their age. Call a boy a boy, and he will

fly into a passion and say, ‘Not quite so much of a boy either; I’m a

young man.’ Tell an elderly person that he’s not so young as he was,

and you will make him hate you for life. Compliment a man of

eighty-five on the venerableness of his appearance, and he will

shriek out: ‘No more venerable than yourself,’ and will perhaps hit

you with his crutch.”

On 1st December 1880 Borrow sent for his solicitor from Lowestoft, and

made his will, by which he bequeathed all his property, real and

personal, to his stepdaughter Henrietta, devising that it should be held

in trust for her by his friend Elizabeth Harvey. It was evidently

Borrow’s intention so to tie up the bequest that Dr MacOubrey could not

in any way touch his wife’s estate.

The end came suddenly. On the morning of 26th July 1881 Dr and Mrs

MacOubrey drove into Lowestoft, leaving Borrow alone in the house. When

they returned he was dead. Throughout his life Borrow had been a

solitary, and it seems fitting that he should die alone. It has been

urged against his stepdaughter that she disregarded Borrow’s appeals not

to be left alone in the house, as he felt himself to be dying. He may

have made similar requests on other occasions; still, whatever the facts,

it was strange to leave so old and so infirm a man quite unattended.

On 4th August the body was brought to London, and buried beside that of

Mrs George Borrow in Brompton Cemetery. On the stone, which is what is

known as a saddle-back, is inscribed:

IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF

GEORGE HENRY BORROW, ESQ.,

WHO DIED JULY 26TH, 1881 (AT HIS RESIDENCE “OULTON COTTAGE, SUFFOLK”)

IN HIS 79TH YEAR.

(AUTHOR OF THE BIBLE IN SPAIN, LAVENGRO—AND OTHER WORKS.)

“IN HOPE OF A GLORIOUS RESURRECTION.”

A fruitless effort was made by the late J. J. Colman of Carrow to

purchase the whole of Borrow’s manuscripts, library, and papers for the

Carrow Abbey Library; but the price asked, a thousand pounds, was

considered too high, and they passed into the possession of another.

Eventually they found their way into the reverent hands of the man who

subsequently made Borrow his hero, and who devoted years of his life to

the writing of his biography—Dr W. J. Knapp.

It was Borrow’s fate, a tragic fate for a man so proud, to outlive the

period of his fame. Not only were his books forgotten, but the world

anticipated his death by some seven or eight years. His was a curiously

complex nature, one that seems specially to have been conceived by

Providence to arouse enmity among the many, and to awaken in the hearts

of the few a sterling, unwavering friendship. It is impossible to

reconcile the accounts of those who hated him with those whose love and

respect he engaged.

He was in sympathy with vagrants and vagabonds—a taste that was perhaps

emphasised by the months he spent in preparing _Celebrated Trials_. If

those months of hack work taught him sympathy with pariahs, it also

taught him to write strong, nervous English.

He was one of the most remarkable characters of his century—whimsical,

eccentric, lovable, inexplicable; possessed of an odd, dry humour that

sometimes failed him when most he needed it. He lived and died a

stranger to the class to which he belonged, and was the intimate friend

and associate of that dark and mysterious personage, Mr Petulengro. He

hated his social equals, and admired Tamerlane and Jerry Abershaw. It

has been said {473} that he was born three centuries too late, and that

he belonged to the age when men dropped mysteriously down the river in

ships, later to return with strange stories and great treasure from the

Spanish Main. Mr Watts-Dunton has said:—

“When Borrow was talking to people in his own class of life there was

always in his bearing a kind of shy, defiant egotism. What Carlyle

called the ‘armed neutrality’ of social intercourse oppressed him.

He felt himself to be in the enemy’s camp. In his eyes there was

always a kind of watchfulness, as if he were taking stock of his

interlocutor and weighing him against himself. He seemed to be

observing what effect his words were having, and this attitude

repelled people at first. But the moment he approached a gypsy on

the heath, or a poor Jew in Houndsditch, or a homeless wanderer by

the wayside, he became another man. He threw off the burden of

restraint. The feeling of the ‘armed neutrality’ was left behind,

and he seemed to be at last enjoying the only social intercourse that

could give him pleasure. This it was that enabled him to make

friends so entirely with the gypsies. Notwithstanding what is called

‘Romany guile’ (which is the growth of ages of oppression), the basis

of the Romany character is a joyous frankness. Once let the

isolating wall which shuts off the Romany from the ‘Gorgio’ be broken

through, and the communicativeness of the Romany temperament begins

to show itself. The gypsies are extremely close observers; they were

very quick to notice how different was Borrow’s bearing towards

themselves from his bearing towards people of his own race, and

Borrow used to say that ‘old Mrs Herne and Leonora were the only

gypsies who suspected and disliked him.’” {474a}

This convincing character sketch seems to show the real Borrow. It

accounts even for that high-piping, artificial voice (a gypsy trait) that

he assumed when speaking with those who were not his intimate friends,

and which any sudden interest in the conversation would cause him to

abandon in favour of his own deep, rich tones. Mr F. J. Bowring, himself

no friend of Borrow’s for very obvious reasons, has described this

artificial intonation as something between a beggar’s whine and the

high-pitched voice of a gypsy—in sort, a falsetto. He tells how, on one

occasion, when in conversation with Borrow, he happened to mention to him

something of particular interest concerning the gypsies, Borrow became

immensely interested, immediately dropped the falsetto and spoke in his

natural voice, which Mr Bowring describes as deep and manly.

Even his friends were led sometimes into criticisms that appear

unsympathetic. {474b} He was, Dr Hake has said, “essentially

hypochondriacal. Society he loved and hated alike: he loved it that he

might be pointed out and talked of; he hated it because he was not the

prince that he felt himself in its midst.” {474c} It is the son who

shows the better understanding, although there is no doubt about Dr

Hake’s loyalty to Borrow. There is a faithful presentation of a man such

as Borrow really seems to have been, in the following words:—

“Few men have ever made so deep an impression on me as George Borrow.

His tall, broad figure, his stately bearing, his fine brown eyes, so

bright yet soft, his thick white hair, his oval beardless face, his

loud rich voice and bold heroic air were such as to impress the most

indifferent lookers-on. Added to this there was something not easily

forgotten in the manner in which he would unexpectedly come to our

gates, singing some gypsy song, and as suddenly depart.” {475a}

If Borrow wrote that he was ashamed of being an Englishman and referred

to their “pinched and mortified expressions,” if he found the virtues of

the Saxons “uncouth and ungracious,” he never permitted others to make

disparaging remarks about his country or his countrymen. {475b} He was

typically English in this: agree with his strictures, add a word or two

of dispraise of the English, and there appeared a terrifying figure of a

patriot; “not only an Englishman but an East Englishman,” which in

Borrow’s vocabulary meant the finest of the breed. He might with more

truth have said a Cornishman. “I could not command myself when I heard

my own glorious land traduced in this unmerited manner,” {475c} he once

exclaimed. He permitted to himself, and to himself only, a certain

latitude in such matters.

That Borrow exaggerated is beyond all question, but it must not be called

deliberate. He desired to give impressions of scenes and people, and he

was inclined to emphasize certain features. Isopel Berners he wished it

to be known was a queenly creature, and he described her as taller than

himself (he was 6 feet 2 inches without his shoes). Exaggeration is

colour, not form. A disbelief in his having encountered the convict son

of the old apple-woman near Salisbury does not imply that the old woman

herself is a fiction. Borrow insisted upon Norfolk as his county, “where

the people eat the best dumplings in the world, and speak the purest

English.” He even spoke with a strong, if imperfect, East Anglian

accent. As a matter of fact his father was Cornish and his mother of

Huguenot stock. It would be absurd to argue from this obvious

exaggeration of the actual facts that Borrow was a myth.

Then he has been taken to task for not being a philologist as well as a

linguist. He may have used the word philologist somewhat loosely on

occasion. “Think what the reader would have lost,” says one eminent but

by no means prejudiced critic {476} with real sympathy and insight, “had

Borrow waited to verify his etymologies.” In all probability Nature will

never produce a Humboldt-Le Sage combination of intellect. Language was

to Borrow merely the key that permitted him access to the chamber of

men’s minds. It must be confessed that sometimes he invaded the sacred

precincts of philology. His chapter on the Basque language in _The Bible

in Spain_ has been described as “utterly frantic,” and German

philologists, speechless in their astonishment, have expressed themselves

upon his conclusions in marks of exclamation! He was not qualified to

discourse upon the science of language.

