Ambition, with a little revenge, helped to impel Borrow to write
"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." Some of this ambition was left over for
"Wild Wales," which he began and finished before the publication of "The
Romany Rye." There was little of any impulse left for the writing of
books after "Wild Wales." In 1862 and 1863 he published in "Once a Week"
some translations in prose and verse, from Manx, Russian, Danish and
Norse--one poem, on Harald Harfagr, being illustrated by Frederick
Sandys. He never published the two-volume books, advertised as "ready
for the press" in 1857, "Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and Kings," "Kaempe Viser
. . . translated from the Ancient Danish," "Northern Skalds, Kings and
Earls."
Borrow was living in Hereford Square, seeing many people, occasionally
dining well, walking out into the suburban country, and visiting the
Gypsy camps in London. He made notes of his observations and
conversations, which, says Knapp, "are not particularly edifying,"
whatever that may mean. Knapp gives one example from the manuscript,
describing the race at Brompton, on October 14, 1861, between Deerfoot,
the Seneca Indian, and Jackson, the "American Deer." Borrow also wrote
for the "Antiquities of the Royal School of Norwich," an autobiography
too long for insertion. This survived to be captured and printed by
Knapp. It is very inaccurate, but it serves to corroborate parts of
"Lavengro," and its inaccuracy, though now transparent, is
characteristically exaggerated or picturesque.
Borrow's scattered notes would perhaps never have been published in his
lifetime, but for an accident. In 1870 Charles Godfrey Leland, author of
"Hans Breitmann," introduced himself to Borrow as one who had read "The
Zincali," "Lavengro," and "The Romany Rye," five times. Borrow answered
that he would be pleased to see him at any time. They met and Leland
sent Borrow his "Breitmann Ballads" because of the German Romany ballad
in it, and his "Music Lesson of Confucius" because of the poem in it
inspired by Borrow's reference to Svend Vonved in "The Romany Rye."
Leland confessed in a genial familiar way what "an incredible influence"
Borrow's books had had on him, and thanked him for the "instructions in
'The Romany Rye' as to taking care of a horse on a thirty-mile ride."
Borrow became jealous of this American "Romany Rye." Leland, suspecting
nothing, wrote offering him the dedication of his "English Gypsies." John
Murray assured Leland that Borrow received this letter, but it was never
acknowledged except by the speedy announcement of a new book--"Romano
Lavo-Lil: a word book of the Romany or English Gypsy Language, by George
Borrow, with specimens of Gypsy poetry, and an account of certain
Gypsyries or places inhabited by them, and of various things relating to
Gypsy life in England." Leland speaks of the affair in "The Gypsies,"
saying that he had nothing but pleasant memories of the good old Romany
Rye:
"A grand old fellow he was--a fresh and hearty giant, holding his six-
feet-two or three inches as uprightly at eighty as he ever had at
eighteen. I believe that was his age, but may be wrong. Borrow was like
one of the old Norse heroes, whom he so much admired, or an old-fashioned
Gypsy bruiser, full of craft and merry tricks. One of these he played on
me, and I bear him no malice for it. The manner of the joke was this: I
had written a book on the English Gypsies and their language; but before
I announced it, I wrote a letter to Father George, telling him that I
proposed to print it, and asking his permission to dedicate it to him. He
did not answer the letter, but 'worked the tip' promptly enough, for he
immediately announced in the newspapers on the following Monday his 'Word-
book of the Romany 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 various things relating to Gypsy life
in England.' This was exactly what I had told him that my book would
contain. . . . I had no ill-feeling about it.
"My obligations to him for 'Lavengro' and 'The Romany Rye' and his other
works are such as I owe to few men. I have enjoyed Gypsying more than
any other sport in the world, and I owe my love of it to George Borrow."
"The English Gypsies" appeared in 1873, and the "Romano Lavo-Lil" in
1874.
"Romano Lavo-Lil" contains a note on the English Gypsy language, a word-
book, some Gypsy songs and anecdotes with English translations, a list of
Gypsy names of English counties and towns, and accounts of several visits
to Gypsy camps in London and the country. It was hastily put together,
and the word-book, for example, did not include all the Romany used in
"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." There were now critics capable of
discovering other shortcomings.
Borrow's book was reviewed along with Leland's "English Gypsies" and Dr.
Miklosich's "Dialects and Migrations of the Gypsies in Europe," and he
was attacked for his derivations, his ignorance of philology and of other
writers on his subject, his sketchy knowledge of languages, his
interference with the purity of the idiom in his Romany specimens. His
Gypsy songs were found interesting, his translations, of course, bad. The
final opinion of the book as a book on the Gypsy language was: {310}
"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."
Nor, apart from the word-book and Gypsy specimens, is the book a good
example of Borrow's writing. The accounts of visits to Gypsies at Kirk
Yetholm, Wandsworth, Pottery Lane (Notting Hill), and Friar's Mount
(Shore-ditch), are interesting as much for what they tell us of Borrow's
recreations in London as for anything else. The portrait of the "dark,
mysterious, beautiful, terrible" Mrs. Cooper, the story of Clara Bosvil,
the life of Ryley Bosvil--"a thorough Gypsy, versed in all the arts of
the old race, had two wives, never went to church, and considered that
when a man died he was cast into the earth, and there was an end of
him"--and his death and burial ceremony, and some of Borrow's own
opinions, for example, in favour of Pontius Pilate and George IV.--these
are simple and vigorous in the old style. They show that with a
sufficient impulse he could have written another book at least equal to
"Wild Wales." But these uneven fragments were not worthy of the living
man. They were the sort of thing that his friends might have been
expected to gather up after he was dead. Scraps like this from "Wisdom
of the Egyptians," are well enough:
"'My father, why were worms made?' 'My son, that moles might live by
eating them.' 'My father, why were moles made?' 'My son, that you and I
might live by catching them.' 'My father, why were you and I made?' 'My
son, that worms might live by eating us.'"
Related to Borrow, and to a living Gypsy, by Borrow's pen, how much
better! It is a book that can be browsed on again and again, but hardly
ever without this thought. It was the result of ambition, and might have
been equal to its predecessors, but competition destroyed the impulse of
ambition and spoilt the book.
"Romano Lavo-Lil" was his last book. For posthumous publication he left
only "The Turkish Jester; or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin
Effendi, translated from the Turkish by G. B." (Ipswich, 1884). This
was a string of the sayings and adventures of one Cogia, in this style:
"One day Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi said: 'O Mussulmen, give thanks to God
Most High that He did not give the camel wings; for had He given them,
they would have perched upon your houses and chimneys, and have caused
them to tumble down upon your heads.'" This may have been the
translation from the Turkish that Fitzgerald read in 1857 and could not
admire. It is a diverting book and illustrates Borrow's taste.