To Mr. George Borrow
(Translated from the Spanish)Naples, 28 August, 1839.
Dear Friend,—I received your letter of the 28 July written from Sevilla, and I am waiting for that which you promise me from Tangier.
I am glad that you liked Sevilla, and I am still more glad of the successful shipment of the beloved book. In distributing it, you are rendering the greatest service that generous foreigners (I mean Englishmen) can render to the real freedom and enlightenment in Spain, and any Spaniard who is at heart a gentleman must be grateful for this service to the Society and to its agent. In my opinion, if Spain had maintained the customs, character, and opinions that it had three centuries ago, it ought to have maintained also unity in religious opinions: but that at present the circumstances have changed, and the moral character and the advancement of my unfortunate country would not lose anything in its purification and progress by (the grant of) religious liberty.
You are saying that I acted very light-mindedly in judging Mezzofanti without speaking to him. You know that the other time when I was in Italy I had dealings and spoke with him, and that I said to you that he had a great facility for speaking languages, but that otherwise he was no good. Because I have seen him several times in the Papal chapels with a certain air of an ass and certain grimaces of a blockhead that cannot happen to a man of talent. I am told, moreover, that he is a spy, and that for that reason he was given the hat. I know, moreover, that he has not written anything at all. For that reason I do not wish to take the trouble of seeing him.
As regards Lanci, I am not saying anything except that I am waiting until you have read his work without passion, and that if my books have arrived at Madrid, you can ask my brother in Santiago.
You are judging of him and of Pahlin in the way you reproach me with judging Mezzofanti; I thank you, and I wish for the dedication Gabricote; and I also wish for your return to Madrid, so that in going to Toledo you would get a copy of Aristophanes with the order that will be given to you by my brother, who has got it.
If for the Gabricote or other work you require my clumsy pen, write to Florence and send me a rough copy of what is to be done, in English or in Spanish, and I will supply the finished work. From Florence I intend to go to London, and I should be obliged if you would give me letters and instructions that would be of use to me in literary matters, but you must know that my want of knowledge of speaking English makes it necessary that the Englishmen who speak to me should know Spanish, French, or Italian.
As regards robberies, of which you accuse Southern people, from the literatures of the North, do you think that the robberies committed by the Northerners from the Southern literature would be left behind? Erunt vitia donec homines.—Always yours,
Eleutheros.
Yet another acquaintance of these Spanish days was Baron Taylor—Isidore Justin Séverin Taylor, to give him his full name—who had a career of wandering achievement, with Government pay, that must have appealed to Borrow. Although his father was an Englishman he became a naturalised Frenchman, and he was for a time in the service of the French Government as Director of the Théâtre Français, when he had no little share in the production of the dramas of Victor Hugo and Dumas. Later he was instrumental in bringing the Luxor obelisk from Egypt to Paris. He wrote books upon his travels in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. He wandered all over Europe in search of art treasures for the French Government, and may very well have met Borrow again and again. Borrow tells us that he had met Taylor in France, in Russia, and in Ireland, before he met him in Andalusia, collecting pictures for the French Government. Borrow’s description of their meetings is inimitable:—
The last and most distinguished of Borrow’s colleagues while in Spain was George Villiers, fourth Earl of Clarendon, whom we judge to have been in private life one of the most lovable men of his epoch. George Villiers was born in London in 1800, and was the grandson of the first Earl, Thomas Villiers, who received his title when holding office in Lord North’s administration, but is best known from his association in diplomacy with Frederick the Great. His grandson was born, as it were, into diplomacy, and at twenty years of age was an attaché to the British Embassy in St. Petersburg. Later he was associated with Sir John Bowring in negotiating a commercial treaty with France. In August, 1833, he was sent as British Minister—“envoy extraordinary” he was called—to Madrid, and he had been two years in that seething-pot of Spanish affairs, with Christinos and Carlists at one another’s throats, when Borrow arrived in the Peninsula. His influence was the greater with a succession of Spanish Prime Ministers in that in 1838 he had been largely instrumental in negotiating the quadruple alliance between England, France, Spain, and Portugal. In March, 1839—exactly a year before Borrow took his departure—he resigned his position at Madrid, having then for some months exchanged the title of Sir George Villiers for that of Earl of Clarendon through the death of his uncle; Borrow thereafter having to launch his various complaints and grievances at his successor, Mr.