He was a staunch member of the Church of England, because he believed

there was in it more religion than in any other Church; but this did not

hinder him from consorting with the godless children of the tents, or

contributing towards the upkeep of Nonconformist-schools. The gypsies

honoured and trusted him because, crooked themselves, they appreciated

straightness and clean living in another. They had never known him use a

bad word or do a bad thing. He was, on occasion, arrogant, overbearing,

ungracious, in short all the unattractive things that a proud and

masterful man can be; but his friendship was as strong as the man

himself; his charity above the narrow prejudices of sect. When he threw

his tremendous power into any enterprise or undertaking, it was with the

determination that it should succeed, if work and self-sacrifice could

make it. “The wisest course,” he thought, was, “ . . . to blend the

whole of the philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy

of the publican and something more, to enjoy one’s pint and pipe and

other innocent pleasures, and to think every now and then of death and

judgment.” {477}

Borrow loved mystery for its own sake, and none were ever able quite to

penetrate into the inner fastness of his personality. Those who came

nearest to it were probably Hasfeldt and Ford, whose persistent

good-humour was an armour against a reserve that chilled most men. Of

all Borrow’s friends it is probable that none understood him so well as

Hasfeldt. He recognised the strength of character of the white-haired

man who sang when he was happy, and he refused to be affected by his

gloomy moods. “Write and tell me,” he requests, “if you have not fallen

in love with some nun or Gypsy in Spain, or have met with some other

romantic adventure worthy of a roaming knight.” On another occasion

(June 1845) he boasts with some justification, “Heaven be praised, I can

comprehend you as a reality, while many regard you as an imaginary,

fantastic being. But they who portray you have not eaten bread and salt

with you.”

Borrow’s contemporary recognition was a chance; he was writing for

another generation, and some of the friends that he left behind have

loyally striven to erect to him the only monument an artist desires—the

proclaiming of his works.

Nature it appeared had framed Borrow in a moment of magnificence, and,

lest he should be enticed away from her, had instilled into his soul a

hatred of all things artificial and at variance with her august decrees.

He was shy and suspicious with the men and women who regulated their

lives by the narrow standards of civilisation and decorum; but with the

children of the tents and the vagrants of the wayside he was a

single-minded man, eager to learn the lore of the open air. He

recognised in these vagabonds the true sons and daughters of “the Great

Mother who mixes all our bloods.”

* * * * *

THE END

* * * * *

LIST OF BORROW’S WORKS

1825

_Celebrated Trials_, _and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence_,

_from the Earliest Records to the Year_ 1825. Six volumes, with plates.

London.

_Faustus_: _His Life_, _Death_, _and Descent into Hell_. Translated from

the German [of F. M. von Klinger]. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, London.

1826

_Romantic Ballads_. Translated from the Danish: and Miscellaneous

Pieces. S. Wilkin, Norwich.

1835

_Targum_: _or_, _Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and

Dialects_. St Petersburgh. Reprinted later by Jarrold & Sons, Norwich.

_The Talisman_. From the Russian of Alexander Pushkin. With _Other

Pieces_. St Petersburg.

1841

_The Zincali_; _or_, _An Account of the Gypsies of Spain_. With an

Original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and a Copious Dictionary

of their Language. Two volumes. John Murray, London.

1842

_The Bible in Spain_; _or_, _the Journeys_, _Adventures_, _and

Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures

in the Peninsula_. Three volumes. John Murray, London.

_Lavengro_: The Scholar—The Gypsy—The Priest. Three volumes. John

Murray, London.

_The Romany Rye_: _a Sequel to Lavengro_. Two volumes. John Murray,

London.

_The Sleeping Bard_; _or_, _Visions of the World_, _Death_, _and Hell_.

By Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian British. John Murray, London.

1862

_Wild Wales_: _Its People_, _Language_, _and Scenery_. Three volumes.

John Murray, London.

_Romano Lavo-Lil_: _Word-Book of Romany_; _or_, _English Gypsy Language_.

With Many Pieces in Gypsy, Illustrative of the Way of Speaking and

Thinking of the English Gypsies; with Specimens of Their Poetry, and an

Account of Certain Gypsyries or Places Inhabited by Them, and of Various

Things Relating to Gypsy Life in England. John Murray, London.

1884

_The Turkish Jester_; _or_, _the Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin

Effendi_. Translated from the Turkish. Jarrold & Sons, Norwich.

1892

_The Death of Balder_. Translated from the Danish of Evald. Jarrold &

Sons, Norwich.

From the foregoing list has been omitted the mysterious _Life and

Adventures of Joseph Sell_, _the Great Traveller_, and those works that

Borrow edited or translated for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

FOOTNOTES

{3} Afterwards General Morshead and friend of the Duke of York. Captain

Morshead, himself a Cornishman, is credited with doing everything in his

power to dissuade Thomas Borrow from enlisting, but without result.

{4a} _Lavengro_, page 2. References to Borrow’s works throughout this

volume are to the Standard Edition, published by John Murray.

{4b} Ann, the third of eight children born to Samuel Perfrement and Mary

his wife, 23rd January 1772.

{4c} Locally, the name is pronounced “_Par_frement.” This is quite in

accordance with the Norfolk dialect, which changes “e” into “a.” Thus

“Ernest” becomes “Arnest”; “Earlham,” “Arlham”; “Erpingham,” “Arpingham,”

and so on. In Norfolk there are grave peculiarities of pronunciation,

which have caused many a stranger to wish that he had never enquired his

way, so puzzling are the replies hurled at him in an incomprehensible

vernacular.

{5} Married the Rev. Wm. Holland, rector of Walmer and afterwards rector

of Brasted, Kent.

{6a} _Lavengro_, page 5.

{6b} _Lavengro_, page 5.

{7a} George in honour of the King, it is said, and Henry after his

father’s eldest brother.

{7b} _Lavengro_, page 6.

{7c} _Lavengro_, page 6.

{7d} _Lavengro_, page 6.

{7e} _Lavengro_, page 7.

{7f} _Lavengro_, page 7.

{9a} _Lavengro_, page 16.

{9b} The widow of Sir John Fenn, editor of the _Paston Letters_.

{9c} _Lavengro_, page 15.

{10a} _Lavengro_, pages 398–9.

{10b} “Many years have not passed over my head, yet during those which I

can call to remembrance, how many things have I seen flourish, pass away,

and become forgotten, except by myself, who, in spite of all my

endeavours, never can forget anything.”—_Lavengro_, page 166.

{10c} _Lavengro_, page 16.

{11a} _Lavengro_, pages 19–20.

{11b} _Lavengro_, page 22.

{12a} The gypsies “have a double nomenclature, each tribe or family

having a public and private name, one by which they are known to the

Gentiles, and another to themselves alone . . . There are only two names

of trades which have been adopted by English gypsies as proper names,

Cooper and Smith: these names are expressed in the English gypsy dialect

by _Vardo-mescro_ and _Petulengro_ (_Romano Lavo-Lil_, page 185). Thus

the Smiths are known among themselves as the Petulengros. Petul, a horse

shoe, and engro a “masculine affix used in the formation of figurative

names.” Thus Boshomengro (a fiddler) comes from Bosh a fiddle,

Cooromengro (a soldier, a pugilist) from Coor = to fight.

{12b} The Rev. Wentworth Webster heard narrated at a provincial Bible

Society’s meeting that when Borrow first called at Earl Street “he said

that he had been stolen by gypsies in his boyhood, had passed several

years with them, but had been recognised at a fair in Norfolk and brought

home to his family by his uncle.” There is, however, nothing to confirm

this story.

{13a} _Lavengro_, page 164.

{13b} The prisoners occupied much of their time in straw-plait making;

but the quality of their work was so much superior to that of the English

that it was forbidden, and consequently destroyed when found.

{13c} _Lavengro_, page 45.

{14} David Haggart, born 24th June 1801, was an instinctive criminal,

who, at Leith Races, in 1813, enlisted, whilst drunk, as a drummer in the

West Norfolks. Eventually he obtained his discharge and continued on his

career of crime and prison-breaking, among other things murdering a

policeman and a gaoler, until, on 18th July 1821, he was hanged at

Edinburgh.

{15a} _Lavengro_, page 138.

{15b} John Crome (1768–1821), landscape painter. Apprenticed 1783 as

sign-painter; introduced into Norwich the art of graining; founded the

Norwich School of Painting; first exhibited at the Royal Academy 1806.

{17} Borrow was always a magnificent horseman. “Vaya! how you ride! It

is dangerous to be in your way!” said the Archbishop of Toledo to him

years later. In _The Bible in Spain_ he wrote that he had “been

accustomed from . . . childhood to ride without a saddle.” The Rev.

Wentworth Webster states that in Madrid “he used to ride with a Russian

skin for a saddle and _without stirrups_.”

{20} Letter from “A School-fellow of _Lavengro_” in _The Britannia_,

26th April 1851.

{21a} “It is probable, that had I been launched about this time into

some agreeable career, that of arms, for example, for which, being the

son of a soldier, I had, as was natural, a sort of penchant, I might have

thought nothing more of the acquisition of tongues of any kind; but,

having nothing to do, I followed the only course suited to my genius

which appeared open to me.”—_Lavengro_, page 89.

{21b} The Rev. Thomas D’Eterville, M.A., “Poor Old Detterville,” as the

Grammar School boys called him, of Caen University, who arrived at

Norwich in 1793. He acquired a small fortune by teaching languages.

There were rumours that he was engaged in the contraband trade, an

occupation more likely to bring fortune than teaching languages.

{21c} Letter from “A School-fellow of _Lavengro_” in _The Britannia_,

26th April 1851.

{22} It was here, in 1827, that he saw the world’s greatest trotter,

Marshland Shales, and in common with other lovers of horses lifted his

hat to salute “the wondrous horse, the fast trotter, the best in mother

England.” In _Lavengro_ Borrow antedated this event by some nine years.

