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Transcribed from the 1896 David Nutt edition by David Price,email ccx074@pglaf.org

p.2NOTE

A few passages in this monograph are taken from a shortarticle on “George Borrow”whichappeared in “Good Words.”

p.3GEORGE BORROW IN
EAST ANGLIA

p.5CONTENTS

p.7CHAPTER I: EAST ANGLIA

It is a trite saying, the truth of which is so universallyadmitted that it is hardly worth repeating, that a man’smemory, above all things, retains most vividly recollections ofthe scenes amidst which he passed his early days. Amidstthe loneliness of the African veldt or American prairiesolitudes, the West-countryman dreams of Devon’s grassytors and honeysuckle lanes, and Cornish headlands, fretted by thefoaming waves of the grey Atlantic; in teaming cities, where thepulse of life beats loud and strong, the Scotsman ever cherishessweet, sad thoughts of the braes and burns about his Highlandhome; between the close-packed roofs of a London alley, theItalian immigrant sees the sunny skies and deep blue seas of hisnative land, the German pictures to himself the loveliness of thelegend-haunted Rhineland, and the Scandinavian, closing his eyesand ears to the squalor and misery,p. 8wonders whetherthe sea-birds still circle above the stone-built cottage in theNordland cleft, and cry weirdly from the darkness as they sweeplandward in the night. Many a wanderer, whatever else hemay let go, holds in his heart the hope that one day he may goback to the place where his boyhood’s days were spent, eventhough it be but to dwell alone amidst the phantoms of long deaddreams and long lost loves.

East Anglia may well be compared to a sad-faced mother, whosees her children, whom she would fain keep with her, one by onego out into the wide world to seek those things that cannot befound in her humble home. For years the youths of EasternEngland have had to leave the hamlet hall, the village rectory,the marshland farmstead, and the cottage home, and wander far andwide to gain their daily bread. Toil as they might, farmand field could give them little for their labour, themother-country’s breast was dry. And yet they lovedher—loved her dearly. Deeply and firmly rooted in hisheart is the love of the East Anglian for East Anglia. Theoutside world has but recently discovered the charm of theBroadland: by the dweller there it has been felt since the daywhen he first gazed with seeing eyes across its dreamy, silentsolitudes. The secrets of the marshland wastes have beenwhispered in his ears by the wind in the willows, and have beensung to him by the sighing sedge. He knows the bird voicesof reed rond andp. 9hover, and has read the lesson of theday’s venture in the brightening sunrise and sunsetglow. Amidst scenes that have little changed since theIceni hid in the marshland-bordering woods, and crept out intheir coracles on the rush-fringed meres, he is at home withNature, and becomes her friend, her lover. She holds backno secret from him if he wills that he should learn it; shecharms him with her many moods. Her laughter is thesunlight, and ere it has died away she has hidden coyly in a veilof mist; now she is tearful with the raindrops falling on herchangeful face, but the light comes back with the silverygleaming of her winding rivers. When her lover leaves her,and wanders off to wooings far away, she reproaches him by hersilence; and when he has time to think, he remembers with regretand longing the restful loveliness that was once about him like amantle of peace.

Flowering meads, wide-reaching marshland solitudes, lonelyheaths and sandhills sloping downward to the sea;wildfowl-haunted shores and flats, rivers and lagoons throughwhich the wherries glide, the calling of the herdman and thesighing of the sea-wind through bracken, gorse, and firridge—these are East Anglia, and, like voices heard inchildhood, they are with her children wherever they may wander,until all earthly voices are for ever lost in silence.

No one felt the charm of peaceful Eastern England more fullyand deeply than did Georgep. 10Borrow. An East Anglian born, he was nurtured within the borders ofNorfolk during many of the most impressionable years of his life,and when world-worn and weary, he sought rest from hiswanderings, he came back to East Anglia to die. During hislatter days, he became rather inaccessible; but an EastEnglishman always had a better chance of successfully approachinghim than any one not so fortunate as to have been born within thecompass of East Anglia. Mr. Theodore Watts discovered thiswhen Borrow and he were the guests of Dr. Hake at Roehampton.

“When I went on to tell him,” writes Mr. Watts,“that I once used to drive a genuine Shales mare, adescendant of that same famous Norfolk trotter who could trotfabulous miles an hour, to whom he, with the Norfolk farmers,raised his hat in reverence at the Norwich horse fair; and when Ipromised to show him a portrait of this same East Anglian marewith myself behind her in a dogcart—an East Angliandogcart; when I praised the stinging saltness of the sea-water ofYarmouth, Lowestoft, and Cromer, the quality of which makes itthe best, the most delightful of all sea-water to swim in; when Itold him that the only English river in which you could seereflected the rainbow he loved was ‘the glassy Ouse’of East Anglia, and the only place in England where you could seeit reflected in the wet sand was the Norfolk coast; and when Itold him a good many things showing that I was in very truthp.11not only an Englishman but an East Englishman, myconquest of the ‘walking lord of gipsy lore’ wascomplete, and from that moment we became friends.”

“It is on sand alone,” said Borrow, “thatthe sea strikes its true music—Norfolk sand.”

“The best of the sea’s lutes,” chimed in theartful Watts, “is made by the sands of Cromer.”

p.12CHAPTER II: EARLY DAYS

The eighteenth century had almost run its course when theexigencies of England’s conflict with the French broughtThomas Borrow, a stalwart Cornishman, into East Anglia, onrecruiting service. For several years the worthyWest-countryman had served his king in the rank and file of theBritish army before he was appointed sergeant-major of the newlyraised body of West Norfolk Militia. The headquarters ofthis regiment was East Dereham, a pleasant little country townsituated about sixteen miles from the Norfolk capital.

Thomas Borrow came of a good Cornish family, and explanationof his having attained nothing better than non-commissioned rankis to be found in the fact that he preferred to enter the army asa private soldier—some say that he ran away from home inorder to enlist. That his duties as a sergeant-major wereperformed in a creditable and satisfactory manner we arejustified in believing, knowing that in 1798 he was raised to theposition of captain and adjutant of the regiment.

p.13While in Dereham, Sergeant-major Borrow made theacquaintance of Ann Parfrement, the daughter of a small farmer ofFrench Huguenot extraction, living at Dumpling Green, an openneighbourhood in the outskirts of the town. Thisacquaintance ripened into a mutual attachment, and on Borrowreceiving promotion the two were united in marriage. Twochildren were born to them; the younger of whom, George HenryBorrow, was born on July 5th, 1803.

The wandering instinct that George afterwards developed maywell have been the natural outcome of the roving life of hisearly years. Before he was many months old, his parents,obedient to the dictates of military command, had moved fromDereham to Canterbury. The year 1809, however, saw themback again in the little Norfolk town with which Borrow’searliest recollections were associated.

East Dereham is a town of Anglo-Saxon foundation, and strangelegends and traditions are interwoven with its history. To-day it is chiefly known for the fact that the bones of thepoet Cowper rest beneath the chancel of its ancient church. To this church of St. Nicholas, George was taken by his parentsevery Sunday. Writing in after years, he says, “Twiceevery Sunday I was regularly taken to the church, where, from acorner of the large spacious pew, lined with black leather, Iwould fix my eyes on the dignified High-church rector, and thedignified High-church clerk, and watch the movementp. 14oftheir lips, from which, as they read their respective portions ofthe venerable Liturgy, would roll many a portentous worddescriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.”

The vicar of Dereham at this time was the Rev. Charles HydeWollaston. The “dignified High-church clerk”was George Philo (spelt Philoh in “Lavengro”), an oldsoldier, retired on a pension.

The Borrows remained in Dereham only a few months, but theirstay in the place was ever after a memorable one inGeorge’s mind, for the occurrence of a great event. Ayoung lady, a friend of the family, presented him with a copy of“Robinson Crusoe.” This book first aroused inhim a desire for knowledge. For hours together he satporing over its pages, until, “under a shoulder-of-muttonsail, I found myself cantering before a steady breeze over anocean of enchantment, so well pleased with my voyage that I carednot how long it might be ere it reached itstermination.”

After settling down for a time at Norman Cross inHuntingdonshire and in Edinburgh, Captain Borrow retired intoprivate life; but not for long. Elba failed to hold thefiery Corsican, Napoleon again burst upon the battlefield ofEurope, the demon of war and ravage was again abroad. Borrow’s corps was levied anew, and his eldest son, John,became one of its officers. Before the regiment sawservice, however, the escaped lion was again caged. But itwas not disbanded, and, being in a thoroughlyp. 15efficientstate, was ordered to Ireland, where local trouble wasfeared. The autumn of 1815 saw the Borrows sail fromHarwich. After a voyage of eight days, during which aterrific storm was encountered and the transports nearlyfoundered, the military force of eight hundred men was landed onthe Irish coast. After a lengthy stay at Clonmel, where, asin Edinburgh, George was sent to school, the corps moved theirquarters to Templemore.

During the following year, Captain Borrow returned to Norfolk,and settled down with his family in a small house which is stillstanding in Willow Lane, Norwich. George was at onceentered as a pupil at King Edward’s Grammar School, thenconducted by Dr. Valpy, and remained a scholar there till 1818,when he attained his fifteenth year. As a schoolboy heappears to have been an apter pupil of Defoe than of the reverendheadmaster of the Norwich academy. Dr. James Martineau, whowas one of his schoolfellows, has related how Borrow oncepersuaded several of his companions to rob their father’stills, and run away to join the smugglers of the East Angliancoast. For this escapade he was awarded due punishment,which he received hoisted on the back of the future celebratedUnitarian divine. Miss Frances Cobbe, who knew both Borrowand Dr. Martineau in after years, says in her Autobiography,“The early connection between the two old men as I knewthem was irresistibly comic to my mind. When I asked Mr.Borrow once to come andp. 16meet some friends at our house, heaccepted our invitation as usual, but, on finding that Dr.Martineau was to be of the party, hastily withdrew his acceptanceon a transparent excuse, nor did he ever after attend our littleassemblies without first ascertaining that Dr. Martineau wouldnot be present.”

