THE MANCHU BIBLE—“TARGUM”—“THE TALISMAN”
AS for the absurd object for which Borrow was sent to Russia the less
said the better. Any of my readers who care for the survey of human
folly associated with undiscriminating Bible worship can read of this
particular example in the Society’s own records. {102} The Bible Society
wanted the Bible to be set up in the Manchu language, the official
language of the Chinese Court and Government. A Russian scholar named
Lipóftsof, who had spent twenty years in China, undertook in 1821 to
translate the New Testament into Manchu for £560. Lipóftsof had done his
work in 1826, and had sent two manuscript copies to London. In 1832 the
Rev. William Swan of the London Missionary Society in passing through St.
Petersburg discovered a transcript of a large part of the Old and New
Testament in Manchu, made by one Pierot, a French Jesuit, many years
before. This transcript was unavailable, but a second was soon
afterwards forthcoming for free publication if a qualified Manchu scholar
could be found to see it through the Press. Mr. Swan’s communication of
these facts to the Bible Society in London gave Borrow his opportunity.
It was his task to find the printers, buy the paper, and hire the
qualified compositors for setting the type. It must be admitted Borrow
worked hard for his £200 a year. First he had to ask the diplomatists
for permission from the Russian Government, not now so friendly to
British missionary zeal. The Russian Bible Society had been suppressed
in 1826. He succeeded here. Then he had to continue his studies in the
Manchu language. He had written from Norwich to Mr. Jowett on 9th June,
1833, “I have mastered Manchu,” but on 20th January, 1834, we find him
writing to the same correspondent: “I pay about six shillings, English,
for each lesson, which I grudge not, for the perfect acquirement of
Manchu is one of my most ardent wishes.” {103a} Then he found the
printers—a German firm, Schultz and Beneze—who probably printed the two
little books of Borrow’s own for him as a “make weight.” He purchased
paper for his Manchu translation with an ability that would have done
credit to a modern newspaper manager. Every detail of these transactions
is given in his letters to the Bible Society, and one cannot but be
amused at Borrow’s explanation to the Reverend Secretary of the little
subterfuges by which he proposed to “best” the godless for the benefit of
the godly:
Knowing but too well that it is the general opinion of the people of
this country that Englishmen are made of gold, and that it is only
necessary to ask the most extravagant price for any article in order
to obtain it, I told no person, to whom I applied, who I was, or of
what country; and I believe I was supposed to be a German. {103b}
Then came the composing or setting up of the type of the book. When
Borrow was called to account by his London employers, who were not sure
whether he was wasting time, he replied: “I have been working in the
printing-office as a common compositor, between ten and thirteen hours
every day.” In another letter Borrow records further difficulties with
the printers after the composition had been effected. Several of the
working printers, it appears, “went away in disgust.” Then he adds:
I was resolved “to do or die,” and, instead of distressing and
perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write nothing until I
could write something perfectly satisfactory, as I now can; and to
bring about that result I have spared neither myself nor my own
money. I have toiled in a close printing-office the whole day,
during ninety degrees of heat, for the purpose of setting an example,
and have bribed people to work whom nothing but bribes would induce
so to do. I am obliged to say all this in self-justification. No
member of the Bible Society would ever have heard a syllable
respecting what I have undergone but for the question, “What has Mr.
Borrow been about?” {103c}
It is not my intention to add materially to the letters of Borrow from
Russia and from Spain that have already been published, although many are
in my possession. They reveal an aspect of the life of Borrow that has
been amply dealt with already, and it is an aspect that interests me but
little. Here, however, is one hitherto unpublished letter that throws
much light upon Borrow’s work at this time, and shows, moreover, how well
he was learning the cant phrases which found acceptance with his friends
in Earl Street:
TO THE REV. ANDREW BRANDRAM
ST. PETERSBURG, 18_th_ _Oct._, 1833.