{23} Manuscript autobiographical notes supplied by Borrow to Mr John

Longe, 1862.

{24} _Lavengro_, page 134.

{25a} This account is taken from a letter by “A Schoolfellow of

_Lavengro_” in _The Britannia_, 26th April 1851.

{25b} In a letter to Borrow, dated 15th October 1862, John Longe, J.P.,

of Spixworth Park, Norwich, in acknowledging some biographical

particulars that Borrow had sent him for inclusion in Burton’s

_Antiquities of the Royal School of Norwich_, wrote:—

“You have omitted an important and characteristic anecdote of your

early days (fifteen years of age). When at school you, with

Theodosius and Francis W. Purland, _absented_ yourself from home and

school and took up your abode in a certain ‘Robber’s Cave’ at Acle,

where you _resided_ three days, and once more returned to your

homes.”

{26} According to the original manuscript of _Lavengro_, it appears that

Roger Kerrison, a Norwich friend of Borrow’s, strongly advised the law as

“an excellent profession . . . for those who never intend to follow

it.”—_Life of George Borrow_, by Dr Knapp, i., 66.

{27a} The Rev. Wm. Drake of Mundesley, in a letter which appeared in

_The Eastern Daily Press_, 22nd September 1892:—

“ . . . I was at the Norwich Grammar School nine years, from 1820 to

1829, and during that time (probably in 1824 and 1825) George Borrow

was lodging in the Upper Close . . . The house was a low

old-fashioned building with a garden in front of it, and the fact of

Borrow’s residence there is fixed in my memory because I had spent

the first five or six years of my own life in the same house, from

1811 to 1816 or 1817. My father occupied it in virtue of his being a

minor canon in Norwich Cathedral. I remember Borrow very distinctly,

because he was fond of chatting with the boys, who used to gather

round the railings of his garden, and occasionally he would ask one

or two of them to have tea with him. I have a faint recollection

that he gave us some of our first notions of chess, but I am not sure

of this. I . . . remember him a tall, spare, dark-complexioned man,

usually dressed in black. In person he was not unlike another

Norwich man, who obtained in those days a very different notoriety

from that which now belongs to Borrow’s name. I mean John Thurtell,

who murdered Mr Weare.”

{27b} _Wild Wales_, page 3.

{28a} _Wild Wales_, page 157.

{28b} Forty years later Borrow wrote of these days:—“‘How much more

happy, innocent, and holy I was in the days of my boyhood when I

translated Iolo’s ode than I am at the present time!’ Then covering my

face with my hands I wept like a child.”—_Wild Wales_, page 448.

{30a} There is no doubt that Borrow became possessed of a copy of

_Kiæmpe Viser_, first collected by Anders Vedel, which may or may not

have been given to him, with a handshake from the old farmer and a kiss

from his wife, in recognition of the attention he had shown the pair in

his official capacity. He refers to the volume repeatedly in _Lavengro_,

and narrates how it was presented by some shipwrecked Danish mariners to

the old couple in acknowledgment of their humanity and hospitality. It

is, however, most likely that he was in error when he stated that “in

less than a month” he was able “to read the book.”—_Lavengro_, pages

140–4.

{30b} _Wild Wales_, page 2.

{30c} _Wild Wales_, page 374.

{30d} _Wild Wales_, page 9. There is an interesting letter written to

Borrow by the old lawyer’s son on the appearance of _Lavengro_, in which

he says: “With tearful eyes, yet smiling lips, I have read and re-read

your faithful portrait of my dear old father. I cannot mistake him—the

creaking shoes, the florid face, the polished pate—all serve as marks of

recognition to his youngest son!”

{31a} _Wild Wales_, page 374.

{31b} During the five years that he was articled to Simpson & Rackham,

Borrow, according to Dr Knapp, studied Welsh, Danish, German, Hebrew,

Arabic, Gaelic, and Armenian. He already had a knowledge of Latin,

Greek, Irish, French, Italian, and Spanish.

{31c} _Lavengro_, page 235.

{32a} Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), the historical painter.

{32b} _Lavengro_, page 166.

{33a} William Taylor (1765–1836) was an admirer of German literature and

a defender of the French Revolution. He is credited with having first

inspired his friend Southey with a liking for poetry. He travelled much

abroad, met Goethe, attended the National Assembly debates in 1790,

translated from the German and contributed to a number of English

periodicals.

{33b} Harriet Martineau’s _Autobiography_, 1877.

{33c} Harriet Martineau’s _Autobiography_, 1877.

{33d} Letter from “A School-fellow of _Lavengro_” in The Britannia, 26th

April 1851.

{34a} _Memoir of Wm. Taylor_, by J. W. Robberds.

{34b} _Memoir of Wm. Taylor_, by J. W. Robberds.

{34c} Letter from “A School-fellow of _Lavengro_” in The Britannia, 26th

April 1851.

{35a} The Rev. Whitwell Elwin, in a letter, 17th February 1887.

{35b} Harriet Martineau’s _Autobiography_, 1877.

{35c} _Lavengro_, page 355.

{36a} John Bowring, F.R.S. (1792–1872), began life in trade, went to the

Peninsula for Milford & Co., army contractors, in 1811, set up for

himself as a merchant, travelled and acquired a number of languages. He

was ambitious, energetic and shrewd. He became editor of _The

Westminster Review_ in 1824, and LL.D., Grönigen, in 1829. He was sent

by the Government upon a commercial mission to Belgium, 1833; to Egypt;

Syria and Turkey, 1837–8; M.P. for Clyde burghs, 1835–7, and for Bolton,

1841; was instrumental in obtaining the issue of the florin as a first

step toward a decimal system of currency; Consul of Canton, 1847;

plenipotentiary to China; governor, commander-in-chief, and vice-admiral

of Hong Kong, 1854; knighted 1854; established diplomatic and commercial

relations with Siam, 1855. He published a number of volumes of

translations from various languages. He died full of years and honours

in 1872.

{36b} _The Romany Rye_, page 368, _et seq._

{38} _Lavengro_, pages 177–8.

{39} _Lavengro_, pages 179–80. Captain Borrow was in his sixty-sixth

year at his death; b. December 1758, d. 28th February 1824. He was

buried in St Giles churchyard, Norwich, on 4th March 1824.

{40a} _The Romany Rye_, page 302.

{40b} In his will Captain Borrow bequeathed to George his watch and “the

small Portrait,” and to John “the large Portrait” of himself; his mother

to hold and enjoy them during her lifetime. Should Mrs Borrow die or

marry again, elaborate provision was made for the proper distribution of

the property between the two sons.

{41} In particular Borrow believed in Ab Gwilym “the greatest poetical

genius that has appeared in Europe since the revival of literature”

(_Wild Wales_, page 6). “The great poet of Nature, the contemporary of

Chaucer, but worth half-a-dozen of the accomplished word-master, the

ingenious versifier of Norman and Italian Tales.” (_Wild Wales_, page

xxviii.).

{42a} Lines to Six-Foot-Three. _Romantic Ballads_. Norwich 1826.

{42b} Sir Richard Phillips (1767–1840) before becoming a publisher was a

schoolmaster, hosier, stationer, bookseller, and vendor of patent

medicines at Leicester, where he also founded a newspaper. In 1795 he

came to London, was sheriff in 1807, and received his knighthood a year

later.

{43} It has been urged against Borrow’s accuracy that Sir Richard

Phillips had retired to Brighton in 1823, vide _The Dictionary of

National Biography_. In the January number (1824) of _The Monthly

Magazine_ appeared the following paragraph: “The Editor [Sir Richard

Phillips], having retired from his commercial engagements and removed

from his late house of business in New Bridge Street, communications

should be addressed to the appointed Publishers [Messrs Whittakers]; but

personal interviews of Correspondents and interested persons may be

obtained at his private residence in Tavistock Square.” This proves

conclusively that Sir Richard was to be seen in London in the early part

of 1824.

{44a} _Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence

from the Earliest Records to the Year_ 1825, 6 vols., with plates.

London, 1825.

{44b} _Proximate Causes of the Material Phenomena of the Universe_. By

Sir Richard Phillips. London, 1821.

{45a} Dr Knapp identified the editor as “William Gifford, editor of _The

Quarterly Review_ from 1809 to September 1824.” (Life of George Borrow,

i. 93.) The late Sir Leslie Stephen, however, cast very serious doubt

upon this identification, himself concluding that the editor of _The

Universal Review_ was John Carey (1756–1826), whose name was actually

associated with an edition of Quintilian published in 1822. Carey was a

known contributor to two of Sir Richard Phillips’ magazines.

{45b} _The Monthly Magazine_, July 1824.

{46a} It appeared in six volumes.

{46b} The work when completed contained accounts of over 400 trials.

{46c} It appeared on 19th March following.

{46d} _Lavengro_, page 210.

{47} The picture was duly painted in the Heroic manner, the artist

lending to the ex-mayor, for some reason or other, his own unheroically

short legs. Haydon received his fee of a hundred guineas, and the

picture now hangs in St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich.

{48a} Letter from Roger Kerrison to John Borrow, 28th May 1824.

{48b} _Memoirs_, _C. G. Leland_ 1893.