On another occasion, George—probably in emulation of theEast Anglian Iceni—dyed his face with walnut juice, causingDr. Valpy to inquire whether he was “suffering fromjaundice, or if it was only dirt.” Dr. Jessop, whowas afterwards headmaster of the school, says that there was atradition that Borrow was indolent and even stupid. Thereis little doubt that he was a dreamy youth, much given tointrospective thought and wild imaginings; but, in spite of thesedrawbacks in the dominie’s eyes, he was a very human boy,fond of outdoor life and sports. Some of his pursuits,however—such as his liking for philological studies, andfor the company of gipsies and horsey men generally—mightwell trouble his father, who was a steady-going old gentleman ofstrictly conventional methods and ideas. George stood inconsiderable awe of him, and always felt ill at ease in hispresence. No doubt the old soldier frequently remonstratedwith him for his indulgence in idle pleasures and lax ideas ofduty. As a lad, he probably found it hard to justifyhimself in his father’s eyes, but there is a passage in“Lavengro,” written five-and-twenty years later,which clearly expresses his views:

p.17“I have heard talk of the pleasures of idleness,yet it is my own firm belief that no one ever yet took pleasurein it. Mere idleness is the most disagreeable state ofexistence, and both mind and body are continually making effortsto escape from it. It has been said that idleness is theparent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself ismerely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum ofidleness. There are many tasks and occupations which a manis unwilling to perform, but let no one think that he istherefore in love with idleness; he turns to something which ismore agreeable to his inclination, and doubtless more suited tohis nature, but he is not in love with idleness. A boy mayplay the truant from school because he dislikes his books andstudy; but, depend upon it, he intends doing something thewhile—to go fishing, or perhaps to take a walk; and whoknows but that from such excursions both his mind and body mayderive more benefit than from books and school?”

Contemporary with Borrow at Norwich Grammar School wereseveral lads whose names were afterwards written in large andshining letters on the scroll of fame. Amongst these wereJames Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Archdale Wilson, and, ashas already been said, Dr. James Martineau. The old cityhas always borne itself with dignity during the passage of eventsthat have gone to make up its history, as though conscious of itsability to sendp. 18forth into the world sons who woulddo honour to her record and old foundations and traditions. From that old school they have gone out into every walk of life,carrying with them over land and sea, into court and pulpit, tobench and bar, hallowed memories of days spent within itswalls. Not ten years before Borrow’s name was enteredon its roll, its most brilliant star had set at Trafalgar, whereNelson found amidst the hailing death that poured upon the decksof the batteredVictory the passport to immortal fame andglory.

p.19CHAPTER III: THE LAWYER’S CLERK

When, at the end of his fifteenth year, George Borrowcompleted his term of study at the Norwich Grammar School, hisparents had considerable difficulty in determining upon aprofession for their erratic son. In the solution of thisproblem he, himself, could help them but little towards asatisfactory conclusion. His strange disposition and tasteswere a source of continual astonishment and mystification to theold people. What, they asked themselves, could be done witha lad whose only decided bent was in the direction ofphilological studies, who at an early age had attained aknowledge of Erse, and whose great pleasure it was to converse inRomany with the gipsies whom he met at the fair-ground on NorwichCastle Hill? His father was anxious that he should enterthe Church; but George’s unsettled disposition was aneffectual bar against his taking such a step, for he would neverhave been able to apply himself with sufficient attention to thenecessary routine course of college study.

p.20In the midst of the warm controversy that the questionexcited he fell ill, and firmly believed that he was going todie. His near approach to dissolution found him quiteresigned. A listless willingness to let life go, grew uponhim during the dreary days of helpless inactivity. “Death,” he said, “appeared to him little elsethan a pleasant sleep, and he wished for sleep.” Buta long life was before him, and, after spending weeks upon hisbed, his strength came back to him, and with it the stillunsolved problem of a suitable vocation. It was at lastdecided that he should enter upon a legal career.

There is little doubt that the legal profession was one forwhich Borrow was the least adapted, and of this he was wellaware. When, however, in 1819, the time arrived for him tobe articled to Messrs. Simpson and Rackham of Tuck’s Court,St. Giles, he apparently offered no objection, and hisrecollections of the years when he was tied to a lawyer’sdesk were always pleasant to him in after-life.

But these pleasant recollections had little to do with theduties of his calling—they arose rather from the fact thathis work was easy, and so intermittent as to give him ampleopportunity for indulging in his day-dreams. Who can doubtthe personal basis of that passage in “Lavengro” inwhich he says: “Yes, very pleasant times were those, whenwithin the womb of a lofty desk, behind which I sat for somehours every day, transcribing (when I imagined eyes were upon me)p.21documents of every description in every possiblehand. Blackstone kept company with Ab Gwilym—thepolished English lawyer of the last century, who wrote long andprosy chapters on the rights of things—with a certain wildWelshman, who some four hundred years before that time inditedimmortal cowydds or odes to the wives of Cambrianchieftains—more particularly to one Morfydd, the wife of acertain hunch-backed dignitary called by the poet facetiously BwaBach—generally terminating with the modest request of alittle private parlance beneath the greenwood bough, with noother witness than the eos, or nightingale; a request which, ifthe poet may be believed, rather a doubtful point, was seldom,very seldom, denied. And by what strange chance had Gwilymand Blackstone, two personages so exceedingly different, beenthus brought together? From what the reader already knowsof me, he may be quite prepared to find me reading the former;but what could have induced me to take up Blackstone, or ratherlaw?”

Yes, there was little in Borrow’s nature that was incommon with that of the followers of the legal profession. What food for his wild imagination could he find in the prosyrecords and dry-as-dust documents of a lawyer’soffice? They contained words that to him, as to many of hismaster’s clients, were without meaning: his thoughtswandered beyond their mazy entanglements into a realm where thelaw that restrained was that of Naturep. 22alone, andwhose only order was planned by the spirit that sent forthshadows and dreams. He had been too much of a rover, hadseen too many strange sights in his young life, to be able tosatisfy his cravings for knowledge in musty law tomes and dustydeeds. His curiosity had been aroused by many things he hadseen in his early travels, he had had glimpses into so many widefields of interest that led his mind astray. But none ofthese seemed to the steady-going old Militia captain to show apractical opening for his second son, whom, therefore, we findcopying legal documents in a “strange old house occupyingone side of a long and narrow court,” instead of goinga-viking with the Norseman or roving with the wild Welshbard.

Borrow has left us a striking picture of the head of the firmof Simpson and Rackham; a picture drawn with that wealth ofdetail and uncompromising truthfulness which would have made theworthy gentleman tremble had he known at the time what a keenobserver he was receiving beneath his roof. “A morerespectable-looking individual was never seen,” writes hiserstwhile pupil; “he really looked what he was, a gentlemanof the law—there was nothing of the pettifogger about him:somewhat under middle size, and somewhat rotund in person, he wasalways dressed in a full suit of black, never worn long enough tobecome threadbare. His face was rubicund, and not withoutp.23keenness; but the most remarkable thing about him washis head, which was bald, and shone like polished ivory, nothingmore white, smooth and lustrous. Some people have said thathe wore false calves, probably because his black silk stockingsnever exhibited a wrinkle; they might as well have said that hewaddled because his shoes creaked, for these last, which werealways without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of adifferent hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. Icannot say that I ever saw him walk fast.”

And then follows a little glimpse into the provincial life ofthe old Norfolk capital that shows how little change there hasbeen in the aims and habits of a certain portion of the middleclass since the first quarter of the century. “He hada handsome practice, and might have died a very rich man, muchricher than he did, had he not been in the habit of giving ratherexpensive dinners to certain great people, who gave him nothingin return, except their company.”

This worthy old gentleman must have been sorely puzzled as towhat he should make of the tall, spare, serious-looking lad whowas placed under his charge. He confessed to the oldcaptain that the latter’s son was “a veryextraordinary youth, a most remarkable youth, indeed;” andwe can well believe him. On one occasion, Borrow showed aone-eyed beggar into his master’s private room, andinstalled him in an armchair “like a justice of thep.24peace.” At another time, when invited to Mr.Simpson’s house, he electrified a learned archdeacon andthe company generally by maintaining that his favourite Ab Gwilymwas a better poet than Ovid, and that many of the classic writerswere greatly over-valued. Borrow often distinguishedhimself later on by his blunt way of expressing his opinions, andthe habit seems to have grown upon him early in life.

A sense of duty towards those who were responsible for hisupbringing, does not seem to have been a strong point with GeorgeBorrow. He disliked the profession to which he wasapprenticed, and it is evident that his mind was as absent fromhis duties as was his heart. He was always dreaming ofsagas and sea-rovers, battles and bards. Shut up in hisdull and dusty desk, he would

No one will deny that “the thoughts of youth are long,long thoughts,” for have we not all thought such thoughts,and dreamt our dreams? But they are not as a rule conduciveto the attainment of a mastery of the details and subtleties oflaw.

One day an old countryman from the coast brought George a bookof Danish ballads, left at his coast-line cottage by a crew ofshipwrecked Danes. Once possessed of this work, he couldnotp.25rest satisfied until he had mastered the Danish languagein order that he might unearth its historical and legendarytreasures. “The Danes, the Danes!” he exclaimsto himself, as he holds the priceless volume in his hands. “And was I at last to become acquainted, and in so singulara manner, with the speech of a people which had, as far back as Icould remember, exercised the strongest influence over myimagination. For the book was a book of ballads, about thedeeds of knights and champions, and men of huge stature; balladswhich from time immemorial had been sung in the North, and whichsome two centuries before the time of which I am speaking, hadbeen collected by one Anders Vedel, who lived with a certainTycho Brahe, and assisted him in making observations upon theheavenly bodies, at a place called Uranias Castle on the littleisland of Hveen, in the Cattegat.”

No, Borrow was never meant to be a lawyer; but no calling thatwas possible to him could have suited him so well at the timewith which we are dealing. Apparently the tasks set himwere so light that he had ample opportunity for the pursuance ofthe philological investigations that he delighted in. Hisefforts in this direction attracted the attention of Dr. WilliamTaylor, who had returned to his native city after his wanderingsin France and Germany. As is well known, the accomplishedscholar and translator was an intimate friend of Southey’s,and it was to the poet hep. 26wrote:“A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller’s‘Wilhelm Tell,’ with the view of translating it forthe press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he haslearnt German with extraordinary rapidity; indeed, he has thegift of tongues, and though not yet eighteen understands twelvelanguages—English, Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew,German, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, andPortuguese.”

Describing Taylor, when he and Lavengro are discussingtogether the possibility of becoming a good German scholarwithout being an ardent smoker, Borrow writes: “Theforehead of the elder individual was high, and perhaps appearedmore so than it really was, from the hair being carefully brushedback, as if for the purpose of displaying to the best advantagethat part of the cranium; his eyes were large and full, and of alight brown, and might have been called heavy and dull, had theynot been occasionally lighted up by a sudden gleam not sobrilliant, however, as that which at every inhalation shone fromthe bowl of a long clay pipe which he was smoking, but which,from a certain sucking sound which about this time began to beheard from the bottom, appeared to be giving notice that it wouldsoon require replenishment from a certain canister which,together with a lighted taper, stood upon the table besidehim.”