—afterwards Sir George—Jerningham, who, it has been noted, had his home in Norfolk, at Costessey, four miles from Norwich. Villiers returned to England with a great reputation, although his Spanish policy was attacked in the House of Lords. In that same year, 1839, he joined Lord Melbourne’s administration as Lord Privy Seal, O’Connell at the time declaring that he ought to be made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, so sympathetic was he towards concession and conciliation in that then feverishly excited country. This office actually came to him in 1847, and he was Lord-Lieutenant through that dark period of Ireland’s history, including the Famine, the Young Ireland rebellion, and the Smith O’Brien rising. He pleased no one in Ireland. No English statesman could ever have done so under such ideals of government as England would have tolerated then, and for long years afterwards. The Whigs defended him, the Tories abused him, in their respective organs. He left Ireland in 1852 and was more than once mentioned as possible Prime Minister in the ensuing years. He was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Aberdeen’s administration during the Crimean War, and he held the same office under Lord Palmerston, again under Lord John Russell in 1865, and under Mr. Gladstone in 1868. He might easily have become Prime Minister. Greville in his Diary writes of Prince Albert’s desire that he should succeed Lord John Russell, but Clarendon said that no power on earth would make him take that position. He said he could not speak, and had not had parliamentary experience enough. He died in 1870, leaving a reputation as a skilful diplomatist and a disinterested politician, if not that of a great statesman. He had twice refused the Governor-Generalship of India, and three times a marquisate.
Sir George Villiers seems to have been very courteous to Borrow during the whole of the time they were together in Spain. It would have been easy for him to have been quite otherwise. Borrow’s Bible mission synchronised with a very delicate diplomatic mission of his own, and in a measure clashed with it. The government of Spain was at the time fighting the ultra-clericals. Physical and moral strife were rife in the land. Neither Royalists nor Carlists could be expected to sympathise with Borrow’s schemes, which were fundamentally to attack their Church. But Villiers was at all times friendly, and, as far as he could be, helpful. Borrow seems to have had ready access to him, and he answered his many letters. He gave Borrow an opportunity of an interview with the formidable Prime Minister Mendizábal, and he interviewed another minister and persuaded him to permit Borrow to print and circulate his Bibles. He intervened successfully to release Borrow from his Madrid prison. But Villiers could not have had any sympathy with Borrow other than as a British subject to be protected on the Roman citizen principle. We do not suppose that when The Bible in Spain appeared he was one of those who were captivated by its extraordinary qualities. When Borrow crossed his path in later life he received no special consideration, such as would be given very promptly in our day by a Cabinet minister to a man of letters of like distinction. We find him on one occasion writing to the ex-minister, now Lord Clarendon, asking his help for a consulship. Clarendon replied kindly enough, but sheltered himself behind the statement that the Prime Minister was overwhelmed with applications for patronage. Yet Clarendon, who held many high offices in the following years, might have helped if he had cared to do so. Some years later—in 1847—there was further correspondence when Borrow desired to become a Magistrate of Suffolk. Here again Clarendon wrote three courteous letters, and appears to have done his best in an unenthusiastic way. But nothing came of it all.
Among the many Borrow manuscripts in my possession I find a page of unusual pathos. It is the inscription that Borrow wrote for his wife’s tomb, and it is in the tremulous handwriting of a man weighed down by the one incomparable tragedy of life’s pilgrimage:
Sacred to the Memory of Mary Borrow,
the Beloved and Affectionate Wife of
George Borrow, Esquire, who departed
this Life on the 30th Jan. 1869.George Borrow.