{49a} Borrow himself gave the sum as “eighteen-pence a page.” The books

themselves apparently did not become the property of the reviewer.—_The

Romany Rye_, page 324.

{49b} Borrow says that he demanded lives of people who had never lived,

and cancelled others that Borrow had prepared with great care, because be

considered them as “drugs.”—_Lavengro_, pages 245–6.

{50a} “‘Sir,’ said he, ‘you know nothing of German; I have shown your

translation of the first chapter of my Philosophy to several Germans: it

is utterly unintelligible to them.’ ‘Did they see the Philosophy?’ I

replied. ‘They did, sir, but they did not profess to understand

English.’ ‘No more do I,’ I replied, ‘if the Philosophy be

English.’”—_Lavengro_, page 254.

{50b} A German edition of the work appeared in Stuttgart in 1826.

{52a} This sentence is quoted in _The Gypsies of Spain_ as a heading to

the section “On Robber Language,” page 335.

{52b} _Lavengro_, pages 216–7.

{52c} _Lavengro_, page 271.

{53a} _Faustus_: _His Life_, _Death and Descent into Hell_. Translated

from the German. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1825, pages xxii.,

251. Coloured Plate.

{53b} A letter from Borrow to the publishers, which Dr Knapp quotes, and

dates 15th September 1825, but without giving his reasons, was written

from Norwich, and runs:

Dear Sir,—

As your bill will become payable in a few days, I am willing to take

thirty copies of _Faustus_ instead of the money. The book has been

_burnt_ in both the libraries here, and, as it has been talked about,

I may, perhaps, be able to dispose of some in the course of a year or

so.—Yours, G. BORROW.

{55a} _Lavengro_, page 310.

{55b} _The Romany Rye_, Appendix, page 303.

{57} Probably it was only a portion of the whole amount of £50 that

Borrow drew after the completion of the work. One thing is assured, that

Sir Richard Phillips was too astute a man to pay the whole amount before

the completion of the work.

{58} Dr Knapp’s _Life of George Borrow_, i., page 141.

{60} Dr Knapp gives the date as the 22nd; but Mr John Sampson makes the

date the 24th, which seems more likely to be correct.

{61a} _The Athenæum_, 25th March 1899.

{61b} _Lavengro_, page 362.

{62a} _Lavengro_, page 362.

{62b} _Lavengro_, page 374.

{63a} _Lavengro_, pages 431–2.

{64a} _Lavengro_, page 451.

{64b} Mr Watts-Dunton in a review of Dr Knapp’s _Life of Borrow_ says

that she “was really an East-Anglian road-girl of the finest type, known

to the Boswells, and remembered not many years ago.”—_Athenæum_, 25th

March 1899.

{66a} Mr Petulengro is made to say the “Flying Tinker.”

{66b} Dr Knapp sees in the account of Murtagh’s story of his travels

Barrow’s own adventures during 1826–7, but there is no evidence in

support of this theory. Another contention of Dr Knapp’s is more likely

correct, viz., that the story of Finn MacCoul was that told him by Cronan

the Cornish guide during the excursion to Land’s End.

{67a} It will be remembered that in _The Romany Rye_ Borrow takes his

horse to the Swan Inn at Stafford, meets his postilion friend and is

introduced by him to the landlord, with the result that he arranges to

act as “general superintendent of the yard,” and keep the hay and corn

account. In return he and his horse are to be fed and lodged. Here

Borrow encounters Francis Ardry, on his way to see the dog and lion fight

at Warwick, and the man in black.

{67b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 360.

{68} Introduction to _The Romany Rye_ in The Little Library, Methuen &

Co., Ltd.

{69a} _The Romany Rye_, page 162.

{69b} _The Romany Rye_, page 162.

{69c} _The Romany Rye_, page 50.

{69d} “Let but the will of a human being be turned to any particular

object, and it is ten to one that sooner or later he achieves

it.”—_Lavengro_, page 16.

{73} They appeared as _Romantic Ballads_, _translated from the Danish_,

_and Miscellaneous Pieces_, by George Borrow. Norwich. S. Wilkin, 1826.

Included in the volume were translations from the _Kiæmpe Viser_ and from

Oehlenschlæger.

{74} _Correspondence and Table-Talk of B. R. Haydon_. London, 1876.

The position of the letter in the _Haydon Journal_ is between November

1825 and January 1826; but it is more likely that it was written some

months later. Unfortunately, Borrow’s portrait cannot be traced in any

of Haydon’s pictures.

{75a} _Lavengro_, page 9.

{75b} There was a tradition that Borrow became a foreign correspondent

for the _Morning Herald_, and it was in this capacity that he travelled

on the Continent in 1826–7; but Dr Knapp clearly showed that such a

theory was untenable.

{75c} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 11.

{75d} _The Bible in Spain_, page 219.

{75e} Letter to his mother, August 1833.

{75f} _The Bible in Spain_, page 172.

{75g} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 31.

{76a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 703.

{76b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 67.

{76c} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 19.

{76d} _Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean_, by Lt.-Col. E.

H. D. E. Napier. London, 1842.

{76e} _The Gypsies of Spain_, pages 10–11.

{76f} _Patteran_, or _Patrin_; a gypsy method of indicating by means of

grass, leaves, or a mark in the dust to those behind the direction taken

by the main body.

{76g} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 31.

{77a} If he went abroad, he certainly did so without obtaining a

passport from the Foreign Office. The only passports issued to him

between the years 1825–1840 were:

27th July 1833, to St Petersburg;

2nd November 1836 and 20th December 1838, to Spain,

as far as the F. O. Registers show.

{77b} Dr Knapp takes Borrow’s statement, made 29th March 1839, “I have

been three times imprisoned and once on the point of being shot,” as

indicating that he was imprisoned at Pamplona in 1826. The imprisonments

were September 1837, Finisterre; May 1838, Madrid; and another unknown.

The occasion on which he was nearly shot, which may be assumed to be

connected with one of the imprisonments (otherwise he was more than “once

nearly shot”), was at Finisterre, when he, with his guide, was seized as

a Carlist spy “by the fishermen of the place, who determined at first on

shooting us.” (Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th September 1837.)

{78} The incident is given in _Lavengro_ under date of 1818, when

Marshland Shales was fifteen years old. It was not, however, until 1827

that he appeared at the Norwich Horse Fair and was put up for auction.

“Such a horse as this we shall never see again; a pity that he is so

old,” was the opinion of those who lifted their hats as a token of

respect.

{79} This and subsequent letters from Borrow to Sir John Bowring not

specially acknowledged have been courteously placed at the writer’s

disposal by Mr Wilfred J. Bowring, Sir John Bowring’s grandson.

{81} In _The Monthly Review_, March 1830, there appeared among the

literary announcements a paragraph to the same effect.

{83} From the original draft of his letter of 20th May to Dr Bowring,

omitted from the letter itself.

{86a} Mr Thomas Seccombe in _Bookman_, February 1902.

{86b} It is only fair to add that Mr Seccombe wrote without having seen

the correspondence quoted from above. His words have been given as

representing the opinion held by most people regarding the Borrow-Bowring

dispute. It has been said that Bowring sought to suck Borrow’s brains;

it would appear, however, that Borrow strove rather to make every

possible use that he could of Bowring.

{87a} Preface to _The Sleeping Bard_, 1860.

{87b} _Ibid._

{88a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 201.

{88b} Dr Knapp gives the date as during the early days of September, but

without mentioning his authority.

{90} _The Romany Rye_, page 362.

{91a} _Lavengro_, page 403.

{91b} _Lavengro_, page 446.

{92} Vicar of Pakefield, in Norfolk, 1814–1830; Lowestoft, 1830–63. He

married a sister of J. J. Gurney of Earlham Hall.

{93a} Dr Knapp was in error when he credited J. J. Gurney with the

introduction. In a letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 10th Feb. 1833, Borrow

wrote, “I must obtain a letter from him [Rev. F. Cunningham] to Joseph

Gurney.”

{93b} T. Pell Platt, formerly the Hon. Librarian of the Society; W.

Greenfield, its lately deceased Editorial Superintendent.

{94a} S. V. Lipovzoff (1773–1841) had studied Chinese and Manchu at the

National College of Pekin, and had lived in China for 20 years; belonged

to the Russian Foreign Office (Asiatic section); head of Board of Censors

for books in Eastern languages printed in Russia: Corresponding member of

Academy of Sciences for department of Oriental Literature and

Antiquities. “A gentleman in the service of the Russian Department of

Foreign Affairs, who has spent the greater part of an industrious life in

Peking and the East.”—J. P. H[asfeldt] in the _Athenæum_, 5th March 1836.

{94b} Asmus, Simondsen & Co., Sarepta House.

{95} Borrow’s report upon Puerot’s translation, 23rd September 5th

October, 1835.

{96a} _The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_, vol. i., July 1888 to

October 1899. In the MS. autobiographical note he wrote later for Mr

John Longe, Borrow stated that he walked from London to Norwich in

November 1825. He may have performed the journey twice.