That the elderly German student and his youthful emulator werekindred spirits, there is no doubt; andp. 27Taylor seemsto have instilled into Borrow’s mind many of his own tastesand admirations. Amongst these was a sincere admiration forSouthey, whom Borrow, with his love of superlatives, looked uponnot so much as a poet as England’s best prose writer, andprobably the purest and most noble character to which she hadever given birth.

We have no sure knowledge of whether, while in Norwich, Borrowmade the acquaintance of Old Crome. We know, however, thathe was an enthusiastic admirer of the self-taught master of theOld Norwich School of artists. Still, he may never havebeen brought into immediate contact with him; for Crome was inhis forty-sixth year when Borrow’s family first appeared inNorwich, and George was then but a young lad. But before1821, when Old Crome died, Borrow must have learnt a good dealboth of the painter and his pictures, for the admiration that heafterwards expressed can hardly have been entirely the outcome ofthe artist’s posthumous fame.

“He has painted,” writes Borrow, “notpictures of the world, but English pictures, such as Gainsboroughhimself might have done; beautiful rural pieces, with trees thatmight well tempt the little birds to perch upon them; thouneedest not run to Rome, brother” (this was written of thetime when his brother John was leaving England to study art uponthe Continent), “where lives the old Mariolater, afterpictures of the world, whilst at home there arep. 28pictures ofEngland; nor needest thou even go to London, the big city, insearch of a master, for thou hast one at home in the old EastAnglian town, who can instruct thee, while thou needestinstruction; better stay at home, brother, at least for a season,and toil and strive ’midst groanings and despondency tillthou hast attained excellence, even as he has done—thelittle dark man with the dark-brown coat and the top-boots, whosename will one day be considered the chief ornament of the oldtown, and whose works will at no distant period rank amongst theproudest pictures of England—and England against theworld!—thy master, my brother, all too little consideredmaster—Crome.”

It would almost appear from the details of the dark-brown coatand top-boots that Borrow must have met Crome at some period ofhis Norwich life. From the foregoing eulogy, one wouldgather that his brother John was a pupil of the oldpainter. This may well have been the case, for Crome hadmany such pupils, amongst whom, as has lately been shown, were,in earlier years, some of the sisters Gurney of Earlham.

p.29CHAPTER IV: DAYS IN NORWICH

The Norwich of Borrow’s early years was noted for itsliterary and artistic associations, and the names of some of itsmore distinguished writers and painters were household words inthe land. Harriet Martineau had “left off darningstockings to take to literature”; Dr. Taylor was opening upto English readers a new field in German writings; John SellCotman was making a name for himself; and Opie, who “livedto paint,” was often seen at Earlham, Keswick, and in thecity streets. Such names as these, and of Elizabeth Fry,Sir James Smith (who founded the Linnæan Society), and Mrs.Opie would fall upon the ear of the young lawyer’s clerkwhenever he mixed in polite society. The old city was thenenjoying a reputation that was worthy of its best traditions; andit still prides itself on the memory of those golden days.

A bookish youth could not fail to be influenced by suchassociations, and it may well be that Borrow’s thoughtswere first drawn into a literary groove by a knowledge of whatcertain of these Norwich celebritiesp. 30weredoing. The delight he had found in the pages of his book ofDanish ballads, inspired him to turn his pen from the copying ofdeeds to the writing of verses. His “Romantic Balladsfrom the Danish,” printed by Simon Wilkins of Norwich, andconsisting of translations from his prized volume, appeared in1826. Dr. Jessop surmises that these translations must havebrought him in a very respectable sum, but Mr. Augustus Birrell,in his own inimitable way, expresses his doubt on thepoint. “I hope it was so,” he writes,“but, as Dr. Johnson once said about the immortality of thesoul, I should like more evidence of it.”

Borrow’s translations and linguistic pursuits, however,were not allowed to occupy all his spare hours in those earlydays. Norwich and its neighbourhood had too much to showhim, and to move him to reflection and enthusiasm, to allow thisto be the case. By degrees, he came to love the old city,as he never got to love any other place in after-life. Writing many years later, the memories of it flooded in upon hisbrain until he saw its castle and cathedral, its homes andhospitality, in such a rosy light as never glowed upon the scenesthrough which he journeyed in after years. “Who canwonder,” he asks, “that the children of that fine oldcity are proud of her, and offer up prayers for herprosperity? I, myself, who was not born within her walls,offer up prayers for her prosperity, that want may never visither cottages, vice her palaces, andp. 31that theabomination of idolatry may never pollute her temples.”

The grey old castle and stately cathedral were a never-failingsource of interest, worship and delight to him, as they have beento many who cannot claim East Anglia for their homeland. Often he would lie upon the grass in the sunlight and watch therooks and choughs circle about their battlements andspires. As he said, he was not formed for an indoorstudent, and outdoor life had ever a greater charm for him thanthe library or the study. Often with rod and gun (he had anold Tower musket nearly eighty years old) he would go downamongst the marshes to angle or shoot as the fancy took him andthe season gave him sport. Fortunately, the oldfowling-piece was sound, although condemned on account of itsage, and he never came to harm by it; indeed, if we may believehim in this matter—and it is always hard to put implicitfaith in a solitary sportsman or angler—he did considerableexecution amongst the birds of the Broadland.

Still there were times when even the attraction of the rod andgun were not sufficient to keep him from dreaming. Then, hewould throw himself down on some mossy bank and let his mindwander back into the mists and mysteries of the days ofyore. There was one favourite spot of his, where, frombeneath an arch, “the waters rush garrulously into a bluepool, and are there stilled for a time, for the pool is deep, andthey appear to have sunk top. 32sleep. Further on, however, you hear their voice again, where theyripple gaily over yon gravelly shallow. On the left, thehill slopes gently down to the margin of the stream. On theright is a green level, a smiling meadow; grass of the richestdecks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giantelms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian,fling a broad shadow on the face of the pool; through yon vistayou catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old Englishhall.” This old hall stood on the site of an olderhearthstead called the Earl’s Home, where lived some“Sigurd or Thorkild” in the days “when Thor andFreya were yet gods, and Odin was a portentous name.” Earlham stands to-day as it did in Borrow’s time, and, nodoubt, other Norwich lads at times lie out on the hillsidedreaming of the sea-rovers of Scandinavia who ravaged the hearthsand homes of the marshland folk of East Anglia.

Amongst the Norwich celebrities whom Borrow met, was JosephJohn Gurney of Earlham, the large-hearted Quaker brother ofElizabeth Fry. Mr. Gurney seems to have come across him oneday while he was fishing, and to have remonstrated with him fortaking pleasure in such “a cruel diversion.” Hewas a tall man, “dressed in raiment of a quaint andsingular fashion, but of goodly materials. He was in thepride and vigour of manhood (Joseph John Gurney was born in1788); his features handsome and noble, but full of calmness andp.33benevolence; at least I thought so, though they weresomewhat shaded by a hat of finest beaver, with broad droopingeaves.”

The worthy Quaker, whose words had the effect of lesseningBorrow’s inclination for angling, invited him to Earlhamthat he might search the library there for any such works asmight please and interest him. This was an occupation somuch to Borrow’s taste, that we wonder he did not acceptthe invitation. He did not do so, however, but sought outfar different companions—namely, the Romanies whom he metat Tombland Fair and on Mousehold Heath. It was many yearsafter that he paid his first visit to Earlham. Gurney didnot then remember him as the youth whom he had met by the side ofthe marshland stream; but he took him to the library, and showedhim the books of which he had spoken many years before. Oneof them was the work of a moneychanger. “I am abanker myself,” said Gurney, and the fact seems to havebeen the cause of reproachings on the part of some of the Norwich“Friends.” A letter of his appears in thechronicles of “The Gurneys of Earlham,” in which hewrites: “I suppose my leading object in life may be said tobe the bank. It sometimes startles me to find my leadingobject of such a nature, and now and then I doubt whether it isquite consistent with my religious pursuits andduties.” Eventually he arrives at the conclusionthat: “While I am a banker, the bankp. 34must beattended to. It is obviously the religious duty of atrustee to so large an amount to be diligent in watching histrust.” Borrow, with whom he discussed the matter,sums up the case by exclaiming, “Would that there were manylike him, amidst the money-changers of princes! The hall ofmany an earl lacks the bounty, the palace of many a prelate thepiety and learning, which adorn the quiet Quaker’shome.”

It was the death of his father that brought about the firstsevering of Borrow’s connection with Norwich. CaptainBorrow, as his portrait shows and his son declares, had been asturdy soldier, possessing great physical strength. Heenjoyed several years of quiet domestic life before the end came,and lingered for some months after the fatal illness seizedhim. At times he would rally, so that he could walk abroada little, or sit up in the small parlour of the house in WillowLane, wearing an old regimental coat, and with his dog at hisfeet. He used to have long talks with George on suchoccasions, and would relate to him stories of his past life, andthe distinguished people he had met. “He hadfrequently conversed—almost on terms offamiliarity—with good old George. He had known theconqueror of Tippoo Saib: and was the friend of Townshend, who,when Wolfe fell, led the British Grenadiers against the shrinkingregiments of Montcalm.”

p.35The old veteran’s elder son, John, who was absentfrom England, hastened home just in time to receive hisfather’s blessing. In the middle of the night, asudden relapse brought the dying man’s wife and sons to hisbedside. In his last moments, his mind wandered and hespoke of “Minden, and of Meredith, the old Mindensergeant.” Last of all, “he uttered anothername clearly, distinctly, and it was the name ofChrist.” “With that name upon his lips,”writes George Borrow, “the brave old soldier sank back uponmy bosom, and, with his hands still clasped, yielded up hissoul.” His death took place on February 28, 1824, andhe was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles, at Norwich.

The two brothers remained at home with their mother for sometime after their father’s death. John fitted up astudio in the little house in Willow Lane, and there devotedhimself to his art. His work does not seem to have beenvery remunerative, and eventually he went abroad in connectionwith a mining venture, and died in Mexico in 1833. Georgehad a great opinion of his brother’s painting, and believedthat if he had lived and continued to strive after excellence hewould have left “some enduring monument of hispowers”; but his estimate of John’s endowments mayhave been biassed by his affection. His love for hisbrother was deep and abiding, and was not lessened by hisfather’s marked preference for his elder son.