The death of his wife saddened Borrow, and assisted to transform him into the unamiable creature of Norfolk tradition. But it is well to bear in mind, when we are considering Borrow on his domestic and personal side, that he was unquestionably a good and devoted husband throughout his married life of twenty-nine years. It was in the year 1832 that Borrow and his wife first met. He was twenty-nine; she was a widow of thirty-eight. She was undeniably very intelligent, and was keenly sympathetic to the young vagabond of wonderful adventures on the highways of England, now so ambitious for future adventure in distant lands. Her maiden name was Mary Skepper. She was one of the two children of Edmund Skepper and his wife Anne, who lived at Oulton Hall in Suffolk, whither they had removed from Beccles in 1805. Mary’s brother inherited the Oulton Hall estate of three hundred acres, and she had a mortgage, the interest of which yielded £450 per annum. In July, 1817, Mary married, at Oulton Church, Henry Clarke, a lieutenant in the Navy, who died eight months later of consumption. Two months after his death their child Henrietta Mary, the “Hen.” who was Borrow’s life companion, was born. There is a letter among my Borrow Papers addressed to the widow by her husband’s father at this time. It is dated 17th June, 1818, and runs as follows:
I read your very kind, affectionate, and respectful Letter of the 15th Inst, with Feelings of Satisfaction and thankfulness—thankful that God has mercifully given you so pleasing a Pledge of the Love of my late dear, but lamented son, and I most sincerely hope and trust that dear little Henrietta will live to be the Joy and Consolation of your Life: and satisfyed I am that you are what I always esteemed you to be, one of the best of Women; God grant! that you may be, as I am sure you deserve to be one of the happiest—His Ways of Providence are past finding out; to you—they seem indeed to have been truly afflictive: but we cannot possibly say that they are really so; we cannot doubt His Wisdom nor ought we to distrust His Goodness, let us avow, then, where we have not the Power of fathoming—viz. the dispensations of God; in His good time He will show us, perhaps, that every painful Event which has happened was abundantly for the best—I am truly glad to hear that you and the sweet Babe, my little grand Daughter, are doing so well, and I hope I shall have the pleasure shortly of seeing you either at Oulton or Sisland. I am sorry to add that neither Poor L. nor myself are well.—Louisa and my Family join me in kind love to you, and in best regards to your worthy Father, Mother, and Brother.
Mary Skepper was certainly a bright, intelligent girl, as I gather from a manuscript poem before me written to a friend on the eve of leaving school. As a widow, living at first with her parents at Oulton Hall, and later with her little daughter in the neighbouring cottage, she would seem to have busied herself with all kinds of philanthropies, and she was clearly in sympathy with the religious enthusiasms of certain neighbouring families of Evangelical persuasion, particularly the Gurneys and the Cunninghams. The Rev. Francis Cunningham was rector of Pakefield, near Lowestoft from 1814 to 1830. He married Richenda, sister of the distinguished Joseph John Gurney and of Elizabeth Fry, in 1816. In 1830 he became vicar of St. Margaret’s, Lowestoft. His brother, John William Cunningham, was vicar of Harrow, and married a Verney of the famous Buckinghamshire family. This John William Cunningham was a great light of the Evangelical Churches of his time, and was for many years editor of The Christian Observer. His daughter Mary Richenda married Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the well-known judge, and the brother of Sir Leslie Stephen. But to return to Francis Cunningham, whose acquaintance with Borrow was brought about through Mrs. Clarke. Cunningham was a great supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and was the founder of the Paris branch. It was speedily revealed to him that Borrow’s linguistic abilities could be utilised by the Society, and he secured the co-operation of his brother-in-law, Joseph John Gurney, in an effort to find Borrow work in connection with the Society.