{96b} Letter from Borrow to the Rev. Francis Cunningham, to whom he

wrote on his return home, _circa_ January, acquainting him with what had

transpired in London, assuring him that “I am returned with a firm

determination to exert all my energies to attain the desired end [the

learning of Manchu]; and I hope, Sir, that I shall have the benefit of

your prayers for my speedy success, for the language is one of those

which abound with difficulties against which human skill and labour,

without the special favour of God, are as blunt hatchets against the oak;

and though I shall almost weary Him with my own prayers, I wish not to

place much confidence in them, being at present very far from a state of

grace and regeneration, having a hard and stony heart, replete with

worldy passions, vain wishes, and all kinds of ungodliness; so that it

would be no wonder if God to prayers addressed from my lips were to turn

away His head in wrath.”

{97} Borrow always writes Mandchow, but, for the sake of uniformity his

spelling is corrected throughout.

{98} Letter to Rev. Francis Cunningham, _circa_ January 1833.

{99a} Dr Knapp ascribes the translation to Dr Pazos Kanki, who undertook

it at the instance of the Bishop of Puebla, but gives no authority. Dr

Kanki was a native of La Paz, Peru, and translated St Luke into his

native dialect Aimará. He had no more connection with Mexico than “stout

Cortez” with “a peak in Darien.”

{99b} _Life of George Borrow_, by Dr Knapp, i., page 157.

{100a} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 18th March 1833.

{100b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 18th March 1833.

{100c} Letter to Rev J. Jowett, 18th March 1833.

{101} Caroline Fox wrote in her _Memories of Old Friends_ (1882):

“Andrew Brandram gave us at breakfast many personal recollections of

curious people. J. J. Gurney recommended George Borrow to their

Committee [!]; so he stalked up to London, and they gave him a hymn to

translate into the Manchu language, and the same to one of their own

people to translate also. When compared they proved to be very

different. When put before their reader, he had the candour to say that

Borrow’s was much the better of the two. On this they sent him to St

Petersburg, got it printed [!] and then gave him business in Portugal,

which he took the liberty greatly to extend, and to do such good as

occurred to his mind in a highly executive manner [22nd August 1844].”

{102} Mr Lipovzoff’s unfortunate name was a great stumbling-block.

Borrow spelt it many ways, varying from Lipoffsky to Lipofsoff. It has

been thought advisable to adopt Mr Lipovzoff’s _own_ spelling of his

name, in order to preserve some uniformity.

{104} Minutes of the Editorial Sub-Committee, 29th July 1833.

{105} Harriet Martineau’s _Autobiography_.

{106} Letter to his mother, 30th July 1833.

{107a} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th August 1833.

{107b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th August 1833.

{108a} Borrow is always puzzling when concerned with dates. He writes

to his mother telling her that he left on the 7th, and later gives the

date, in a letter to Mr Jowett, as 24th July, O.S. (5th August). The 7th

seems to be the correct date.

{108b} Letter to his mother.

{109} “If I had my choice of all the cities of the world to live in, I

would choose Saint Petersburg.”—_Wild Wales_, page 665.

{110} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, undated: received 26th September 1833.

{111} In a letter dated 3rd/15th August, the Prince wrote to Mr Venning

at Norwich, “On returning thence, your son came to introduce to me the

Englishman who has come over here about the translation of the Manchu

Bible, and who brought with him your letter.”—_Memorials of John

Venning_, 1862.

{112a} Best known for his Grammar, written in German.

{112b} Nephew of J. C Adelung, the philologist.

{113} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, undated, but received 26th September

1833.

{114a} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/1st February 1834.

{114b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/1st February 1834.

{114c} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/1st February 1834.

{115a} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/1st February 1834.

{115b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 20th January/1st February 1834.

Probably this means the New Testament only, as there was no intention of

printing the Old Testament at that date.

{116} In a letter to his mother, dated 1st/13th Feb., Borrow writes:

“The Bible Society depended upon Dr Schmidt and the Russian translator

Lipovzoff to manage this business [the obtaining of the official

sanction], but neither the one nor the other would give himself the least

trouble about the matter, or give me the slightest advice how to

proceed.”

{117} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/16th February 1834.

{118a} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Jan./1st Feb. 1834.

{118b} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Jan./1st Feb. 1834.

{118c} Letter to the Rev. F. Cunningham, 17th/29th Nov. 1834.

{119} 1st/13th May 1834.

{121a} This spelling is adopted throughout for uniformity. Borrow

writes Chiachta.

{121b} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/16th February 1834.

{121c} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/16th February 1834.

{121d} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 4th/16th February 1834.

{123a} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 15th/23rd April 1834.

{123b} In a letter dated 1st/13th May 1834.

{123c} A suburb of Norwich.

{126a} Mrs Borrow eventually received from Allday Kerrison £50, 11s.

1d., the amount realised from the sale of John’s effects.

{126b} This was partly on account of the Bible Society for storage

purposes. In the minutes of the Sub-Committee, 18th August 1834, there

is a record of an advice having been received from Borrow that he had

drawn “for 400 Roubles for one year’s rent in advance for a suitable

place of deposit for the Society’s paper, etc., part of which had been

received.”

{126c} Letter to John P. Hasfeldt from Madrid, 29th April 1837.

{129} In the minutes of the Sub-Committee, 18th August (N.S.) 1834,

there is a note of Borrow having drawn 210 roubles “to pay for certain

articles required to complete the Society’s fount of Manchu type.”

{132a} “My letters to my private friends have always been written during

gleams of sunshine, and traced in the characters of hope.”

{132b} “You may easily judge of the state of book-binding here by the

fact that for every volume, great or small, printed in Russia, there is a

duty of 30 copecks, or threepence, to be paid to the Russian Government,

if the said volume be exported unbound.”

{135a} John Hasfeldt.

{135b} Letter to Mr J. Tarn, Treasurer of the Bible Society, 15th/27th

December 1834.

{136} Letter to the Rev. Joseph Jowett, 3rd/15th May 1835.

{138a} Letter from Borrow to the Rev. J. Jowett, 20th Feb./4th March

1834. In his Report on Puerot’s translation, received on 23rd Sep. 1835,

Borrow writes: “To translate literally, or even closely, according to the

common acceptation of the term, into the Manchu language is of all

impossibilities the greatest; partly from the grammatical structure of

the language, and partly from the abundance of its idioms.” The lack of

“some of those conjunctions generally considered as indispensable” was

one of the chief difficulties.

{138b} Letter, 31st Dec. 1834.

{139a} Letter, 31st Dec. 1834.

{139b} Letter, 20th Feb./4th Mar. 1835.

{139c} Letter, 20th Feb./4th Mar. 1835.

{139d} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 3rd/15th May 1835.

{139e} _Ibid._

{140} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 3rd/15th May 1835.

{141a} Letter to Mr J. Tarn.

{141b} None of these translations ever appeared, owing to the refusal of

the Russian Government to grant permission. John Hasfeldt wrote to

Borrow, June 1837, apropos of the project: “You know the Russian

priesthood cannot suffer foreigners to mix themselves up in the affairs

of the Orthodox Church. The same would have happened to the New

Testament itself. You may certainly print in the Manchu-Tartar or what

the d-l you choose, only not in Russian, for that the long-bearded

he-goats do not like.”

{142a} Letter to Rev. F. Cunningham, 27th/29th Nov. 1834.

{142b} The principal interest in Targum lies in the number of languages

and dialects from which the poems are translated; for it must be

confessed that Borrow’s verse translations have no very great claim to

attention on account of their literary merit. The “Thirty Languages”

were, in reality, thirty-five, viz.:—

Ancient British. Gaelic. Portuguese.

“ Danish. German. Provençal

“ Irish. Greek. Romany.

“ Norse. Hebrew. Russian.

Anglo-Saxon. Irish. Spanish.

Arabic. Italian. Suabian.

Cambrian British. Latin. Swedish.

Chinese. Malo-Russian. Tartar.

Danish. Manchu. Tibetan.

Dutch. Modern Greek. Turkish.

Finnish. Persian. Welsh.

French. Polish.

{143a} A copy was presented by John Hasfeldt to Pushkin, who expressed

in a note to Borrow his gratification at receiving the book, and his

regret at not having met the translator.

{143b} These two volumes were printed in one and published at a later

date by Messrs Jarrold & Son, London & Norwich.

{143c} 5th March 1836.

{143d} From a letter to Borrow from Dr Gordon Hake.

{143e} Borrow’s Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received

23rd September 1835.

{144a} Borrow’s Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received

23rd September 1835.

{144b} _Ibid._

{145a} _Kak my tut kamasa_.

{145b} Borrow’s Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received

23rd September 1835. He gives an account of the episode in _The Gypsies

of Spain_, page 6.

{146a} The Thirty-First Annual Report.

{146b} _Athenæum_, 5th March 1836.

{147} Borrow’s Report to the Committee of the Bible Society, received

23rd September 1835.

{148} 18th/30th June 1834.

{149} 27th October 1835.

{150a} His salary was paid continuously, and included the period of rest

between the Russian and Peninsula expeditions.

{150b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 26th October 1835.

{150c} In a letter dated 27th October 1835.

{151} Minutes of the General Committee of the Bible Society, 2nd Nov.

1835.

{153} In his first letter from Spain, addressed to Rev. J. Jowett (30th

Nov. 1835), Borrow tells of this incident in practically the same words

as it appears in _The Bible in Spain_, pages 1–3.

{154a} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 73–4.