REVEREND SIR,—Supposing that you will not be displeased to hear how I
am proceeding, I have taken the liberty to send a few lines by a
friend {104} who is leaving Russia for England. Since my arrival in
Petersburg I have been occupied eight hours every day in transcribing
a Manchu manuscript of the Old Testament belonging to Baron
Schilling, and I am happy to be able to say that I have just
completed the last of it, the Rev. Mr. Swan, the Scottish missionary,
having before my arrival copied the previous part. Mr. Swan departs
to his mission in Siberia in about two months, during most part of
which time I shall be engaged in collating our transcripts with the
original. It is a great blessing that the Bible Society has now
prepared the whole of the Sacred Scriptures in Manchu, which will
doubtless, when printed, prove of incalculable benefit to tens of
millions who have hitherto been ignorant of the will of God, putting
their trust in idols of wood and stone instead of in a crucified
Saviour. I am sorry to say that this country in respect to religion
is in a state almost as lamentable as the darkest regions of the
East, and the blame of this rests entirely upon the Greek hierarchy,
who discountenance all attempts to the spiritual improvement of the
people, who, poor things, are exceedingly willing to receive
instruction, and, notwithstanding the scantiness of their means in
general for the most part, eagerly buy the tracts which a few pious
English Christians cause to be printed and hawked in the
neighbourhood. But no one is better aware, Sir, than yourself that
without the Scriptures men can never be brought to a true sense of
their fallen and miserable state, and of the proper means to be
employed to free themselves from the thraldom of Satan. The last few
copies which remained of the New Testament in Russian were purchased
and distributed a few days ago, and it is lamentable to be compelled
to state that at the present there appears no probability of another
edition being permitted in the modern language. It is true that
there are near twenty thousand copies of the Sclavonic bible in the
shop which is entrusted with the sale of the books of the late
Russian Bible Society, but the Sclavonian translation is upwards of a
thousand years old, having been made in the eighth century, and
differs from the dialect spoken at present in Russia as much as the
old Saxon does from the modern English. Therefore it cannot be of
the slightest utility to any but the learned, that is, to about ten
individuals in one thousand. I hope and trust that the Almighty will
see fit to open some door for the illumination of this country, for
it is not to be wondered if vice and crime be very prevalent here
when the people are ignorant of the commandments of God. Is it to be
wondered that the people follow their every day pursuits on the
Sabbath when they know not the unlawfulness of so doing? Is it to be
wondered that they steal when only in dread of the laws of the
country, and are not deterred by the voice of conscience which only
exists in a few? This accounts for their profanation of their
Sabbath, their proneness to theft, etc. It is only surprising that
so much goodness is to be found in their nature as is the case, for
they are mild, polite, and obliging, and in most of their faces is an
expression of great kindness and benignity. I find that the slight
knowledge which I possess of the Russian tongue is of the utmost
service to me here, for the common opinion in England that only
French and German are spoken by persons of any respectability in
Petersburg is a great and injurious error. The nobility, it is true,
for the most part speak French when necessity obliges them, that is,
when in company with foreigners who are ignorant of Russian, but the
affairs of most people who arrive in Petersburg do not lie among the
nobility, therefore a knowledge of the language of the country,
unless you associate solely with your own countrymen, is
indispensable. The servants speak no language but their native
tongue, and also nine out of ten of the middle classes of Russians.
I might as well address Mr. Lipóftsof, who is to be my coadjutor in
the edition of the New Testament (in Manchu), in Hebrew as in either
French or German, for though he can read the first a little he cannot
speak a word of it or understand when spoken. I will now conclude by
wishing you all possible happiness. I have the honour to be, etc.,
GEORGE BORROW.
When the work was done at so great a cost of money, and of energy and
enthusiasm on the part of George Borrow, it was found that the books were
useless. Most of these New Testaments were afterwards sent out to China,
and copies distributed by the missionaries there as opportunities
offered. It was found then—why not before is not explained—that the
Manchus in China were able to read Chinese, preferring it to their own
language, which indeed had become almost confined to official use. {105}
In fact what was a congenial livelihood for Borrow—this production of a
Bible in the Manchu tongue—would have been death and desolation to the
highly placed caste of the Chinese Empire had these been compelled to
make use of Borrow’s efforts. The experiment was not to be made. The
Bible Society had such comfort for their subscribers as is contained in
the fact that in the year 1859 editions of _St. Matthew_ and _St. Mark_
were published in Manchu and Chinese side by side, the Manchu text being
a reprint of that edited by Borrow, and that these books are still in use
in Chinese Turkestan. But Borrow had here to suffer one of the many
disappointments of his life. If not actually a gypsy he had all a
gypsy’s love of wandering. No impartial reader of the innumerable
letters of this period can possibly claim that there was in Borrow any of
the proselytising zeal or evangelical fervour which wins for the names of
Henry Martyn and of David Livingstone so much honour and sympathy even
among the least zealous. At the best Borrow’s zeal for religion was of
the order of Dr. Keate, the famous headmaster of Eton—“Blessed are the
pure in heart . . . if you are not pure in heart, by God, I’ll flog you!”
Borrow had got his New Testaments printed, and he wanted to distribute
them because he wished to see still more of the world, and had no lack of
courage to carry out any well-defined scheme of the organisation which
was employing him. Borrow had thrown out constant hints in his letters
home. People had suggested to him, he said, that he was printing
Testaments for which he would never find readers. If you wish for
readers, they had said to him, “you must seek them among the natives of
Pekin and the fierce hordes of desert Tartary.” And it was this last
most courageous thing that Borrow proposed. Let him, he said to Mr.
