“THE BIBLE IN SPAIN”
IN an admirable appreciation of our author, the one in which he gives the
oft-quoted eulogy concerning him as “the delightful, the bewitching, the
never-sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow,” Mr. Birrell records the
solace that may be found by small boys in the ambiguities of a
title-page, or at least might have been found in it in his youth and in
mine. In those days in certain Puritan circles a very strong line was
drawn between what was known as Sunday reading, and reading that might be
permitted on week-days. The Sunday book must have a religious flavour.
There were magazines with that particular flavour, every story in them
having a pious moral withal. Very closely watched and scrutinised was
the reading of young people in those days and in those circles. Mr.
Birrell, doubtless, speaks from autobiographical memories when he tells
us of a small boy with whose friends _The Bible in Spain_ passed muster
on the strength of its title-page. For Mr. Birrell is the son of a
venerated Nonconformist minister; and perhaps he, or at least those who
were of his household, had this religious idiosyncrasy. It may be that
the distinction which pervaded the evangelical circles of Mr. Birrell’s
youth as to what were Sunday books, as distinct from books to be read on
week-days, has disappeared. In any case think of the advantage of the
boy of that generation who was able to handle a book with so
unexceptionable a title as _The Bible in Spain_. His elders would
succumb at once, particularly if the boy had the good sense to call their
attention to the sub-title—“The Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments
of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the
Peninsula.” Nothing could be said by the most devout of seniors against
so prepossessing a title-page. But what of the boy who had thus passed
the censorship? What a revelation of adventure was open to him. Perhaps
he would skip the “preachy” parts in which Borrow was doubtless sincere,
although the sincerity has so uncertain a ring to-day. Here are five
passages, for example, which do not seem to belong to the book:
In whatever part of the world I, a poor wanderer in the Gospel’s
cause, may chance to be
* * * * *
very possibly the fate of St. Stephen might overtake me; but does the
man deserve the name of a follower of Christ who would shrink from
danger of any kind in the cause of Him whom he calls his Master? “He
who loses his life for my sake shall find it,” are words which the
Lord Himself uttered. These words were fraught with consolation to
me, as they doubtless are to every one engaged in propagating the
Gospel, in sincerity of heart, in savage and barbarian lands.
* * * * *
Unhappy land! not until the pure light of the Gospel has illumined
thee, wilt thou learn that the greatest of all gifts is charity!
* * * * *
and I thought that to convey the Gospel to a place so wild and remote
might perhaps be considered an acceptable pilgrimage in the eyes of
my Maker. True it is that but one copy remained of those which I had
brought with me on this last journey; but this reflection, far from
discouraging me in my projected enterprise, produced the contrary
effect, as I called to mind that, ever since the Lord revealed
Himself to man, it has seemed good to Him to accomplish the greatest
ends by apparently the most insufficient means; and I reflected that
this one copy might serve as an instrument for more good than the
four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine copies of the edition of
Madrid.
* * * * *
I shall not detain the course of my narrative with reflections as to
the state of a Church which, though it pretends to be founded on
scripture, would yet keep the light of scripture from all mankind, if
possible. But Rome is fully aware that she is not a Christian
Church, and having no desire to become so, she acts prudently in
keeping from the eyes of her followers the page which would reveal to
them the truths of Christianity.
All this does not ring quite true, and in any case it is too much on the
lines of “Sunday reading” to please the small boy, who must, however,
have found a thousand things in that volume that were to his taste—some
of the wildest adventures, hairbreadth escapes, extraordinary meetings
again and again with unique people—with Benedict Mol, for example, who
was always seeking for treasure. Gypsies, bull-fighters, quaint and
queer characters of every kind, come before us in rapid succession.
Rarely, surely, have so many adventures been crowded into the same number
of pages. Only when Borrow remembers, as he has to do occasionally, that
he is an agent of the Bible Society does the book lose its vigour and its
charm. We have already pointed out that the foundations of the volume
were contained in certain letters written by Borrow during his five years
in Spain to the secretaries of the Bible Society in London. The recent
publication of these letters has revealed to us Borrow’s methods. When
he had settled down at Oulton he took down his notebooks, one of which is
before me, but finding this was not sufficient, he asked the Bible
Society for the loan of his letters to them. Other letters that he hoped
to use were not forthcoming, as the following note from Miss Gurney to
Mrs. Borrow indicates:
TO MRS. GEORGE BORROW
EARLHAM, 12_th_ _June_, 1840.