The precise date of Borrow’s leaving Norwichp. 36andbetaking himself to London cannot be ascertained, but it iscertain that he left his brother behind him in the oldhome. Mr. Birrell believes it to have been not later than1828, and says “his only introduction appears to have beenone from William Taylor to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisherknown to all readers of “Lavengro.” Mr. GeorgeSaintsbury sums up his life in Norwich with the remark that“he occupied his time with things that obviously would notpay.”

A friend of the writer, who recently examined the old house inWillow Lane, has contributed the following description of itsappearance at the time of his visit:

“In a quiet, secluded court, opening from a narrow lanein the old city of Norwich, stands an unpretentious house, whichat first sight presents little to attract the attention of avisitor. A closer inspection, however, discloses a marbleslab affixed over the door, bearing the following inscription:‘In this house resided for some years of the earlierportion of his life, George Henry Borrow, author of “TheBible in Spain”; and other valued works. Died in1881, aged 78 years.’ The old house immediatelybecomes invested with great interest to one who has spent manyenraptured hours over the pages of the writer whose associationwith Norwich has been thus commemorated by Sir Peter Eade.

“The house itself is of somewhat ancient date,p. 37andits external appearance affords little indication of its size andthe comfort of its arrangement within. Its condition ispractically unchanged since the time when it was inhabited by theBorrow family. The present proprietor, Mr. W. Cooper, witha commendable respect for the memory of the great author, hasmade but few alterations. The principal change that hasbeen effected is in the division of the house into two separateparts. This has been easily accomplished by the simpleprocess of blocking up a door in the hall, and forming anotherdoorway in the front of the house. The peculiar plan of thebuilding adapts itself to this arrangement, no other alterationbeing found necessary for the complete disconnection of the twoparts. Of the two cottages so formed, one is at presentoccupied by an old couple, while the other is used as aworkshop.

“On entering the front door, which has a picturesque,antique porchway, access is gained to a fairly spacious hall,paved with tiles, from which ascends the main staircase of fineold oak. The door that is now closed, opened into acommodious front room, with a large window facing the west. This contains some finely carved panelling in a good state ofpreservation, and was evidently the chief room of thehouse. From it a passage extends to the backbuildings. A narrow and particularly tortuous staircaseleads from the front room to the upper rooms at the back of thehouse, to whichp. 38access cannot be gained by the mainstairs. On passing through the hall, the visitor findshimself in a large kitchen, where provision is made for anexceptionally big fireplace. In common with most oldhouses, every inch of available space is converted intocupboards, which are to be discovered in most unexpected nooksand corners. All the rooms are panelled, but it is only thelarge rooms just mentioned that contain any carving.

“On the first floor, the arrangements are of a similarnature to those on the ground floor. From the landing ofthe main staircase open two rooms, a large one over the bestroom, and a smaller one above the hall. In thefirst-mentioned is a noticeable fireplace, which, in the place ofthe customary mantelpiece, has a panel-work frame, uniform withthat surrounding the other rooms. The place of the centrepanel was formerly occupied by a large oil painting, whichremained in its position for some time after the Borrows vacatedthe house, and is now in the possession of Mr. Cooper. Itrepresents ‘The Judgment of Solomon,’ and is supposedto be the work of John Borrow, George’s artistbrother. The two remaining bedrooms, which are reached bythe small staircase, are of unequal size on account of a narrowpassage, from which rises a short flight of stairs leading to avery irregular-shaped attic in the roof.”

p.39CHAPTER V: LIFE AT OULTON

After many painful experiences in London, whither he went inthe hope of being able to gain a livelihood by devoting himselfto literature, George Borrow turned his back upon the metropolis,and set out on that wild, rambling excursion narrated andenlarged upon in the pages of “Lavengro.” Lapseof time has emphasised the impossibility of ascertaining how muchis fact and how much fiction in the fascinating account of hiswanderings. Criticism on that point is unjustifiable, forBorrow announced that the book was “a dream,” and ahistory only up to a certain point. From what the writerhas gathered, however, from those who knew Borrow intimately, hehas good reason to believe that there are more facts recorded inthe latter part of “Lavengro,” and in “TheRomany Rye,” than are credited by many students of“Don Jorge’s” writings.

After lengthy roamings far and wide, he returned again toNorwich, where he lived for a time a quiet life, of which he hasleft no record. His literary exploits had not been of sucha nature as to rankp. 40his name with those of the knownwriters of his day; indeed, there is every reason for believingthat as an author he was as little known as on the day when heabandoned the quiet little house in Willow Lane for a wider fieldof life. Yet, painful, and even heartbreaking, as hisexperiences had been, he was infinitely the gainer by the hardfate that sent him out a wanderer upon the face of the earth, andwe who read his books to-day may be thankful for the tears andtoilings that brought about so rich and abundant a harvest.

An introduction from Joseph John Gurney to the British andForeign Bible Society resulted in Borrow’s leaving Englandin 1830 for the Continent, where he went on anotherwanderjahre not unlike that he had taken in his nativeland.

After visiting France, Austria and Italy, we eventually findhim in St. Petersburg, where he undertook the translation of theBible into the Mandschu-Tartar language, and issued in 1835,through Schulz and Beneze, his “Targum; or MetricalTranslations from Thirty Languages and Dialects.” While in Russia, he made many friends amongst the nobility there,who frequently invited him to their country homes. In thesame year that saw the publication of “Targum,” hereturned home. His stay in England, however, was a veryshort one. The British and Foreign Bible Society was sosatisfied with his work in Russia that they pressed him tocontinue to serve them, and undertake a journey into Spain forp.41the purpose of circulating the Scriptures in thatcountry. His travels in Spain occupied over fouryears. While there he met Mrs. Mary Clarke, who afterwardsbecame his wife. This lady, who was the widow of a navalofficer, was connected with a Suffolk family which had beenassociated with the village of Oulton for severalgenerations. Their name was Skeppar, and it was in theirold Suffolk home by the side of Oulton Broad that Borrow went tolive on his return to England.

Borrow, who was now in his thirty-eighth year, set to work atOulton upon his “Bible in Spain,” which was publishedby Mr. John Murray, three years later, in 1843. Of hismethod, or lack of method, in working, something may be gatheredfrom the preface to the second edition of “TheZincali,” which was written about the time of the issue ofthe former book. Mr. Murray had advised him to try his handat something different from his “sorry trash”[41] about gipsies, and write a work thatwould really be of credit to the great firm in AlbemarleStreet. Borrow responded by starting on an account of hiswanderings in Spain.

“At first I proceeded slowly—sickness was in theland, and the face of Nature was overcast—heavy raincloudsswam in the heavens, the blast howled amid the pines which nearlysurround my lonelyp. 42dwelling, and the waters of the lake,which lies before it, so quiet in general and tranquil, werefearfully agitated . . . A dreary summer and autumn passed by,and were succeeded by as gloomy a winter. I still proceededwith the Bible in Spain. The winter passed, and springcame, with cold dry winds and occasional sunshine, whereupon Iarose, shouted, and mounting my horse, even Sidi Habismilk, Iscoured all the surrounding district, and thought but little ofthe Bible in Spain. So I rode about the country, over theheaths, and through the green lanes of my native land,occasionally visiting friends at a distance, and sometimes, forvariety’s sake, I stayed at home and amused myself bycatching huge pike, which lie perdue in certain deep pondsskirted with lofty reeds, upon my land, and to which there is acommunication from the lagoon by a deep and narrowwatercourse. I had almost forgotten the Bible inSpain. Then came the summer with much heat and sunshine,and then I would lie for hours in the sun and recall the sunnydays I had spent in Andalusia, and my thoughts were continuallyreverting to Spain, and at last I remembered that the Bible inSpain was still unfinished; whereupon I arose and said:‘This loitering profiteth nothing,’ and I hastened tomy summer-house by the side or the lake, and there I thought andwrote, and thought and wrote, until I had finished the‘Bible in Spain.’”

Within a few weeks of the publication of the “Bible inSpain,” Borrow’s name was in everyone’sp.43mouth. Attempts were made to “lionise”him; but were met with his distinct disapproval, though it wasalways a pleasure to him to be looked upon as a celebrity. To escape from the Mrs. Leo Hunters of fashionable society, healmost immediately fled to the Continent, where he went onanother pilgrimage. Having journeyed through Turkey,Albania, Hungary, and Wallachia, he again came home to Oulton,and completed “Lavengro,” which had been commencedalmost as soon as the manuscript of “The Bible inSpain” had left his hands. This book was finished inthe summer-house of his garden by the broad where most of hisfuture work was done, and was issued in 1851.

Defending himself against the critics who attacked him forintermingling truth and fiction in “Lavengro,” heafterwards wrote: “In the preface ‘Lavengro’ isstated to be a dream; and the writer takes this opportunity ofstating that he never said it was an autobiography; neverauthorised any person to say that it was one; and that he has ininnumerable instances declared in public and in private, bothbefore and after the work was published, that it was not what isgenerally termed an autobiography: but a set of people whopretend to write criticisms on books, hating the author forvarious reasons, amongst others, because, having the proper prideof a gentleman and a scholar, he did not in the year 1843, chooseto permit himself to be exhibited and made a zany of in London,and especially becausep. 44he will neither associate with, norcurry favour with, them who are neither gentlemen norscholars—attack his book with abuse and calumny.”

Interrogated by Mr. Theodore Watts as to the real nature of anautobiography, Borrow asked the question, “What is anautobiography? Is it a mere record of the incidents of aman’s life? or is it a picture of the man himself—hischaracter, his soul?”