{154b} Letter to the Rev. J. Jowett, 30th Nov. 1835.

{155a} Dr Knapp states that upon this expedition he was accompanied by

Captain John Rowland Heyland of the 35th Regiment of Foot, whose

acquaintance he had made on the voyage out.—_Life of George Borrow_, i.,

page 234.

{155b} Letter to Rev. J. Jowett, 30th Nov. 1835.

{155c} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th Dec. 1835.

{159a} Letter to Dr Bowring, 26th December 1835.

{159b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 67.

{159c} Dated 8th and 10th January 1836, giving an account of his journey

to Evora.

{160a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 78.

{160b} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 77–8.

{161a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 87.

{161b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 88.

{162a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 99.

{162b} _Lavengro_, page 191.

{162c} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 97–8.

{162d} Not 5th Jan., as given in _The Bible in Spain_.

{162e} _The Bible in Spain_, page 103.

{164a} _The Bible in Spain_, Preface, page vi.

{164b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 179.

{164c} “Throughout my life the Gypsy race has always had a peculiar

interest for me. Indeed I can remember no period when the mere mention

of the name Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described.

I cannot account for this—I merely state it as a fact.”—_The Gypsies of

Spain_, page 1.

{165a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, pages 184–5.

{165b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 186.

{166a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 109.

{166b} Dr Knapp states that the wedding described in _The Gypsies of

Spain_ took place during these three days.—_Life of George Borrow_, by Dr

Knapp, i., page 242.

{167a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 162.

{167b} “I am not partial to Madrid, its climate, or anything it can

offer, if I except its unequalled gallery of pictures.”—Letter to Rev. A.

Brandram, 22nd March 1836.

{167c} 24th February 1836.

{167d} Letter to his mother, 24th February 1836.

{168a} Letter to his mother, 24th February 1836

{168b} _Ibid._

{168c} _Ibid._

{168d} _Ibid._

{169} _The Bible in Spain_, page 173.

{170a} Born 1790, commissariat contractor in 1808 during the French

invasion, he was of great assistance to his country. In 1823 he fled

from the despotism of Ferdinand VII.; he returned twelve years later as

Minister of Finance under Toreno. He resigned in 1837, was again in

power in 1841, and died in 1853.

{170b} George William Villiers, afterwards 4th Earl of Clarendon, born

12th Jan. 1800; created G.C.B., 19th Oct. 1837; succeeded his uncle as

Earl of Clarendon, 1838; K.G., 1849. He twice refused a Marquisate, also

the Governor-generalship of India. He refused the Order of the Black

Eagle (Prussia) and the Legion of Honour. Lord Privy Seal, 1839–41;

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1840–1, 1864–5; Lord-Lieutenant of

Ireland, 1847–52. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1853–8,

1865–6, 1868–9. Died 27th June 1870.

{171} _The Bible in Spain_, page 165.

{173a} Extracts accompanying letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd March

1836.

{173b} _Ibid._

{173c} _Ibid._

{174} Letter of 22nd March 1837.

{175a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd May 1836.

{175b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 22nd May 1836.

{175c} Letter dated 6th April 1836.

{175d} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836.

{175e} _Ibid._

{176a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836.

{176b} _Ibid._ Borrow’s destitution was entirely accidental, and

immediately that his letter was received at Earl Street the sum of

twenty-five pounds was forwarded to him.

{177} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th April 1836.

{178a} Letter of 9th May 1836.

{178b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th June 1836.

{178c} _Ibid._

{178d} _Ibid._

{179a} The Duke’s secretary who had shown so profound a respect for the

decrees of the Council of Trent.

{179b} Late of the Royal Navy, who for sheer love of the work

distributed the Scriptures in Spain, and who later was to come into grave

conflict with Borrow.

{180} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th June 1836.

{181a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 7th July 1836.

{181b} _Ibid._

{181c} _Ibid._

{181d} _Ibid._

{182a} Dr Usoz was a Spaniard of noble birth, a pupil of Mezzofanti, and

one of the editors of _El Español_. He occupied the chair of Hebrew at

Valladolid. He was deeply interested in the work of the Bible Society,

and was fully convinced that in nothing but the reading of the Bible

could the liberty in Spain be found.

{182b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th December 1837.

{182c} La Granja was a royal palace some miles out of Madrid, to which

the Queen Regent had withdrawn. On the night of 12th August, two

sergeants had forced their way into the Queen Regent’s presence, and

successfully demanded that she should restore the Constitution of 1812.

This incident was called the Revolution of La Granja.

{183a} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 197–206.

{183b} 30th July 1836.

{183c} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 10th August 1836.

{184} 17th October 1836.

{185a} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 209–11.

{185b} _Ibid._, page 211.

{186} The Rev. Wentworth Webster in _The Journal of Gypsy Lore Society_,

vol. i., July 1888–Oct. 1889.

{187} Letter from Rev. A. Brandram, 6th Jan. 1837.

{188} Isidor Just Severin, Baron Taylor (1789–1879), was a naturalised

Frenchman and a great traveller. In 1821 he, with Charles Nodier, wrote

the play _Bertram_, which was produced with great success at Paris in

1821. Later he was made Commissaire du Théâtre Français, and authorised

the production of _Hernani_ and _Le Mariage de Figaro_. Later he became

Inspecteur-Général des Beaux Arts (1838). When seen by Borrow in Seville

he was collecting Spanish pictures for Louis-Philippe.

{189} _The Bible in Spain_, page 221.

{190a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 237.

{190b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 26th Dec. 1836.

{191a} In letter to the Rev. A. Brandram (26th Dec. 1836), Borrow gives

the quantity of brandy as two bottles. This letter was written within a

few hours of the act and is more likely to be accurate.

{191b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 254.

{191c} Borrow’s letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837.

{191d} He was authorised to purchase 600 reams at 60 _reals_ per ream,

whereas he paid only 45 _reals_ a ream for a paper “better,” he wrote,

“than I could have purchased at 70.”

{192a} Author of _La Historia de las Córtes de España durante el Siglo

XIX_. (1885) and other works of a political character. He was also

proprietor and editor of _El Español_. Isturitz had intended raising

Borrégo to the position of minister of finance when his government

suddenly terminated.

{192b} General report prepared by Borrow in the Autumn of 1838 for the

General Committee of the Bible Society detailing his labours in Spain.

This was subsequently withdrawn, probably on account of its somewhat

aggressive tone. In the course of this work the document will be

referred to as _General Report_, _Withdrawn_.

{192c} To Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837.

{193} To Rev. A. Brandram, 14th Jan. 1837.

{194a} 27th January 1837.

{194b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 27th Feb. 1837.

{195a} Letter from Rev. A. Brandram to Borrow, 22nd March 1837.

{195b} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Dec. 1837.

{195c} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 27th February 1837.

{195d} Rev. Wentworth Webster in _The Journal of the Gypsy Lore

Society_, vol. i., July 1888–October 1889.

{196a} _General Report_ withdrawn.

{196b} _General Report_, withdrawn.

{196c} Borrow to Richard Ford. _Letters of Richard Ford_ 1797–1858.

Ed. R. E. Prothero. Murray, 1905.

{197a} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 7th June 1837.

{197b} _Ibid._

{197c} _Ibid._

{198} Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 27th February 1837.

{199} As the method adopted was practically the same in every town he

visited, no further reference need be made to the fact, and in the brief

survey of the journeys that Borrow himself has described so graphically,

only incidents that tend to throw light upon his character or

disposition, and such as he has not recorded himself, will be dealt with.

{200a} Via Pitiegua, Pedroso, Medina del Campo, Dueñas Palencia.

“I suffered dreadfully during this journey,” Borrow wrote, “as did

likewise my man and horses, for the heat was the fiercest which I have

ever known, and resembled the breath of the simoon or the air from an

oven’s mouth.”—Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 5th July 1837.

{200b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 5th July 1837.

{201} _The Bible in Spain_, pages 352–4.

{202} _The Bible in Spain_, page 364.

{203a} This is the story particularly referred to by Richard Ford in

report upon the MS. of _The Bible in Spain_.

{203b} In the Report to the General Committee of the Bible Society on

Past and Future Operations in Spain, November 1838.

{204a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 409.

{204b} In _The Bible in Spain_ Borrow says he was arrested on suspicion

of being the Pretender himself; but in a letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th

September 1837, he says that he and his guide were seized as Carlist

spies, and makes no mention of Don Carlos.

{205a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 15th September 1837.

{205b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th September 1837.

{205c} By way of Ferrol, Novales, Santa María, Coisa d’Ouro, Viviero,

Foz, Rivadéo, Castro Pól, Naváia, Luarca, the Caneiro, Las Bellotas, Soto

Luiño, Muros, Avilés and Gijon.

{205d} To the Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1837. The story also appears

in _The Bible in Spain_, pages 479–480.

{206} Borrow’s original idea in printing only the New Testament was that

in Spain and Portugal he deemed it better not to publish the whole Bible,

at least not “until the inhabitants become christianised,” because the

Old Testament “is so infinitely entertaining to the carnal man,” and he

feared that in consequence the New Testament would be little read. Later

he saw his mistake, and was constantly asking for Bibles, for which there

was a big demand.