DEAR MRS. BORROW,—I am sorry I cannot find any of Mr. Borrow’s
letters from Spain. I don’t think we ever had any, but my brother is
from home and I therefore cannot inquire of him.
I send you the only two I can find. I am very glad he is going to
publish his travels, which I have no doubt will be very interesting.
It must be a pleasant object to assist him by copying the
manuscripts. If I should visit Lowestoft this summer I shall hope to
see you, but I have no immediate prospect of doing so. With kind
regards to all your party, I am, Dear Mrs. Borrow, Yours sincerely,
C. GURNEY. {155}
The Bible Society, applied to in the same manner, lent Borrow all his
letters to that organisation and its secretaries.
Not all were returned. Many came to Dr. Knapp when he purchased the half
of the Borrow papers that were sold after Borrow’s death; the remainder
are in my possession.
It is a nice point, seventy years after they were written, as to whom
they belong. In any case the Bible Society must have kept copies of
everything, for when, in 1911, they came to publish the _Letters_ the
collection was sufficiently complete. That publication revealed some
interesting sidelights. It proved on the one hand that Borrow had drawn
more upon his diaries than upon his letters, although he frequently
reproduced fragments of his diaries in his letters. It revealed further
the extraordinary frankness with which Borrow wrote to his employers. It
is true that it further reveals the manner in which he throws a sop of
godliness to the worthy secretaries. But the main point is in the
discovery revealed to us that Borrow was not an artist in his letters.
Borrow was never a good letter writer, although I think that many of the
letters that appear for the first time in these pages will prove that his
letters are very interesting as contributions to biography. If some of
the letters that helped to make up _The Bible in Spain_ are interesting,
it is because in them Borrow incorporated considerable fragments of
anecdote and adventure from his note-books. It is quite a mistake to
assume, as does Dr. Knapp, that the “Rev. and Dear Sir” at the head of a
letter was the only variation. You will look in vain in the Bible
Society correspondence for many a pearl that is contained in _The Bible
in Spain_, and happily you will look in vain in _The Bible in Spain_ for
many an unctuous sentence which concludes some of the original letters.
In one case, indeed, a letter concludes with Heber’s hymn—
“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,”
with which Borrow’s correspondent must already have been sufficiently
familiar. But Borrow could not be other than Borrow, and the secretaries
of the Bible Society had plentiful matter with which to astonish them.
The finished production, however, is a fascinating book. You read it
again and it becomes still more entertaining. No wonder that it took the
world by storm and made its author the lion of a season. “A queer book
will be this same _Bible in Spain_,” wrote Borrow to John Murray in
August, 1841, “containing all my queer adventures in that queer country
. . . it will make two nice foolscap octavo volumes.” It actually made
three volumes, and Borrow was as irritated at Mr. Murray’s delay in
publishing as that publisher afterwards became at Borrow’s own delay over
_Lavengro_. The whole book was laboriously copied out by Mrs. Borrow.
When this copy was sent to Mr. Murray, it was submitted to his “reader,”
who reported “numerous faults in spelling and some in grammar,” to which
criticism Borrow retorted that the copy was the work of “a country
amanuensis.” The book was published in December, 1842, but has the date
1843 on its title-page. In its three-volumed form 4750 copies of the
book were issued by July, 1843, after which countless copies were sold in
cheaper one-volumed form. Success had at last come to Borrow. He was
one of the most talked-of writers of the day. His elation may be
demonstrated by his discussion with Dawson Turner as to whether he should
leave the manuscript of _The Bible in Spain_ to the Dean and Chapter’s
Library at Norwich or to the British Museum, by his gratification at the
fact that Sir Robert Peel referred to his book in the House of Commons,
and by his pleasure in the many appreciative reviews which, indeed, were
for the most part all that an ambitious author could desire. “Never,”
said _The Examiner_, “was book more legibly impressed with the
unmistakable mark of genius.” “There is no taking leave of a book like
this,” said the _Athenæum_. “Better Christmas fare we have never had it
in our power to offer our readers.”
The publication of _The Bible in Spain_ made Borrow famous for a time.