We do not meet Mary Clarke again until 1834, when we find a letter from her to Borrow addressed to St. Petersburg, in which she notifies to him that he has been “mentioned at many of the Bible Meetings this year,” adding that “dear Mr. Cunningham” had spoken so nicely of him at an Oulton gathering. “As I am not afraid of making you proud,” she continues, “I will tell you one of his remarks. He mentioned you as one of the most extraordinary and interesting individuals of the present day.” Henceforth clearly Mary Clarke corresponded regularly with Borrow, and one or two extracts from her letters are given by Dr. Knapp. Joseph Jowett of the Bible Society forwarded Borrow’s letters from Russia to Cunningham, who handed them to Mrs. Clarke and her parents. Borrow had proposed to continue his mission by leaving Russia for China, but this Mary Clarke opposed:
I must tell you that your letter chilled me when I read your intention of going as a Missionary or Agent, with the Manchu Scriptures in your hand, to the Tartars, that land of incalculable dangers.
In 1835 Borrow was back in England at Norwich with his mother, and on a visit to Mary Clarke and the Skeppers at Oulton. Mrs. Skepper died just before his arrival in England—that is, in September, 1835—while her husband died in February, 1836. Her only brother died in the following year.
Thus we see Mary Clarke, aged forty-three, left to fight the world with her daughter, aged nineteen, and not only to fight the world but her own family, particularly her brother’s widow, owing to certain ambiguities in her father’s will. It was these legal quarrels that led Mary Clarke and her daughter to set sail for Spain, where Mary had had the indefatigable and sympathetic correspondent during the previous year of trouble. Borrow and Mary Clarke met, as we have seen, at Seville and there, at a later period, they became “engaged.” Mrs. Clarke and her daughter Henrietta sailed for Spain in the Royal Tar, leaving London for Cadiz in June, 1839. Much keen correspondence between Borrow and Mrs. Clarke had passed before the final decision to visit Spain. His mother was one of the few people who knew of Mrs. Clarke’s journey to Seville, and must have understood, as mothers do, what was pending, although her son did not. When the engagement is announced to her—in November, 1839—she writes to Mary Clarke a kindly, affectionate letter:
I shall now resign him to your care, and may you love and cherish him as much as I have done. I hope and trust that each will try to make the other happy.
There is no reason whatever to accept the suggestion that has been made that Borrow married for money. And this because he had said in one of his letters, “It is better to suffer the halter than the yoke,” the kind of thing that a man might easily say on the eve of making a proposal which he was not sure would be accepted. Nor can a casual remark of Borrow’s—“marriage is by far the best way of getting possession of an estate”—be counted as conclusive. That Borrow was all his life devoted to his wife I think is proved by his many letters to her that are given in this volume. Borrow’s further tribute to his wife and stepdaughter in Wild Wales is well known:
Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of wives, can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the best woman of business in Eastern Anglia. Of my stepdaughter—for such she is, though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason, seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me—that she has all kinds of good qualities, and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so called, but the real Spanish guitar.
Borrow belonged to the type of men who would never marry did not some woman mercifully take them in hand. Mrs. Clarke, when she set out for Spain, had doubtless determined to marry Borrow. It is clear that he had no idea of marrying her. Yet he was certainly “engaged,” as we learn from a letter to Mr. Brackenbury, when he wrote a letter from Seville to Mr. Brandram, dated 18th March, in which he said: “I wish very much to spend the remaining years of my life in the northern parts of China, as I think I have a call to those regions. . . . I hope yet to die in the cause of my Redeemer.” Surely never did man take so curious a view of the responsibilities of marriage. Possibly here also Borrow was adapting himself to the language of the Bible Society. He must have known that his proposal would be declined—as it was.
Very soon after the engagement Borrow experienced his third term of imprisonment in Spain, this time, however, only for thirty hours, and all because he had asked the Alcalde, or mayor of the district in which he lived, for his passport, and had quarrelled with his worship over the matter. Borrow gave up the months of this winter of 1839 rather to writing his first important book, The Gypsies of Spain, than to the concerns of the Bible Society, which fidgeted exceedingly, no doubt imaging heavy bills for expenses, with no corresponding reports of the usual character to be read out at meetings. Finally Borrow, with Mrs. Clarke and her daughter, sailed from Cadiz on the 3rd April, 1840, as we have already related. He had with him his Jewish servant, Hayim Ben Attar, and his Arabian horse, Sidi Habismilk, both of which were to astonish the natives of the Suffolk broads. The party reached London on 16th April and stayed at the Spread Eagle Inn, Gracechurch Street. The marriage took place at St. Peter’s Church, Cornhill, on 23rd April, 1840.