{207} To Rev. A. Brandram, 29th September 1837.

{208} George Dawson Flinter, an Irishman in the service of Queen

Isabella II., who fought for his adopted Queen with courage and

distinction, and eventually committed suicide as a protest against the

monstrously unjust conspiracy to bring about his ruin, September 1838.

{209a} By way of Ontanéda, Oña, Búrgos, Vallodolid, Guadarrama.

{209b} _General Report_, withdrawn.

{209c} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 1st November 1837.

{210} _The Bible in Spain_, page 507.

{211} He was created G.C.B. 19th Oct. 1837.

{212a} Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 20th Nov. 1837.

{212b} To the Rev. A. Brandram, 20th Nov. 1837.

{213a} _History of the British and Foreign Bible Society_, W. Canton.

{213b} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th March 1838.

{214a} Mr Brandram wrote to Graydon (12th April 1838): “Mr Rule being at

Madrid and having conferred with Mr Borrow and Sir George Villiers, it

appears to have struck them all three that a visit on your part to Cadiz

and Seville could not at present be advantageous to our cause.”

{214b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 20th November 1837.

{214c} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 28th November 1837. The comment on

the badness of the London edition had reference to the translation, which

Borrow had condemned with great vigour; he subsequently admitted that he

had been too sweeping in his disapproval.

{215a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 28th November 1837.

{215b} Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 5th May 1838.

{215c} _Ibid._

{216a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 241.

{216b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Dec. 1837.

{216c} These Bibles fetched, the large edition (Borrow wrote “I would

give my right hand for a thousand of them”) 17s. each, and the smaller

7s. each, whereas the New Testaments fetched about half-a crown.

{216d} Letter dated 16th Jan. 1838.

{217a} In _The Bible in Spain_ he says “the greater part,” in _The

Gypsies of Spain_ he says “the whole.”

{217b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 275.

{218a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 280.

{218b} _Ibid._

{218c} _Ibid._, page 282.

{219a} On 25th December 1837.

{219b} It is strange that Borrow should insist that he had Sir George

Villiers’ approval; for Sir George himself has clearly stated that he

strongly opposed the opening of the _Despacho_.

{220} 15th January 1838.

{221a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 30th March 1838.

{221b} In _The Gypsies of Spain_ Borrow gives the number as 500 (page

281); but the Resolution, confirmed 20th March 1837, authorised the

printing of 250 copies only. In all probability the figures given by

Borrow are correct, as in a letter to Mr Brandram, dated 18th July 1839,

he gives his unsold stock of books at Madrid as:—

Of Testaments 962

Of Gospels in the Gypsy Tongue 286

Of ditto in Basque 394

{222a} Original Report, withdrawn.

{222b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, pages 280–1.

{224a} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th March 1838.

{224b} _The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society_, by W.

Canton.

{225} Mr Canton writes in _The History of the British and Foreign Bible

Society_: “His [Graydon’s] opportunity was indeed unprecedented; and had

he but more accurately appreciated the unstable political conditions of

the country, the susceptibilities, suspicious and precarious tenure of

ministers and placemen, the temper of the priesthood, their sensitive

attachment to certain tenets of their faith, and their enormous influence

over the civil power, there is reason to believe that he might have

brought his mission to a happier and more permanent issue.”

{226} [11th] May 1838.

{227a} Letter from George Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram [11th] May 1838.

{227b} 23rd April 1838.

{227c} The Marin episode is amazing. The object of distributing the

Scriptures was to enlighten men’s minds and bring about conversion, and a

priest was a distinct capture, more valuable by far than a peasant, and

likely to influence others; yet when they had got him no one appears to

have known exactly what to do, and all were anxious to get rid of him

again.

{228a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 536.

{228b} _Ibid._

{229a} Original Report, withdrawn.

{229b} Original Report, withdrawn.

{231} Sometimes this personage is referred to in official papers as the

“Political Chief,” a too literal translation of _Gefé Politico_. In all

cases it has been altered to Civil Governor to preserve uniformity. Many

of the official translations of Foreign Office papers can only be

described as grotesque.

{232a} This is the official translation among the Foreign Office papers

at the Record Office.

{232b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 539.

{233} There is an error in the dating of this letter. It should be 1st

May.

{234a} In a letter to Count Ofalia, Sir George Villiers states that

“George Borrow, fearing violence, prudently abstained from going to his

ordinary place of abode.”

{234b} Borrow pays a magnificent and well-deserved tribute to this queen

among landladies. (_The Bible in Spain_, pages 256–7.) She was always

his friend and frequently his counsellor, thinking nothing of the risk

she ran in standing by him during periods of danger. She refused all

inducements to betray him to his enemies, and, thoroughly deserved the

eulogy that Borrow pronounced upon her.

{234c} It was subsequently stated that the arrest was ordered because

Borrow had refused to recognise the Civil Governor’s authority and made

use “of offensive expressions” towards his person. The Civil Governor

had no authority over British subjects, and Borrow was right in his

refusal to acknowledge his jurisdiction.

{235} _The Bible in Spain_, page 547.

{238a} Dispatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 5th

May.

{238b} _Ibid._

{239a} Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 12th

May 1838.

{239b} _Ibid._

{240a} Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston.

{240b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 1838.

{241a} Despatch from Sir George Villiers to Viscount Palmerston, 5th May

1838.

{241b} In a letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 1838.

{242a} The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the

Record Office.

{242b} Mr William Mark’s (the British Consul at Malaga) Official account

of the occurrence, 16th May 1838.

{243a} Mr William Mark’s (the British Consul at Malaga) Official account

of the occurrence, 16th May 1838.

{243b} _Ibid._

{243c} Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th May 1838.

{243d} _Ibid._

{244a} Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th May 1838.

{244b} _Ibid._

{244c} Sir George Villiers’ Despatch to Viscount Palmerston, 12th May

1838.

{246a} The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the

Record Office.

{246b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 578.

{247a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 241.

{247b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 579.

{249} _History of the British and Foreign Bible Society_. By W. Canton.

{252} On [11th] May 1838.

{253} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th May 1838.

{254a} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th May 1838.

{255a} The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the

Record Office.

{255b} Sir George Villiers to Count Ofalia, 25th May 1838.

{255c} Letter to Mr A. Brandram, 25th May 1838.

{256a} At the time of writing Borrow had not seen any of these tracts

himself; but Sir George Villiers, who had, expressed the opinion that

“one or two of them were outrages not only to common sense but to

decency.”—Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 25th June 1838.

{256b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th June 1838.

{257a} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th June 1838.

{257b} _Ibid._

{259} The quotations from Lieut. Graydon’s tracts were not sent by

Borrow to Mr Brandram until some weeks later. They ran:—A True History

of the Dolorous Virgin to whom the Rebellious and Fanatical Don Carlos

Has Committed His Cause and the Ignorance which It Displays.

EXTRACTS.

_Page_ 17. You will readily see in all those grandiose epithets showered

upon Mary, the work of the enemy of God, which tending essentially

towards idolatry has managed, under the cloak of Christianity, to

introduce idolatry, and endeavours to divert to a creature, and even to

the image of that creature, the adoration which is due to God alone.

Without doubt it is with this very object that on all sides we see

erected statues of Mary, adorned with a crown, and bearing in her arms a

child of tender years, as though to accustom the populace intimately to

the idea of Mary’s superiority over Jesus.

_Page_ 30. This, then, is our conclusion. In recognising and

sanctioning this cult, the Church of Rome constitutes itself an

idolatrous Church, and every member of it who is incapable of detecting

the truth behind the monstrous accumulation of impieties with which they

veil it, is proclaimed by the Church as condemned to perdition. The

guiding light of this Church, which they are not ashamed to smother or to

procure the smothering of, by which nevertheless they hold their

authority, to be plain, the word of God, should at least teach them, if

they set any value on the Spirit of Christ, that their Papal Bulls would

be better directed to the cleansing of the Roman Church from all its

iniquities than to the promulgation of such unjust prohibitions. Yet in

struggling against better things, this Church is protecting and hallowing

in all directions an innumerable collection of superstitions and false

cults, and it is clear that by this means it is abased and labelled as

one of the principal agents of Anti-Christ.

{262} _The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society_, by W.

Canton.

{265a} This letter reached Borrow when his “foot was in the stirrup,” as

he phrased it, ready to set out for the Sagra of Toledo. He felt that it

could only have originated with “the enemy of mankind for the purpose of

perplexing my already harrassed and agitated mind”; but he continues,

“merely exclaiming ‘Satan, I defy thee,’ I hurried to the Sagra. . . .

But it is hard to wrestle with the great enemy.” _General Report_,

withdrawn.

{265b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th July 1838.

{265c} Mr Brandram informed Borrow that the General Committee wished him

to visit England if he could do so without injury to the cause (29th

June).

{266} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 14th July 1838.

{269a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 602.

{269b} _Ibid._, page 606.

{269c} _Ibid._, page 606.

{270a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 27th July 1838.

{270b} This would have been impossible. If his age were seventy-four,

he would of necessity have been four years old in 1838.

{271a} By Mr A. G. Jayne in “Footprints of George Borrow,” in _The Bible

in the World_, July 1908.

{271b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 17th July 1838.