This, Mr. Watts thinks, was a very suggestive query ofBorrow’s with regard to himself and his work. “That he sat down to write his own life in‘Lavengro’ I know. He had no idea then ofdeparting from the strict line of fact. Indeed, his lettersto his friend, Mr. John Murray, would alone be sufficient toestablish this in spite of his calling ‘Lavengro’ adream. In the first volume he did almost confine himself tomatters of fact. But as he went on he clearly found thatthe ordinary tapestry into which Destiny had woven the incidentsof his life were not tinged with sufficient depth of colour tosatisfy his sense of wonder. . . . When he wishes to divevery boldly into the ‘abysmal deeps of personality,’he speaks and moves partly behind the mask of some fictitiouscharacter . . . Let it be remembered that it was this instinct ofwonder, not the instinct of the mereposeur, that impelledhim to make certain exaggerated statements about the charactersthemselves that are introduced into his books.”

p.45The village of Oulton lies on the border of themarshland about a mile from the most easterly point of England,and within hearing of the beating of the billows of the wildNorth Sea. Borrow’s home, which was little more thana cottage, stood on the side of a slight rising bank overlookingOulton Broad, and was sheltered from the winds of the sea andmarshland by a belt of storm-rent pines. The housecontained a sitting-room on either side of the entrance-hall, akitchen, four bedrooms, and two attics. It was itssmallness and compactness that commended it to Borrow, and italso had the extra recommendation to a man of his disposition ofbeing quiet and secluded. Indeed, so out-of-the-way was itssituation that to take a boat upon the broad was looked upon asthe best and most direct means of attaining this isolated nook ofthe Broadland.

At the present time the broad, that stretches away from LakeLothing to the westward of Borrow’s Ham,[45] is for several months of the yearpicturesque with the white sails of yachts and other pleasureboats that have skimmed its placid waters since the Broadlandfirst became a holiday resort. In the early days ofBorrow’s residence at Oulton, the only craft that stirredits sunlit ripples were the punts of the eel-catcher andwildfowl-seeker and the slowly gliding wherries voyaging to andfrom thep. 46coast and inland towns. To-day,a little colony of dwellers in red-brick villas have invaded thelonely spot where Borrow lived; but even now you have but to turnaside a few steps from the lake side to reach the edge offar-stretching marshland levels that have changed their face butlittle during the passage of many centuries. Farther awaythe marshlanders have seized upon any slight piece of risingground to establish a firm foundation for their humble homes;here and there a grey church tower or skeleton windmill breaksthe line of the level horizon. The meres and marshes havethe silence of long dead years resting upon them, save where thebreeze stirs the riverside reeds or a curlew cries above the oozeflats.

Queer company the “walking lord of gipsy lore”must have kept as he sat alone in that little book-linedsummer-house, hearing strange voices in the sighing of the windthrough the fir-trees and the distant sobbing of the sea. Out of the shadow of the past there would come to him, not onlythe swarthy Romanies, but Francis Ardrey, the friend of hisyouth; the Armenian merchant, with whom Lavengro discussed Haik;the victim of the evil chance, who talked nonsense about thestar Jupiter and told him that “touching”story of his fight against destiny; the Rev. Mr. Platitude, whowould neither admit there were any Dissenters nor permit any toexist; Peter Williams, the man who committed the unpardonable sinagainst the Holy Ghost, and Winifred, his patient, constant wife;the studentp. 47of Chinese, who learnt the languageof the land of the Celestials from the figures on the teapots;the Hungarian, who related so many legends and traditions of theMagyars; and Murtagh, with his wonderful stories of thePope. These were the friends with whom he spent the reallife of his latter days, and it is hardly surprising that underthe influence of their companionship he should have becomesomewhat of a recluse, and lost touch with living friends andacquaintances.

Dr. Gordon Hake, whose residence at Bury St. Edmunds wascontemporary with Borrow’s settling down at Oulton, writesin his Memoirs: “George Borrow was one of those whosemental powers are strong, and whose bodily frame is yetstronger—a conjunction of forces often detrimental to aliterary career in an age of intellectual predominance. Histemper was good and bad; his pride was humility; his humility waspride; his vanity, in being negative, was of the most positivekind. He was reticent and candid, measured in speech, withan emphasis that makes trifles significant. Borrow wasessentially hypochondriacal. Society he loved and hatedalike; he loved it that he might be pointed out and talked of; hehated it because he was not the prince that he felt himself inits midst. His figure was tall, and his bearing noble; hehad a finely moulded head and thick white hair—white fromhis youth; his brown eyes were soft, yet piercing; his nosesomewhat of the Semitic type, which gave his facep. 48thecast of the young Memnon; his mouth had a generous curve, and hisfeatures, for beauty and true power, were such as can have noparallel in our portrait gallery, where it is to be hoped thelikeness of him, in Mr. Murray’s possession, may one dayfind a place. Borrow and his family used to stay with me atBury; I visited him, less often, at his cottage on the lake atOulton, a fine sheet of water that flows into the sea atLowestoft. He was much courted there by his neighbours andby visitors to the seaside. I there met Baron Alderson andhis daughters, who had ridden from Lowestoft to seehim.”

Borrow had many good qualities, but it must be admitted thathis temper was queer and uncertain. At times he waspassionate and overbearing, and he never had the necessarypatience to submit to what seemed to him the inanities andboredom of admirers, hero worshippers, and others who weredesirous of being brought to his notice. Mr. J. W. Donne,who occupied the position of librarian of the London Library andwas afterwards reader of plays, related to Dr. Hake how on oneoccasion Miss Agnes Strickland urged him to introduce her to herbrother author. Borrow, who was in the room at the time,offered some objection, but was at length prevailed upon toaccept the introduction. Ignorant of the peculiar twists inBorrow’s nature, the gifted authoress commenced theconversation by an enthusiastic eulogy of his works, andconcludedp. 49by asking permission to send him acopy of her “Queens of England.” “ForGod’s sake, don’t, madam,” exclaimedBorrow. “I should not know what to do withthem.” He then got up in a rage, and, addressing Mr.Donne, said, “What a d--- fool that woman is!”

“He once,” writes Dr. Hake, “went with me toa dinner at Mr. Bevan’s country-house, Rougham Rookery, andplaced me in an extremely awkward position. Mr. Bevan was aSuffolk banker, a partner of Mr. Oakes. He was one of thekindest and most benevolent of men. His wife was gentle,unassuming, attentive to her guests. A friend of Borrow,the heir to a very considerable estate, had run himself intodifficulties and owed money, which was not forthcoming, to theBury banking-house; and in order to secure repayment Mr. Bevanwas said to have ‘struck the docket.’ I knewthis beforehand from Borrow, who, however, accepted theinvitation, and was seated at dinner at Mrs. Bevan’sside. This lady, a simple, unpretending woman, desirous ofpleasing him, said, ‘Oh, Mr. Borrow, I have read your bookswith so much pleasure!’ On which he exclaimed,‘Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean myaccount-books?’ On this he fretted and fumed, rosefrom the table, and walked up and down amongst the servantsduring the whole of dinner, and afterwards wandered about therooms and passage, till the carriage could be ordered for ourreturn home.”

p.50On another occasion Hake and Borrow were guests togetherat Hardwicke House, Suffolk, a fine old Jacobean Hall, then theresidence of Sir Thomas Cullum. There were also staying atthe Hall at the time Lord Bristol, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, WilliamMakepeace Thackeray, and other distinguished people. Borrowand Thackeray did not get on well together. The latterevidently felt it his duty to live up to his reputation byentertaining the company with lively sallies andwitticisms. At last he approached Borrow, and inquired,“Have you read my Snob Papers inPunch?” “InPunch?” asked Borrow. “It is aperiodical I never look at.”

Mr. John Murray, in his “Reminiscences,” has alsogiven instances of Borrow’s strange behaviour in otherpeople’s houses; but there is reason to believe that heoften keenly reproached himself afterwards for giving way inpublic to such unseemly displays of temper and spleen. Thathis heart was in the right place and he was not lacking in powersof restraint, are facts fully demonstrated by the followingincident. He was invited to meet Dr. Robert Latham at thehouse of Dr. Hake, who had many inward tremors at what might bethe outcome of bringing them together. Latham was in thehabit of indulging somewhat too freely at table, and under suchcircumstances, as might be expected, was often deficient in tactand courtesy.

“All, like most things that are planned, beganwell. But with Latham life was a game of show. p.51He had to put forth all his knowledge of subjects inwhich he deemed Borrow was an adept. He began withhorse-racing. Borrow quietly assented. He showed offall he knew of the ring. Borrow freely responded. Hehad to show what he knew of publishers, instancing theLongmans. Borrow said, ‘I suppose you dine with yourpublishers sometimes?’ It was Latham’sopportunity; he could not resist it, and replied, ‘Never; Ihope I should never do anything so low. You do not dinewith Mr. John Murray, I presume?’ ‘Indeed, Ido,’ said Borrow, emotionally. ‘He is a mostkind friend. When I have had sickness in my house he hasbeen unfailing in his goodness towards me. There is no manI value more.’ Latham’s conversation was fastfalling under the influence of wine; with this his better tastedeparted from him. ‘I have heard,’ he said,‘that you are a brave man over a bottle of wine. Now,how many bottles can you get through at a sitting?’ Borrow saw what the other was; he was resolved not to takeoffence at what was only impertinent and self-asserting, so hesaid, ‘When I was in Madrid I knew a priest who would sitdown alone to his two bottles.’ ‘Yes,’replied Latham, with his knowing look and his head on one sidelike a bird, ‘but what I want to know is, how many bottlesyou can manage at one sitting?’ ‘I once knewanother priest,’ said Borrow, ‘it was at Oporto; Ihave seen him get through two bottles by himself.’ Bythis time Latham was a little unsteady, he slippedp. 52fromhis chair as if it had been an inclined plane and lay on thecarpet. He was unable to rise, but he held his head up witha cunning smile, saying, ‘This must be a very disreputablehouse.’ Borrow saw Latham after this at times on hisway to me, and always stopped to say a kind word to him, seeinghis forlorn condition.”

Given as he was to snubbing and browbeating others, Borrow wasnot a man to sit silent and see another man badly treated withoutraising hand or voice in his defence. Proof of this isfound in an instructive story related by Mr. J. Ewing Ritchie inhis chatty “East Anglian Reminiscences.” “One good anecdote I heard about George Borrow,”writes Mr. Ritchie. “My informant was an Independentminister, at the time supplying the pulpit at Lowestoft andstaying at Oulton Hall, then inhabited by a worthy dissentingtenant. One night a meeting of the Bible Society was heldat Mutford Bridge, at which the party from the Hall attended, andwhere George Borrow was one of the speakers. After themeeting was over, all the speakers went back to supper at OultonHall, and my friend among them, who, in the course of the supper,found himself violently attacked by a clergyman for holdingCalvinistic opinions. Naturally my friend replied that theclergyman was bound to do the same. ‘How do you makethat out?’ ‘Why, the Articles of your Churchare Calvinistic, and to them you have sworn assent!’ ‘Oh yes, but therep. 53is a way ofexplaining them away!’ ‘How so?’ said myfriend. ‘Oh,’ replied the clergyman, ‘weare not bound to take the words in their naturalsense.’ My friend, an honest, blunt East Anglian,intimated that he did not understand that way of evading thedifficulty; but he was then a young man and did not like tocontinue the discussion further. However, George Borrow,who had not said a word hitherto, entered into the discussion,opening fire on the clergyman in a very unexpected manner, andgiving him such a setting down as the hearers, at any rate, neverforgot. All the sophistry about the non-natural meaning ofterms was held up by Borrow to ridicule, and the clergyman wasbeaten at every point. ‘Never,’ says my friend,‘did I hear one man give another such a dressing as on thatoccasion.’”