There are only two letters from Mrs. Borrow to her husband extant. They were written in the Hereford Square days between the years 1860 and 1869—the last year of Mrs. Borrow’s life. The pair had been married some twenty-five years at least, and it is made clear by those letters alone that at the end of this period they were still a most happily assorted couple. Mrs. Borrow must have gone to Brighton for her health on two separate occasions, each time accompanied by her daughter. Borrow, who had enjoyed many a pleasant ramble on his own account, as we shall see—rambles which extended as far away as Constantinople—is “keeping house” in Hereford Square, Brompton, the while. It will be noted that Mrs. Borrow signed herself “Carreta,” the pet name that her husband always gave her. It has been suggested that as “carreta” means a Spanish dray-cart, “carita,” “my dear,” was probably meant. But, careless as was the famous word-master over the spelling of words in the tongues that he never really mastered scientifically, he could scarcely have made so obvious a blunder as this, and there must have been some particular experience in the lives of husband and wife that led to the playful designation. [145a] Here are the two letters:
To George Borrow, Esq.
Grenville Place, Brighton, Sussex.
My darling Husband,—I am thankful to say that I arrived here quite safe on Saturday, and on Wednesday I hope to see you at home. We may not be home before the evening about six o’clock, sooner or later, so do not be anxious, as we shall be careful. We took tea with the Edwards at six o’clock the day I came; they are a very kind, nice family. You must take a walk when we come home, but remember now we have a young servant, and do not leave the house for very long together. The air here is very fresh, and much cooler than in London, and I hope after the five days’ change I shall be benefited, but I wish to come home on Wednesday. See to all the doors and windows of a night, and let Jane keep up the chain, and lock the back door by the hop plant before it gets dark. Our love to Lady Soame.—And with our best love to you, believe me, your own
Carreta.
Sunday morning, 10 o’clock.
If I do not hear from you I shall conclude all is well, and you may do the same with regard to us. Have the tea ready a little before six on Wednesday. Henrietta is wonderfully improved by the change, and sends dear and best love to you.
33 Grenville Place, Brighton, Sussex.
Thursday morning.My dear Husband,—As it is raining again this morning I write a few lines to you. I cannot think that we have quite so much rain as you have at Brompton, for I was out twice yesterday an hour in the morning in a Bath chair, and a little walk in the evening on the Marine Parade, and I have been out little or much every day, and hope I feel a little better. Our dear Henrietta likewise says that she feels the better for the air and change. As we are here I think we had better remain till Tuesday next, when the fortnight will be up, but I fear you feel very lonely. I hope you get out when you can, and that you take care of your health. I hope Ellen continues to attend to yr. comfort, and that when she gives orders to Mrs. Harvey or the Butcher that she shews you what they send. I shall want the stair carpets down, and the drawing-room nice—blinds and shutters closed to prevent the sun, also bed-rooms prepared, with well aired sheets and counterpane by next Tuesday. I suppose we shall get to Hereford Square perhaps about five o’clock, but I shall write again. You had better dine at yr. usual time, and as we shall get a dinner here we shall want only tea.
Henrietta’s kindest dear love and mine, remaining yr. true and affectionate wife.
Carreta.
No reader can peruse the following pages without recognising the true affection for his wife that is transparent in Borrow’s letters to her. Arthur Dalrymple’s remark that he had frequently seen Borrow and his wife travelling—
He stalking along with a huge cloak wrapped round him in all weathers, and she trudging behind him like an Indian squaw, with a carpet bag, or bundle, or small portmanteau in her arms, and endeavouring under difficulty to keep up with his enormous strides—
is clearly a travesty. “Mrs. Borrow was devoted to her husband, and looked after business matters; and he always treated her with exceeding kindness,” is the verdict of Miss Elizabeth Jay, who was frequently privileged to visit the husband and wife at Oulton.