{273a} This letter, in which there was a hint of desperation, disturbed

the officials at Earl Street a great deal. Mr Brandram wrote (28th July)

that he was convinced that the Committee would “still feel that if you

are to continue to act with them _they must see you_, and I will only add

that it is _utterly foreign to their wishes_ that you should _expose

yourself in the daring manner you are now doing_. I lose not a post in

conveying this impression to you.”

{273b} The Translation of this communication runs:—“Madrid, 7th July

1838—I have the honour to inform your Excellency that according to

official advices received in the first Secretary of State’s Office, it

appears that in Malaga, Murcia, Valladolid, and Santiago, copies of the

New Testament of Padre Scio, without notes, have been exposed for sale,

which have been deposited with the political chiefs of the said

provinces, or in the hands of such persons as the chiefs have entrusted

with them in Deposit; it being necessary further to observe that the

parties giving them up have uniformly stated that they belonged to Mr

Borrow, and that they were commissioned by him to sell and dispose of

them.

“Under these circumstances, Her Majesty’s Government have deemed it

expedient that I should address your Excellency, in order that the above

may be intimated to the beforementioned Mr Borrow, so that he may take

care that the copies in question, as well as those which have been seized

in this City, and which are packed up in cases or parcels marked and

sealed, may be sent out of the Kingdom of Spain, agreeably to the Royal

order with which your Excellency is already acquainted, and through the

medium of the respective authorities who will be able to vouch for their

Exportation. To this Mr Borrow will submit in the required form, and

with the understanding that he formally binds himself thereto, they will

remain in the meantime in the respective depots.”

{275} _General Report_, withdrawn.

{277a} Borrow’s letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 1st Sept. 1838.

{277b} To Lord William Hervey, Chargé d’Affaires at Madrid (23rd Aug.

1838).

{278} To Rev. G. Browne, one of the Secretaries of the Bible Society,

29th Aug. 1838.

{279a} To Rev. A. Brandram, 19th September 1838.

{279b} _The Bible in Spain_, page 621.

{279c} Letter to Dr Usoz, 22nd Feb. 1839.

{279d} _Ibid._

{279e} _Ibid._

{280} The Report has here been largely drawn upon and has been referred

to as “Original Report, withdrawn.”

{282} _History of the British and Foreign Bible Society_.

{284} On the publication of _The Bible in Spain_ the Prophetess became

famous. Thirty-six years later Dr Knapp found her still soliciting alms,

and she acknowledged that she owed her celebrity to the _Inglés rubio_,

the blonde Englishman.

{285a} _The Bible in Spain_, page 627.

{285b} To Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Jan. 1839.

{286} On 6th Feb. 1839.

{288a} Letter to Mr W. Hitchin of the Bible Society, 9th March 1839.

{288b} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 26th March 1839.

{290} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 10th April 1839.

{293} Letter to the Rev. A. Brandram, 2nd May 1839.

{294a} _Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean_, by Lt.-Col.

E. Napier, 46th Regt. Colburn, 1842, 2 vols.

{294b} _Ibid._

{295} _Excursions Along the Shores of the Mediterranean_, by Lt.-Col. E.

Napier, 46th Regt. Colburn, 1842, 2 vols.

{297} A reference to Charles Robert Maturin’s _Melmoth the Wanderer_, 4

vols., 1820. This book was republished in 3 vols. in 1892, an almost

unparalleled instance of the reissue of a practically forgotten book in a

form closely resembling that of the original. Melmoth the Wanderer was

referred to in the most enthusiastic terms by Balzac, Thackeray and

Baudelaire among others.

{298} _The Bible in Spain_, page 663.

{299} Maria Diaz had written on 24th May: “Calzado has been here to see

if I would sell him the lamps that belong to the shop [the _Despacho_].

He is willing to give four dollars for them, and he says they cost five,

so if you want me to sell them to him, you must let me know. It seems he

is going to set up a beer-shop.” It is not on record whether or no the

lamps from the Bible Society’s _Despacho_ eventually illuminated a

beer-shop.

{300} Letter from Borrow to the Rev. A. Brandram, 28th June 1839.

{301} 28th June.

{302} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 18th July 1839.

{307a} Letter from Borrow to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1839.

{307b} _Ibid._

{307c} Mr John M. Brackenbury, in writing to Mr Brandram, made it quite

clear that he had no doubt that the “inhibition was assuredly

accelerated, if not absolutely occasioned, by the indiscretion of some of

those who entered Spain for the avowed object of circulating the

Scriptures, and of others who, not being Agents of the British and

Foreign Bible Society, were nevertheless considered to be connected with

it, as they distributed your editions of the Old and New Testaments. Our

objects were defeated and your interests injured, therefore, when the

Spanish Government required the departure from this country of those who,

by other acts and deeds wholly distinct from the distribution of Bibles

and Testaments, had been infracting the Laws, Civil and Ecclesiastical.”

{307d} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1839.

{308a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 29th Sept. 1839.

{308b} _Ibid._

{309} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Nov. 1839.

{310} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Nov. 1839.

{313} From the Public Record Office.

{315} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 25th Nov. 1839.

{316} Rev. Wentworth Webster in _The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society_.

{317} The phrasing of the official translation has everywhere been

followed.

{319} The Official Translation among the Foreign Office Papers at the

Record Office.

{320} 28th Dec. 1839.

{321} Henrietta played “remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery

German thing so-called—but the real Spanish guitar.”—_Wild Wales_, page

6.

{322} _Wild Wales_, page 6.

{323a} Letter to Rev. A. Brandram, 18th March 1840.

{323b} _Ibid._

{328a} _The Romany Rye_, page 312.

{328b} _Ibid._, page 313.

{328c} _Wild Wales_, page 289.

{329a} _Lavengro_, page 261.

{329b} _The Romany Rye_, page 22.

{329c} _The Journals of Caroline Fox_.

{330a} _The Letters of Richard Ford_ 1797–1858.—Edited, R. E. Prothero,

M.V.O., 1905.

{330b} _Ibid._

{331a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page xiv.

{331b} E[lizabeth] H[arvey] in _The Eastern Daily Press_, 1st Oct. 1892.

{331c} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 238.

{332a} E[lizabeth] H[arvey] in _The Eastern Daily Press_, 1st Oct. 1892.

{332b} _Ibid._

{332c} _Ibid._

{332d} _Ibid._

{333a} E[lizabeth] H[arvey] in _The Eastern Daily Press_, 1st Oct. 1892.

{333b} _Ibid._

{333c} _The Bible in Spain_, page 41.

{334a} E[lizabeth] H[arvey] in _The Eastern Daily Press_, 1st Oct. 1892.

{334b} In _The Eastern Daily Press_, 1st Oct. 1892. She also tells how

“at the Exhibition in 1851, whither we went with his step-daughter, he

spoke to the different foreigners in their own languages, until his

daughter saw some of them whispering together and looking as if they

thought he was ‘uncanny,’ and she became alarmed, and drew him away.”

{334c} _Ibid._

{334d} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page vii.

{335a} _A Publisher and His Friends_. Samuel Smiles.

{335b} Richard Ford, 1796–1858. Critic and author. Spent several years

in touring about Spain on horseback. Published in 1845, _Hand-Book for

Travellers in Spain_. Contributed to the _Edinburgh_, _Quarterly_, and

_Westminster_ Reviews from 1837.

{335c} _The Letters of Richard Ford_, 1797–1858. Ed. R. E. Prothero,

M.V.O., 1905.

{336a} Dr. Knapp points out that the title is inaccurate, there being no

such word as “Zincali.” It should be “Zincalé.”

{336b} _The Letters of Richard Ford_, 1797–1858. Ed. R. E. Prothero,

M.V.O., 1905.

{337a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 1. As the current edition of _The

Zincali_ has been retitled _The Gypsies of Spain_, reference is made to

it throughout this work under that title and to the latest edition.

{337b} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 32.

{338a} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 81.

{338b} _Ibid._, page 186.

{338c} _Ibid._, page 283.

{339} _The Gypsies of Spain_, page 274.

{340a} Introduction to _Lavengro_. The Little Library, Methuen, 2

vols., 1, xxiii.-xxiv. C. G. Leland expressed himself to the same

effect.

{340b} _Academy_, 13th July 1874.

{340c} _Wild Wales_, page 186.

{340d} _The Bible in Spain_, page 64.

{341} _Lavengro_, page 81.

{343} Ford to John Murray. _The Letters of Richard Ford_, 1797–1858.

Ed. R. E. Prothero, M.V.O., 1905.

{344} Ford to John Murray. _The Letters of Richard Ford_, 1797–1858.

Ed. R. E. Prothero, M.V.O., 1905.

{347} Dr Knapp’s _Life of George Borrow_.

{349} _The Letters of Richard Ford_, 1797–1858. Edited, R. E. Prothero,

M.V.O., 1905.

{352} _Times_, 12th April 1843, Hansard’s summary reads: “It might have

been said, to Mr Borrow with respect to Spain, that it would be

impossible to distribute the Bible in that country in consequence of the

danger of offending the prejudices which prevail there; yet he, a private

individual, by showing some zeal in what he believed to be right,

succeeded in triumphing over many obstacles.”

{353} This is obviously the letter that Borrow paraphrases at the end of