Borrow was often asked by visitors to Oulton if it was hisintention to leave behind him the necessary material for thecompilation of a biography of his strange career. This,however, he could never be persuaded to do. He maintainedthat “Lavengro,” “The Romany Rye,” and“The Bible in Spain,” contained all of his life thatit was necessary for posterity to know. It was not the manbut his works that should live, he would say, and his bookscontained the best part of himself. While in London,however, at the house which he took in Hereford Square, Brompton,he consented to sit for hisp. 54portrait, theartist being Henry Philips. This picture afterwards passedinto the possession of his step-daughter, Mrs. HenriettaMacOubrey.

Of the painting of this portrait a very good story istold. Borrow was a very bad sitter, he was ever anxious toget out into the fresh air and sunlight. Philips wasgreatly hindered by this restlessness, but one day he hit upon aplan which conquered the chafing child of Nature and served hisown purpose admirably. He was aware of Borrow’swonderful gift of tongues and the fascination that philologicalstudies had for him. So he remarked, “I have alwaysheard, Mr. Borrow, that the Persian is a very fine language; isit so?” “It is, Philips; it is,” replied“Lavengro.” “Perhaps you will not mindreciting me something in the Persian tongue?” “Dear me, no; certainly not.” And thenBorrow’s face lit up with the light that Philips longedfor, and he commenced declaiming at the top of his voice, whilethe painter made the most of his opportunity. When he foundhis subject was lapsing into silence, and that the old feeling ofweariness and boredom was again creeping upon him, he would starthim off again by saying, “I have always heard that theTurkish—or the Armenian—is a very finelanguage,” with a like result, until at length the portraitwas completed.

The monotony of Borrow’s life at Oulton was varied byoccasional visits to London and excursions into Wales and to theIsle of Man. In his travelsp. 55through Waleshe was accompanied by his wife and step-daughter. How thejourney was brought about he explains in the first chapter of“Wild Wales,” a work which, published in 1862, wasthe outcome of his ramblings in the Principality. “Inthe summer of 1854, myself, wife and daughter, determined upongoing into Wales, to pass a few months there. We arecountry-people of a corner of East Anglia, and, at the time ofwhich I am speaking, had been residing so long on our own littleestate that we had become tired of the objects around us, andconceived that we should be all the better for changing the scenefor a short period. We were undetermined for some time withrespect to where we should go. I proposed Wales from thefirst, but my wife and daughter, who have always had rather ahankering after what is fashionable, said they thought it wouldbe more advisable to go to Harrogate or Leamington. On myobserving that these were terrible places for expense, theyreplied that though the price of corn had of late been shamefullylow we had a spare hundred pounds or two in our pockets and couldafford to pay for a little insight into fashionable life. Itold them that there was nothing I so much hated as fashionablelife, but that, as I was anything but a selfish person, I wouldendeavour to stifle my abhorrence of it for a time and attendthem either to Leamington or Harrogate. By this speech Iobtained my wish, even as I knew I should, for my wife anddaughter instantly observed that, after all, they thought wep.56had better go into Wales, which, though not sofashionable as either Leamington or Harrogate, was a verypicturesque country, where they had no doubt they should get onvery well, more especially as I was acquainted with the Welshlanguage.”

This is Borrow’s account of how he obtained his own way;it would have been interesting had his wife and step-daughteralso recorded their version of the affair.

Borrow’s mother, who had given up her house in WillowLane, died at Oulton, in 1860. The same year Borrowpublished a small volume, entitled “The SleepingBard,” a translation from the Welsh of Elis Wyn. During the years 1862–3 various translations of hisappeared inOnce a Week, a magazine that then numberedamongst its contributors such writers as Harriet Martineau and S.Baring-Gould, and artists as Leech, Keene, Tenniel, Millais andDu Maurier. Amongst these translations were “TheHailstorm, or the Death of Bui,” from the ancient Norse;“The Count of Vendal’s Daughter,” from theancient Danish; “Harald Harfagr,” from the Norse;“Emelian the Fool,” and “The Story of Yashkawith the Bear’s Ear,” from the Russian; and severalballads from the Manx. Other translations from the Danishof Oehlenschlaeger are still in the possession of Mrs. MacOubrey,and have never been printed. His last book, “TheRomano Lavo-Lil,” was issued in 1872.

Between 1860 and 1870, Borrow spent a goodp. 57deal of histime in London, at his house in Hereford Square. This wasmainly on account of the ill-health of his wife, who died therein 1869, and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. After herdeath, however, he returned to Oulton, telling Mr. Watts that hewas going down into East Anglia to die.

From that time his life was lived more apart from the worldthan ever. His visitors were few; and fewer still were thevisits he paid to others. During his latter years his tall,erect, somewhat mysterious figure was often seen in the earlyhours of summer mornings or late at night on the lonely pathwaysthat wind in and out from the banks of Oulton Broad. Heloved to be mysterious, and the village children used to hushtheir voices and draw aside at his approach. They lookedupon him with fear and awe—for had they not seen him stopand talk with the gipsies, who ran away with littlechildren? But in his heart, Borrow was fond of the littleones, though it amused him to watch the impression his strangepersonality made upon them. Older people he seldom spoke towhen out on his solitary rambles; but sometimes he would flashout such a glance from beneath his broad-brimmed hat and shaggyeyebrows as would make timid country-folk hasten on their wayfilled with vague thoughts and fears of the evil eye. Mr.John Murray has referred to this love of mystery on the part ofhis father’s friend, and also to his moody and variabletemperament; while Mr. G. T. Bettany has related how he enjoyedp.58creating a sensation by riding about on a fine Arabhorse which he brought home with him from Turkey in 1844.

Still Borrow was not unpopular with the villagers, many ofwhom, long after his death, remembered little acts of kindness onhis part by which they had benefited. To the sick andinfirm he was always a good friend, though his almost invariableremedy for all the ills that flesh is heir to were wine andale. He was exceedingly fond of animals, and nothingaroused his wrath more than to see them badly treated. Onone occasion, while out walking not far from his home, heencountered some men who were ill-using a fallen horse. Heremonstrated with them, and his words, backed by his commandingfigure, prevailed upon them to desist from their cruelty. He then sent one of them for a bowl of ale. When it wasbrought, he knelt down on the road beside the exhausted animal,and poured it down its throat. Having afterwards assistedthe men in getting the horse upon its feet, he left them, but notbefore he had given them a severe lecture on the treatment ofdumb animals in general and fallen horses in particular.

At another time, a favourite old cat that was ill, crawled outof his house to die in the garden hedge. Borrow no soonermissed the poor creature than he went in search of it, andbrought it indoors in his arms. He then laid it down in acomfortable spot, and sat and watched it till it was dead.

p.59Owing to the somewhat eccentric manner in which hepassed his latter days, there were some persons who assumed afterhis death that in his declining years he lacked the attention offriends, and the little comforts and considerations that are dueto old age. Yet this was not so; if the world heard littleof him from the time of his final retirement into ruralseclusion, and lost sight of him and believed him dead, it washis own choosing that they should remain in ignorance. Hehad had his day, a longer and fuller one than falls to the lot ofmost of the sons of men, and, when the weight of years began totell upon him, he chose to live out the little time that was leftto him amidst such scenes as were in harmony with hisnature. He died at Oulton on July 26, 1881, just threeweeks after the completion of his seventy-eighth year. Hisstep-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, the Henrietta of “WildWales,” who had a sincere affection for him, was hisconstant attendant during his last illness, and was with him atthe end. He was buried at Brompton Cemetery, where his bodylies beside that of his wife. Not long after his death, hisOulton home was pulled down. All that now remains to markthe spot where it once stood are the old summer-house in which heloved to linger, and the ragged fir-trees that sighed the requiemof his last hours.

p.60CHAPTER VI: BORROW AND PUGILISM

During the first quarter of the present century pugilism wasrampant in the Eastern Counties of England. A pugilisticencounter was then looked upon as an affair of national interest,and people came in their thousands from far and near to witnessit. The Norwich neighbourhood was noted for itsprize-fights, and Borrow had the names of all the champions athis tongue’s end. Cobbett, Cribb, Belcher, Tom Springof Bedford, Black Richmond, Irish Randall—he was acquaintedwith the records of them all, as well as with those of theleading fighting-men amongst the gipsies. They were to himthe leaders of the old spirit of English aggressiveness, and assuch he revered them. His pen was always ready to defend astraightforward bruiser, with whom, he contended, the Romangladiator and the Spanish bull-fighter were not to becompared. He, himself, was no mean student of the art ofself-defence, and there is some ground for believing that thescene between Lavengro and the Flaming Tinman, in which the burlytinker succumbs to thep. 61former’s prowess after a warmencounter in the Mumpers’ Dingle, is founded upon an eventwhich occurred during Borrow’s wayward progress throughrural England.

On the publication of “Lavengro,” Borrow’sevident partiality for the pugilists of his day brought down uponhim a torrent of criticism and condemnation. Who, it wasasked, but a man of coarse instincts could have found pleasure inmingling with brutal fighting-men and describing their desperateexploits? The writer of a work who went out of his way todrag in such characters and scenes as these could be littlebetter than a barbarian!

Borrow was not a man to sit down quietly under such attacks asthese; he waited his opportunity, and then had his fling. At the end of “The Romany Rye,” there appeared anAppendix, in which the author set himself the task of smashinghis critics. This same Appendix is an amazing piece ofwriting; in it Borrow slashes right and left as might a gallantswordsman who found himself alone in the midst of a mob bent onhis destruction. Mr. Augustine Birrell regrets that it wasever printed; but there are few who will agree with him; itcontains too many good things that Borrovians would be loth tolose.

