[71b] Uncles and brothers.
[71c] Tent.
[72] Generally speaking, there is no purer gypsy clan than the Hernes.
[73a] Read ‘Boswell.’
[73b] See pp. 261-264.
[73c] Fighting-man.
[74a] Hill-town, i.e., Norfolk.
[74b] July 17, 1820. See ‘Lavengro,’ chap. xxvi.
[75] Lovell.
[77a] Better pokonyes, ‘justice of the peace.’
[77b] Bow Street runners—Gy. prastermengre.
[77c] Better patrin; the use of this word in the proper sense of ‘leaf’ is not so rare among English gypsies.
[81] Gypsies nowadays are generally married in church. They like the pomp.
[84] Simpson, member of the firm of Simpson and Rackham, Norwich, where Borrow served his articles.
[87] See pp. 88, 147, 164, and Introduction; ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 44, et seq.
[89] Good.
[97] ‘Dictionarium novum Latino-Armenium.’ Fo., Romæ, 1714.
[101] Borrow quotes this sentence, with an added expletive, in his ‘Romano Lavo-Lil,’ p. 110.
[108] Borrow places these words on the title-page of the present book.
[109] A right-handed blow. See ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 289.
[116] Rather late for an Easter vestry meeting!
[119] Properly sar ’shan, ‘how art thou?’
[120] By God (Borrovian Romani).
[138a] Wordsworth’s.
[138b] ‘The Excursion.’
[141] The Swan Hotel at Stafford. In ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 386, the inn is described as upwards of thirty miles distant from the dingle, on the great North road.
[146] Louis Jeremiah Abershaw, hanged on Kennington Common, August 3, 1795. The Bald-faced Stag near Kingston was his headquarters.
[147a] See Introduction.
[147b] See Camden Pelham’s ‘Life and Adventures of Galloping Dick.’ Philadelphia, 1863.
[148] See p. 27, note.
[149] Gaol (cant).
[152] I.e., highwayman.
[161] John Broughton, pugilist (1705-1789).
[162a] April 11, 1750.
[162b] At Broughton’s funeral Johnson and Big Ben acted as his pall-bearers, with Humphries, Mendoza, Ward, and Ryan.
[163a] His real name was Francis Arden (Kn.).
[163b] Liverpool.
[164] Chester.
[165] See ‘Lavengro,’ i. 399; ii. 57.
[166] See Introduction.
[168] Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawah, Borrow’s old school-fellow at Norwich (1816-1818).
[182a] Probably meant for ‘gypsydom,’ but properly old cant for ‘London.’ Rome is here Shelta, or Gaelic back-slang for mor, ‘great.’
[182b] ‘The girl she is
black,
She lies on her back.’
which looks like a translation of some English ditty.
[183] Sham sailors (old cant).
[189] Fair, straightforward (dialect).
[199] See after, in the jockey’s tale, p. 252.
[224] See Introduction.
[226a] Donkey-boy.
[226b] Transported.
[231] See Introduction.
[245] A witch hag. See Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk tales,’ pp. 137, 399.
[250a] In Hungarian gypsy, properly gulo rai, ‘sweet sir.’
[250b] German cant.
[252] The English rogue described in ‘The Life of Meriton Latroon,’ a witty extravagant [by Richard Head], 4 vols. London, 1665-80.
[264] Mistress (cant).
[271] I.e., mathematics.
[279] John Thurtell, Borrow’s old Norwich crony, 1817-20, hanged at Hertford, January 9, 1824, for the murder of William Weare.
[280] Hertford.
[281a] July 17, 1820, at North Walsham, Norfolk. See ‘Lavengro.’
[281b] Cf. the lines from a song which Borrow may have heard in Ireland:
‘And by this time to-morrow you’ll see
Your Larry will be dead as mutton.
All for what? ’Caze his courage was good!’
[288a] Thimble-rigger.
[288b] Greenwich fair. See Introduction and ‘Lavengro,’ vol. ii., p. 22.
[291] Borrow really heard this tale in Cornwall, from the guide Cronan, in January, 1854.
[296] Tipperary.
[303a] Civita Vecchia.
[303b] The Duke d’Angoulême.
[311a] South.
[311b] Boston.
[311c] Spalding.