Hitherto he had been known only to a small religious community, the
coterie that ran the Bible Society. Even the large mass of people who
subscribed to that Society knew its agent in Spain only by meagre
allusions in the Annual Reports. Now the world was to talk about him,
and he enjoyed being talked about. Borrow declared—in 1842—that the five
years he passed in Spain were the most happy years of his existence. But
then he had not had a happy life during the previous years, as we have
seen, and in Russia he had a toilsome task with an added element of
uncertainty as to the permanence of his position. The five years in
Spain had plentiful adventure, and they closed in a pleasant manner. Yet
the year that followed, even though it found him almost a country squire,
was not a happy one. Once again the world did not want him and his
books—not the _Gypsies of Spain_ for example. Seven weeks after
publication it had sold only to the extent of some three hundred copies.
But the happiest year of Borrow’s life was undoubtedly the one that
followed the publication of _The Bible in Spain_. Up to that time he had
been a mere adventurer; now he was that most joyous of beings—a
successful author; and here, from among his Papers, is a carefully
preserved relic of his social triumph:
TO GEORGE BORROW, ESQ., AT MR. MURRAY’S,
BOOKSELLER, ALBEMARLE STREET
4 CARLTON TERRACE, _Tuesday_, 30_th_ _May_.
The Prussian Minister and Madam Bunsen would be very happy to see Mr.
Borrow to-morrow, Wednesday evening, about half past nine o’clock or
later, when some German national songs will be performed at their
house, which may possibly suit Mr. Borrow’s taste. They hoped to have
met him last night at the Bishop of Norwich’s, but arrived there too
late. They had already commissioned Lady Hall (sister to Madam
Bunsen) to express to Mr. Borrow their wish for his acquaintance.
In a letter to his wife he writes of this visit to the Prussian Minister,
where he had for company “Princes and Members of Parliament.” “I was the
star of the evening,” he says; “I thought to myself, ‘what a
difference!’” There is an independent version of the function in the
_Annals of the Harford Family_, where a correspondent writes:
There was present the amusing author of _The Bible in Spain_, a man
who is remarkable for his extraordinary powers as a linguist, and for
the originality of his character, not to speak of the wonderful
adventures he narrates, and the ease and facility with which he tells
them. He kept us laughing a good part of breakfast time by the oddity
of his remarks, as well as the positiveness of his assertions, often
rather startling, and, like his books, partaking of the marvellous.
Borrow’s next letter to his wife is more chastened:
TO MRS. GEORGE BORROW, OULTON, SUFFOLK
_Wednesday_, 58 JERMYN STREET.
DEAR CARRETA,—I was glad to receive your letter; I half expected one
on Tuesday. I am, on the whole, very comfortable, and people are
kind. I passed last Sunday at Clapham with Mrs. Browne; I was glad
to go there for it was a gloomy day. They are now glad enough to ask
me: I suppose I must stay in London through next week. I have an
invitation to two grand parties, and it is as well to have something
for one’s money. I called at the Bible Society—all remarkably civil,
Joseph especially so. I think I shall be able to manage with my own
Dictionary. There is now a great demand for Morrison. Yesterday I
again dined at the Murrays. There was a family party; very pleasant.
To-morrow I dine with an old school-fellow. Murray is talking of
printing a new edition to sell for five shillings: those rascals, the
Americans, have, it seems, reprinted it, and are selling it for
_eighteen_ pence. Murray says he shall print ten thousand copies; it
is chiefly wanted for the Colonies. He says the rich people and the
libraries have already got it, and he is quite right, for nearly
three thousand copies have been sold at 27s. {159} There is no
longer the high profit to be made on books there formerly was, as the
rascals abroad pirate the good ones, and in the present state of
copyright there is no help; we can, however, keep the American
edition out of the Colonies, which is something. I have nothing more
to say save to commend you not to go on the water without me; perhaps
you would be overset; and do not go on the bridge again till I come.
Take care of Habismilk and Craffs; kiss the little mare and old Hen.
GEORGE BORROW.
The earliest literary efforts of Borrow in Spain were his two
translations of St. Luke’s Gospel—the one into Romany, the other into
Basque. This last book he did not actually translate himself, but
procured “from a Basque physician of the name of Oteiza.”