Borrow’s defence is carried on in his own peculiar andinimitable style, it is an onslaught into the camp of theenemy. Speaking of the prize-fighters, whom a reviewercondemned as blackguards, he exclaimsp. 62defiantly,“Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit namesbelonging to more noble, more heroic men than those who werecalled respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever oneof the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatalconsumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, evento the topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seeminglyinevitable destruction? The writer says no. A womanwas rescued from the top of a burning house; but the man whorescued her was no aristocrat; it was Pearce, not Percy, who ranup the burning stairs.” And so he goes on,overwhelming his opponents with a tornado of generalities thathave nothing whatever to do with prize-fighting, and yet howdelightful it all is!

There were other critics—Borrow always had plenty ofcritics—who found it difficult to make his admiration forthe prize-ring fit in with his denunciation in one passage of“those disgraceful and brutalising exhibitions calledpugilistic combats.” The explanation has beensuggested that for once the “John Bull” Borrow, withhis patriotic exaltation of all things English, gave way beforethe proselytising agent of the British and Foreign BibleSociety. It would be hard to find a writer who does notcontradict himself at times, and Borrow was so much a man of“moods” that it would be uncharitable to set him downas a hypocrite, as Caroline Fox does, because all his sayings anddoings do not tally with a superhuman exactitude.

p.63But whether it was in respect to the number of glassesof ale that he drank on his Welsh rambles—and has not“Wild Wales” been called “The Epic ofAle?”—or his associations with the great fighting-menof his day, he was never ashamed to admit his liking both for theale and the men. “Why should I hide the truth?”he asks, when telling of his presence when a boy of fourteen at aprize-fight which took place near Norwich. Thurtell, whoseboast it was that he had introduced bruising into East Anglia,had arranged the fight, which was ever after memorable to Borrowfor the appearance on the scene of Gipsy Will and his celebratedgang. This well-known Romany, who was afterwards hangedoutside the gaol at Bury St. Edmunds for a murder committed inhis youth, was a sturdy, muscular fellow, six feet in height, whorendered himself especially noticeable by wearing abroad-brimmed, high-peaked Andalusian hat. He was anxiouson this occasion to fight the best man in England for twentypounds (not a very tempting sum in the light of our more advanceddays); but no one accepted the challenge, though a youngcountryman was anxious to do so until assured by his friends thatthe notorious gipsy would certainly kill him.

Borrow has gone out of his way in “The Gipsies ofSpain” to give a full description of this Gipsy Will andhis notable companions. At the risk of wearying somereaders who deprecate the prize-ringp. 64and itscosmopolitan environment, the writer quotes something of thisdescription, as it appears in one of the less known ofBorrow’s works:

“Some time before the commencement of the combat, threemen, mounted on wild-looking horses came dashing down the road inthe direction of the meadow, in the midst of which they presentlyshowed themselves, their horses clearing the deep ditches withwonderful alacrity. ‘That’s Gipsy Will and hisgang,’ lisped a Hebrew pickpocket; ‘we shall haveanother fight.’ The word gipsy was always sufficientto excite my curiosity, and I looked attentively at thenew-comers.

“I have seen gipsies of various lands, Russian,Hungarian, and Turkish; and I have also seen the legitimatechildren of most countries of the world; but I never saw, uponthe whole, three more remarkable individuals, as far as personalappearance was concerned, than the three English gipsies who nowpresented themselves to my eyes on that spot. Two of themhad dismounted, and were holding their horses by the reins. The tallest, and, at the first glance, the most (!) interestingof the two, was almost a giant, for his height could not havebeen less than six feet three. It is impossible for theimagination to conceive anything more perfectly beautiful thanwere the features of this man, and the most skilful sculptor ofGreece might have taken them as his model for a hero and agod. The forehead was exceedingly lofty, a rare thing in agipsy; the nosep. 65less Roman than Grecian, fine, yetdelicate; the eyes large, overhung with long drooping lashes,giving them almost a melancholy expression; it was only when thelashes were elevated that the gipsy glance was seen, if that canbe called a glance which is a strange stare, like nothing else inthe world. His complexion was a beautiful olive; and histeeth were of a brilliancy uncommon even among these people, whohave all fine teeth. He was dressed in a coarsewaggoner’s slop, which, however, was unable to concealaltogether the proportions of his noble and Herculeanfigure. He might be about twenty-eight. His companionand his captain, Gipsy Will, was, I think, fifty, when he washanged ten years subsequently. I have still present beforeme his bushy black hair, his black face, and his big black eyes,fixed and staring. His dress consisted of a loose bluejockey coat, jockey boots and breeches; in his hand was a hugejockey whip, and on his head (it struck me at the time for itssingularity) a broad-brimmed, high-peaked, Andalusian hat, or atleast one very much resembling those generally worn in thatprovince. In stature he was shorter than his more youthfulcompanion, yet he must have measured six feet at least, and wasstronger built, if possible. What brawn! what bone! whatlegs! what thighs! The third gipsy, who remained onhorseback, looked more like a phantom than anything human. His complexion was the colour of pale dust, and of that samecolour was all that pertained to him, hat andp.66clothes. His boots were dusty, of course, and hisvery horse was of a dusty dun. His features werewhimsically ugly, most of his teeth were gone, and as to his age,he might be thirty or sixty. He was somewhat lame and halt;but an unequalled rider when once upon his steed, which he wasnaturally not very solicitous to quit. I subsequentlydiscovered that he was considered the wizard of thegang.”

Any one who is familiar with the living descendants of theRomanies of Borrow’s early lifetime will know that amongstthe few characteristics of their fathers that have been preserveddown to the present day is that skill at boxing or fisticuffswhich was an absolute necessity in a time when their hand wasagainst every man and every man’s hand against them. Nearly all the male Romanies are possessed of a lithe, sinewy,active frame, combined with a quickness of hand and eye thatgives them a considerable advantage over less alert antagonistsof heavier build. They are not, as a rule, in a hurry tocome to blows, for they know that in the event of injury orpolice-court proceedings resulting from an encounter, prejudiceis strongly against the gipsy. Still, the Romany bloodpulses quickly, and when it flies to the swarthy cheek and setsthe eyes flashing, the time has come for someone to beware. The writer has seen something of the gipsy’s skill andadroitness under such conditions, and the impression made was alasting one. He has known, too, of a small, slim-builtRomany thrashing a strong, six-feet-highp. 67constable,for unwarrantable interference with the former’s mother ina public bar. The Romany race is fast dying out from ourmidst; but it is dying what the sportsman would call“game.”

Although Borrow’s obvious admiration for the brawny menof the prize-ring brought him almost universal condemnation, hisopinions were unchanged by his critics’ wrath anddenunciations. There were many points in his father’scharacter for which he held him in esteem and affection; but headmired him most because he had once vanquished Big Ben Brain ina fight in Hyde Park.

“He was always at his best,” writes Mr. TheodoreWatts, “in describing a pugilistic encounter; for in thesaving grace of pugilism as an English accomplishment, hebelieved as devoutly as he believed in East Anglia and theBible.”

p.68CHAPTER VII: BORROW AND THE EAST ANGLIAN GIPSIES

East Anglia has for centuries been a favourite roaming groundfor certain of the families of the true Romany tribe. Thereason for this, assigned by the gipsies themselves, is not aflattering one to East Englanders. They will tell you, ifyou are in their confidence, that they come to East Anglia onaccount of the simplicity and gullibility of itsinhabitants. Nowhere else can the swarthychals findgorgios so ready to purchase a doctored nag, or thedark-eyedchis so easily cozen credulous villagers andsimple servant-girls by the mysteries ofdukkeripen. Every fair-ground and race-course is dotted with their travellingvans; the end of every harvest sees them congregate on thevillage greens; the “making up” of the North Seafishing-boats attracts them to the Eastern coast.

It may well be that Borrow first made the acquaintance of theRomanies when a child at East Dereham, for there is a heath justoutside the little town which has long been their centralhalting-place for the district. If this was the case, hehas left nop. 69record of such a meeting: in allprobability, had his wondering eyes rested upon their unfamiliarfaces and smouldering camp-fires he would have shared thechildish fears instilled by kitchen and nursery legends and havefled the scene. It was outside Norman Cross that he firstcame into close contact with the alien wanderers. Strayinginto a green lane he fell in with a low tent from which smoke wasissuing, and in front of which a man was carding plaited straw,while a woman was engaged in the manufacture of spuriouscoin. Their queer appearance, so unlike that of any men orwomen he had hitherto encountered, excited his lively curiosity;but, ere he had time to examine them closely, they were down uponhim with threats and curses. Violence was about to be doneto him when a viper, which he had concealed in his jacket, liftedits head from his bosom, and the gipsies’ wrath at beingdiscovered changed to awe of one who fearlessly handled such adeadly creature. From that day Borrow’s interest inthe Romany tribe continued to widen and deepen, until, at length,when fame and fortune were his, it led him to take extendedjourneys into Hungary, Wallachia, and other European countriesfor the purpose of searching out the descendants of the originalwanderers from the East and learning from them their language,customs and history.

Borrow himself says that he could remember no time when themere mention of the name of gipsyp. 70did notawaken within him feelings hard to be described. He couldnot account for it, but some of the Romanies, he remarks,“to whom I have stated this circumstance have accounted forit on the supposition that the soul which at present animates mybody has at some former period tenanted that of one of theirpeople, for many among them are believers in metempsychosis and,like the followers of Bouddha, imagine that their souls bypassing through an infinite number of bodies, attain at lengthsufficient purity to be admitted to a state of perfect rest andquietude, which is the only idea of heaven they canform.”

The Norwich Castle Hill provided Borrow with manyopportunities of observing the habits of the East AnglianRomanies, who, in his day, attended in considerable numbers thehorse sales and fairs that were held in the old city. Thither would come the Smiths or Petulengros, Bosviles, Grays andPinfolds; and often, when they left the Hill, he would accompanythem to their camps on Mousehold Heath and to neighbouring fairsand markets. Their daring horsemanship fascinated him,while the strange tongue they employed amongst themselves whenbargaining with the farmers and dealers, aroused in him acuriosity that could only be satisfied by a closer acquaintancewith its form and meaning. Many of thechals andchis to be met with in “Lavengro” and“The Romany Rye” were transferred to the pages ofthose works from the Eastp. 71Anglianheaths and fairsteads. It was on a heath not far from hisSuffolk home that he introduced the Jew of Fez to JasperPetulengro in order that he might refute the theory entertainedby one of his critics that the Romanies were nothing less thanthe descendants of the two lost tribes of Israel.