[313] We first hear of this Appendix in a letter to Murray, dated Nov. 11, 1852, in which Borrow expresses his intention of ‘adding some notes’ to the present work. The result is this extraordinary ‘Malebolgia,’ as Professor Knapp terms it, into which Borrow has thrust all those who had incurred his ill-will, even for the most trivial of reasons. His enmity with Rome dates from his Spanish experiences as colporteur of the Bible Society in 1838 and 1839. ‘Mr. Flamson’ is placed in the pillory, because he had offended Borrow by carrying a railway line through his Oulton grounds; and Scott, apparently for no better reason than his neglect to acknowledge a presentation copy of the ‘Romantic Ballads.’ The ‘Lord-Lieutenant’ experiences Borrow’s resentment because he did not see his way to making ‘Lavengro’ a magistrate; and the ‘Old Radical’ is gibbeted because he obtained an official position which Borrow desired for himself.
[314a] Twenty. George Borrow was born July, 1803, and his father died February, 1824.
[314b] Borrovian for ‘gypsydom.’
[321a] ‘Canning (1827),’ (Kn.).
[321b] Ibid.
[321c] ‘Viscount Goderich’ (Kn.).
[322] Little Father (Russian).
[323] The full text and translation of this pointless little song are given in the ‘Romano Lavo-lil,’ pp. 200, 201.
[326] This was written in 1854. (G.B.)
[327] An obscene oath. (G.B.)
[328] See ‘Muses’ Library,’ pp. 86, 87. London, 1738 (G. B.). Reprinted from the original edition in the Early English Text Society (1870).
[329] Genteel with them seems to be synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo; if so, the manner in which it has been applied for ages ceases to surprise, for genteel is heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold, glittering armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and lust, should always be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls the Baron genteel:
‘La furent li gentil Baron,’ etc.
And he certainly could not have applied the word better than to the strong Norman thief, aimed cap-à-pie, without one particle of ruth or generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility, that is heathenism, should have no such feelings; and, indeed, the admirers of gentility seldom or never associate any such feelings with it. It was from the Norman, the worst of all robbers and miscreants, who built strong castles, garrisoned them with devils, and tore out poor wretches’ eyes, as the Saxon Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word genteel. What could ever have made the English such admirers of gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during three hundred years, they suffered enough by it. Their genteel Norman landlords were their scourgers, their torturers, the plunderers of their homes, the dishonourers of their wives, and the deflowerers of their daughters. Perhaps, after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility. (G.B.)
[330] Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-89), M.P. for Norwich, 1847-54.
[331] Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened minds associate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody can be genteel. (G.B.)
[332] A favourite figure of Carlyle’s, but both he and Borrow took the mot from a report of Thurtell’s trial: Q. ‘What do you mean by respectable?’ A. ‘He kept a gig.’
[337] Perry. (Kn.)
[340] Gorgiko, ‘gentile,’ used here as a nickname.
[348] The writer has been checked in print by the Scotch with being a Norfolk man. Surely, surely, these latter times have not been exactly the ones in which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of any county in England with the place of their birth, more especially those who have had the honour of being born in Norfolk—times in which British fleets, commanded by Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything but laurels from foreign shores. It would have been well for Britain had she had the old Norfolk man to dispatch to the Baltic or the Black Sea, lately, instead of Scotch admirals. (G. B.)
[355] The ‘whiffler’ was the official sword-flourisher of the Corporation.
[357a] Tom Cribb (1781-1848), champion pugilist.
[357b] Thomas Winter (1795-1851), pugilist.
[360] See Introduction.
[365] Harman-beck, ‘constable’ (old cant); modern slang, beak.
[368] As the present work will come out in the midst of a vehement political contest, people may be led to suppose that the above was written expressly for the time. The writer, therefore, begs to state that it was written in the year 1854. He cannot help adding that he is neither Whig, Tory, nor Radical, and cares not a straw what party governs England, provided it is governed well. But he has no hopes of good government from the Whigs. It is true that amongst them there is one very great man, Lord Palmerston, who is indeed the sword and buckler, the chariots and the horses of the party; but it is impossible for his lordship to govern well with such colleagues as he has—colleagues which have been forced upon him by family influence, and who are continually pestering him into measures anything but conducive to the country’s honour and interest. If Palmerston would govern well, he must get rid of them; but from that step, with all his courage and all his greatness, he will shrink. Yet how proper and easy a step it would be! He could easily get better, but scarcely worse, associates. They appear to have one object in view, and only one—jobbery. It was chiefly owing to a most flagitious piece of jobbery, which one of his lordship’s principal colleagues sanctioned and promoted, that his lordship experienced his late parliamentary disasters (G. B.).
[369] The Cato Street conspirators, a reminiscence of Borrow’s ‘Celebrated Trials.’
[371] Sir John Bowring.
[372a] William Taylor of Norwich.
[372b] ‘Specimens of the Russian Poets,’ translated by John Bowring. 12mo., London, 1821.
[373] A fact (G. B.).
[374] Southey.
[376a] Aberdeen.
[376b] China.
[376c] Manchu New Testament.