Jowett, fix his headquarters at Kiachta upon the northern frontier of
China. The Society should have an agent there:
I am a person of few words, and will therefore state without
circumlocution that I am willing to become that agent. I speak Russ,
Manchu, and the Tartar or broken Turkish of the Russian steppes, and
have also some knowledge of Chinese, which I might easily improve at
Kiachta, half of the inhabitants of which town are Chinamen. I am
therefore not altogether unqualified for such an adventure. {106}
The Bible Committee considered this and other plans through the
intervening months, and it seems clear that at the end they would have
sanctioned some form of missionary work for Borrow in the Chinese Empire;
but on 1st June, 1835, he wrote to say that the Russian Government,
solicitous of maintaining good relations with China, would not grant him
a passport across Siberia except on the condition that he carried not one
single Manchu Bible thither. {107} And so Borrow’s dreams were left
unfulfilled. He was never to see China or the farther East, although,
because he was a dreamer and like his hero, Defoe, a bit of a liar, he
often said he had. In September, 1835, he was back in England awaiting
in his mother’s home in Norwich further commissions from his friends of
the Bible Society.
* * * * *
Work on the Manchu New Testament did not entirely absorb Borrow’s
activities in St. Petersburg. He seems to have made a proposition to
another organisation, as the following letter indicates. The proposal
does not appear to have borne any fruit:
PRAYER BOOK AND HOMILY SOCIETY,
No. 4 EXETER HALL, LONDON, _January_ 16_th_, 1835.
SIR,—Your letters dated July and November 17, 1834, and addressed to
the Rev. F. Cunningham, have been laid before the Committee of the
Prayer Book and Homily Society, who have agreed to print the
translation of the first three Homilies into the Russian language at
St. Petersburg, under the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Biller, so soon
as they shall have caused the translation to undergo a thorough
revision, and shall have certified the same to this Society. I write
by this post to Mrs. Biller on the subject. In respect to the second
Homily in Manchu, if we rightly understand your statement, an edition
of five hundred copies may be sent forth, the whole expense of which,
including paper and printing, will amount to about £12. If we are
correct in this the Committee are willing to bear the expense of five
hundred copies, by way of trial, their wish being this, viz.: that
printed copies should be put into the hands of the most competent
persons, who shall be invited to offer such remarks on the
translation as shall seem desirable; especially that Dr. Morrison of
Canton should be requested to submit copies to the inspection of
Manchu scholars as he shall think fit. When the translation has been
thoroughly revised, the Committee will consider the propriety of
printing a larger edition. They think that the plan of submitting
copies in letters of gold to the inspection of the highest personages
in China should probably be deferred till the translation has been
thus revised. We hope that this resolution will be satisfactory to
you; but the Committee, not wishing to prescribe a narrower limit
than such as is strictly necessary, have directed me to say, that
should the expense of an edition of five hundred copies of the Homily
in Manchu exceed £12, they will still be willing to meet it, but not
beyond the sum of £15.
Should you print this edition be pleased to furnish us with
twenty-five copies, and send twenty-five copies at the least to Rev.
Dr. Morrison, at Canton, if you have the means of doing so; if not,
we should wish to receive fifty copies, that _we_ may send
twenty-five to Canton. In this case you will be at liberty to draw a
bill upon us for the money, within the limits specified above, in
such manner as is most convenient. Possibly Mr. and Mrs. Biller may
be able to assist you in this matter. Believe me, dear Sir, yours
most sincerely,
C. R. PRITCHETT.
Mr. G. Borrow.
I am not aware whether I am addressing a clergyman or a layman, and
therefore shall direct as above. Will you be so kind as to send the
MS. of the Russian Homilies to Mrs. Biller?
During Borrow’s last month or two in St. Petersburg he printed two thin
octavo volumes of translations—some of them verses which, undeterred by
the disheartening reception of earlier efforts, he had continued to make
from each language in succession that he had the happiness to acquire,
although most of the poems are from his old portfolios. These little
books were named _Targum_ and _The Talisman_. Dr. Knapp calls the latter
an appendix to the former. They are absolutely separate volumes of
verse. The publishers, it will be seen, are the German firm that printed
the Manchu New Testament, Schultz and Beneze. Borrow’s preface to
_Targum_ is dated “St. Petersburg, June 1, 1835.” Here in _Targum_ we
find the trial poem which in competition with a rival candidate had won
him the privilege of going to Russia for the Bible Society—_The Mountain
Chase_. Here also among new verses are some from the Arabic, the
Persian, and the Turkish. If it be true, as his friend Hasfeld said,
that here was a poet who was able to render another without robbing the
garland of a single leaf—that would but prove that the poetry which
Borrow rendered was not of the first order. Nor taking another
standard—the capacity to render the ballad with a force that captures
“the common people”—can we agree with William Bodham Donne, who was
delighted with _Targum_ and said that “the language and rhythm are vastly
superior to Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_.” In _The Talisman_ we
have four little poems from the Russian of Pushkin followed by another
poem, _The Mermaid_, by the same author. Three other poems in Russian
and Polish complete the little book. Borrow left behind him in St.
Petersburg with his friend, Hasfeld, a presentation copy for Pushkin,
who, when he received it, expressed regret that he had not met his
translator while Borrow was in St. Petersburg.