The village of Oulton, too, gave him many chances ofintercourse with the gipsies. Within five minutes’walk of his home there is a spot where they frequently assembled,and where a few of them may sometimes be seen even at the presentday. The writer has reason to know that the gipsies lookedupon Borrow with no small amount of curiosity, for they wereunaccustomed to meet withgorgios of his position who tookso keen an interest in their sayings and doings. As a rule,they are exceedingly suspicious of the approaches of any oneoutside the Romany pale; and it must not be assumed that he waspopular with them because he usually succeeded in extracting fromthem the information he required. There was something aboutBorrow that made it hard to evade his questioning; he had such amasterful way with him, and his keen eyes fixed upon a man asthough they would pierce him through and read his most secretthoughts. He himself attributes his success with thegipsies to his knowledge of the Romany tongue and customs, whilethey firmly believed that he had gipsy blood in his veins. “He has known them,” he says,p. 72writing ofhimself as the author of “The Zincali,” “forupwards of twenty years in various countries, and they neverinjured a hair of his head or deprived him of a shred of hisraiment; but he is not deceived as to the motive of theirforbearance: they thought him aRom, and on thissupposition they hurt him not, their love of ‘theblood’ being their most distinguishingcharacteristic.” This error on their part served hispurpose well, as it enabled him to obtain from them a great dealof curious knowledge that would never have come into hispossession had it been known he was one of the despisedgorgios. He was known amongst them as the RomanyRye; but that is a name by which, even at the present day, theydistinguished any stranger who can “rokkra Romany” tothe extent of a dozen words.

Although Borrow spent so much time amongst the East Angliangipsies, it is often difficult to ascertain the exact localitiesin which he met with them. He seldom condescends to givethe date of any incident, and as infrequently does he choose toenlighten us as to his precise whereabouts when itoccurred. Then, too, one might conclude that hisinvestigations were almost wholly confined to two families, thoseof the Smiths or Petulengros, and Hernes. As Mr. Watts hasaptly remarked, one would imagine from all that is said aboutthese families in “Lavengro” and “The RomanyRye”p. 73that he knew nothing about the otherRomanies of the Eastern Counties. Yet he must have beenfamiliar also with the Bosviles, Grays, and Pinfolds, somedescendants of whom still haunt the heaths and greens of EasternEngland. According to Borrow, the Petulengros werecontinually turning up wherever he might wander. JasperPetulengro’s nature seems something akin to that of theWandering Jew; and yet, if we may believe “Lavengro”and our own knowledge, the Smiths look upon East Anglia as theirnative heath. First, he appears in the green lane nearNorman Cross; then at Norwich Fair and on Mousehold Heath; againat Greenwich Fair, where he tries to persuade Lavengro to take tothe gipsy life; and once more in the neighbourhood of the noteddingle of the Isopel Berners episode. This, of course, isdue to the exigencies of what Mr. Watts calls a “spiritualbiography,” and it is evident that whenever anythingparticularly striking pertaining to the Romanies occurs to Borrowthe Romanies themselves promptly appear to illustrate it.

Yet we know that Jasper Petulengro was a genuine character,even if he comes to us under a fictitious name. He was arepresentative of one of the oldest of the East Anglian gipsyfamilies, and a personal friend of Borrow, who found in him muchthat was in common with his own nature. Borrow has left adependable record of a meeting which tookp. 74place betweenthem at his Oulton home, during the Christmas of 1842. “He stayed with me during the greater part of the morning,discoursing on the affairs of Egypt, the aspect of which, heassured me, was becoming daily worse and worse. There is noliving for the poor people, brother, said he, the chokengres(police) pursue us from place to place, and the gorgios arebecome either so poor or miserly, that they grudge our cattle abite of grass by the wayside, and ourselves a yard of ground tolight a fire upon. Unless times alter, brother, and of thatI see no probability, unless you are made either poknees ormecralliskoe geiro (Justice of the Peace or Prime Minister), I amafraid the poor persons will have to give up wanderingaltogether, and then what will become of them?”

Yet there was much of Borrow’s nature that was in commonwith that of Jasper Petulengro. Often the swarthy,horse-dealing gipsy was the mouthpiece through which he breathedforth his own abhorrence of conventional restraints and thethronging crowds of busy streets. He loved the open aircountry life that he lived near the Suffolk coast, where thefresh salt winds sweep up from the sea across gorse-clad denesand pleasant pasture-lands. He was happiest when amongstthe “summer saturated heathen” of the heath andglen. Who can doubt that the much-quoted conversation inthe twenty-fifth chapter ofp.75“Lavengro,” gives expression to much ofBorrow’s own philosophy?

“Think so! There’s night and day, brother,both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweetthings; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life isvery sweet, brother; who would wish to die?”

“You talk like a gorgio—which is the same astalking like a fool—were you a Romany chal you would talkwiser. Wish to die, indeed! A Romany chal would wishto live for ever!”

“There’s the wind on the heath, brother; if Icould only feel that, I would gladly live for ever.”

Like Bamfylde Moore Carew, though for a different reason, itwas to the gipsy life that Borrow turned after his unsuccessfulliterary work in London. Disappointed and despondent, hefled the scenes that had witnessed his failures. It is easyto imagine how great must have been his sense of freedom when hecast off the shackles of city life, and breathed again the air ofthe hills and pine-woods of rural England. With the poetwhosep. 76bones rest in the midst of the littletown of his birth, he felt and all his life maintained, that

The gipsies of the first quarter of the present centurypossessed the distinctive characteristics of their type in a farmore marked degree than their descendants of to-day. Therewere few amongst them who had not a fair knowledge of the oldRomany tongue, though they were utterly ignorant of itssource. Questioned as to where their ancestors came from,they would tell you Egypt; and “business of Egypt”was their name for the mysteries of fortune-telling, and theother questionable proceedings they engaged in. Several oftheir families were fairly well-to-do in the eyes of their tribe,though the fact was carefully concealed from inquisitivegorgios. Often a gipsygry-engro, or horse-dealer,would have a score or more horses on his hands at a time, while,not infrequently, his sales on a fair-day would amount to£50 or £60. The women of his camp would begaudily and expensivelyp. 77dressed, and bedecked in heavy goldjewelry: he, himself, would often spend five or six pounds on asuit of clothes, and half a guinea on a silk handkerchief for hisneck. Few of the women ever thought of marrying out of theRomany tribe, and their virtue and constancy were an example toall classes of society.

This last-mentioned fact is the more striking in view of theintense admiration often felt for the handsomechis by menwho were not of the gipsy race. Commenting upon it not longago,[77] anAthenæum reviewer said:“Between some Englishmen and gipsy women there is anextraordinary attraction—an attraction, we may say inpassing, which did not exist between Borrow and the gipsy womenwith whom he was brought into contact. Supposing Borrow tohave been physically drawn to any woman, she would have been ofthe Scandinavian type; she would have been what he used to call aBrynhild. It was tall blondes he really admired. Hence, notwithstanding his love of the economies of gipsy life,his gipsy women are all mere scenic characters, they clothe andbeautify the scene: they are not dramatic characters. Whenhe comes to delineate a heroine, Isopel Bernes, she is physicallythe very opposite of the Romanychi—a ScandinavianBrynhild, in short.”

Mr. Watts has remarked on Borrow’s neglect top.78portray the higher traits in the gipsy woman’scharacter. Mrs. Herne and her grandchild Leonora, who areinstanced as the two great successes of his Romany group, areboth steeped in wickedness, and by omitting to draw a picture ofthe women’s loftier side, he is said to have failed todemonstrate their great claim for distinction. There is agood deal of truth in this accusation; and yet it cannot beadmitted wholly justifiable. In “The RomanyRye” we have a whole chapter devoted to the emphasising ofthe chastity of the Romany girls, and their self-sacrificingdevotion to their husbands. Ursula marries a lazy,good-for-nothingchal, and then expressess her willingnessto steal and swindle in order to keep him in comfort. Themethod is not commendable, but the object that prompts it ishighly praiseworthy—from a Romany point of view.

But to-day the old race of genuine Romanies is fast dying out,and soon we shall have wholly lost the traces of a people who formany centuries have constituted a familiar feature of Englishcountry life. One of the last survivingchals of anold East Anglian gipsy family, in reply to a remark of the writersaid, not long ago, “Yes, it is quite true that the oldrace of gipsies is dying out; there are very few of the real oldRomanies to be met with at the present day. ‘Mumpers’ there are in plenty; folks who sell basketsand peddle clothes-pegs; but they are not of the true gipsybreed. At one timep. 79a gipsy nevermarried out of his or her own tribe; but that day has gone, andthere has been reared a mixed race with little of the true bloodin them. Marrying into the ‘mumping’ andhouse-dwelling families has brought this about, and soon therewill be no true Romanies left. Here and there you may meeta few, such as the Grays, Lees, and Coopers, and one or two ofthe Pinfolds; but they, too, are going the way of the rest. Yes, as you say, it is a pity, for after all the Romanies are astrange people, and, bad as they may have been, they were notwithout their good points. They knew a good horse when theysaw one, and they let people see how a man, if he chooses, canshift for himself, without being beholden to any one. Anyhow, they have given clever men something to puzzle theirbrains about, and their language is not, as some would have it, amere thieves ‘patter,’ but is a good, if not a betterone, than that which the clever men speak themselves.”

“Yes,” went on my Romany friend, “this oldlanguage seems to interest a good many of the clever men. Ihave known some of them come to our tents and vans and write downthe words and their meaning as we told them. I did not mindtheir doing it; but some of my people did not like it, and toldthem lies, and put them off with all sorts of queerstories. They were afraid the men should put the words intotheir books, and then it might bep. 80awkward forthe gipsies when they wished to have a little talk amongstthemselves on matters that were nobody’s business but theirown. Very few of the gipsies can read, so they did notlearn the language in that way; most of us who know anything ofit picked it up from our fathers and mothers when we wereyoung. My father used to teach me certain sayings abouthorses that were very useful when we were dealing at thefairs. Now, however, some people who are not gipsies knowmore about these things than we do ourselves.”

Footnotes:

[41] “The Zincali; or, AnAccount of the Gipsies of Spain,” issued in two volumes in1841.

[45] This is the name that was givento a small inlet during Borrows residence at Oulton. To-dayit is sometimes called Burrough’s Ham.

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chap.		page
I.	EAST ANGLIA	7
II.	EARLY DAYS	12
III.	THE LAWYER’S CLERK	19
IV.	DAYS IN NORWICH	29
V.	LIFE AT OULTON	39
VI.	BORROW AND PUGILISM	60
VII.	BORROW AND THE EAST ANGLIAN GIPSIES	68