Behold George Borrow, then, in a comfortable home on the banks of Oulton Broad—a family man. His mother—sensible woman—declines her son’s invitation to live with the newly-married pair. She remains in the cottage at Norwich where her husband died. The Borrows were married in April, 1840, by May they had settled at Oulton. It was a pleasantly secluded estate, and Borrow’s wife had £450 a year. He had, a month before his marriage, written to Mr. Brandram to say that he had a work nearly ready for publication, and “two others in a state of forwardness.” The title of the first of these books he enclosed in his letter. It was The Zincali: Or an Account of the Gypsies of Spain. Mr. Samuel Smiles, in his history of the House of Murray—A Publisher and his Friends—thus relates the circumstances of its publication:—
In November 1840 a tall, athletic gentleman in black called upon Mr. Murray offering a MS. for perusal and publication. . . . Mr. Murray could not fail to be taken at first sight with this extraordinary man. He had a splendid physique, standing six feet two in his stockings, and he had brains as well as muscles, as his works sufficiently show. The book now submitted was of a very uncommon character, and neither the author nor the publisher were very sanguine about its success. Mr. Murray agreed, after perusal, to print and publish 750 copies of The Gypsies in Spain, and divide the profits with the author.
It was at the suggestion of Richard Ford, then the greatest living English authority on Spain, that Mr. Murray published the book. It did not really commence to sell until The Bible in Spain came a year or so later to bring the author reputation. From November, 1840, to June, 1841, only three hundred copies had been sold in spite of friendly reviews in some half-dozen journals, including The Athenæum and The Literary Gazette. The first edition, it may be mentioned, contained on its title-page a description of the author as “late agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain.” There is very marked compression in the edition now in circulation, and a perusal of the first edition reveals many interesting features that deserve to be restored for the benefit of the curious. But nothing can make The Zincali a great piece of literature. It was summarised by the Edinburgh Review at the time as “a hotch-potch of the jockey, tramper, philologist, and missionary.” That description, which was not intended to be as flattering as it sounds to-day, appears more to apply to The Bible in Spain. But The Zincali is too confused, too ill-arranged a book to rank with Borrow’s four great works. There are passages in it, indeed, so eloquent, so romantic, that no lover of Borrow’s writings can afford to neglect them. But this was not the book that gypsy-loving Borrow, with the temperament of a Romany, should have written, or could have written had he not been obsessed by the “science” of his subject. His real work in gypsydom was to appear later in Lavengro and The Romany Rye. For Borrow was not a man of science—a philologist, a folk-lorist of the first order.
No one, indeed, who had read only The Zincali among Borrow’s works could see in it any suspicion of the writer who was for all time to throw a glamour over the gypsy, to make the “children of the open air” a veritable cult, to earn for him the title of “the walking lord of gypsy lore,” and to lay the foundations of an admirable succession of books both in fact and fiction—but not one as great as his own. It is clear that the city of Seville, with sarcastic letters from Bible Society secretaries on one side, and some manner of love romance on the other, was not so good a place for an author to produce a real book as Oulton was to become. Richard Ford’s judgment was sound when he said with quite wonderful prescience:
How I wish you had given us more about yourself, instead of the extracts from those blunder-headed old Spaniards, who knew nothing about gypsies! I shall give you the rap, on that, and a hint to publish your whole adventures for the last twenty years. [148]
Henceforth Borrow was to write about himself and to become a great author in consequence. For in writing about himself as in Lavengro and The Romany Rye he was to write exactly as he felt about the gypsies, and to throw over them the glamour of his own point of view, the view of a man who loved the broad highway and those who sojourned upon it. In The Gypsies of Spain we have a conventional estimate of the gypsies. “There can be no doubt that they are human beings and have immortal souls,” he says, even as if he were writing a letter to the Bible Society. All his anecdotes about the gypsies are unfavourable to them, suggestive only of them as knaves and cheats. From these pictures it is a far cry to the creation of Jasper Petulengro and Isopel Berners. The most noteworthy figure in The Zincali is the gypsy soldier of Valdepenas, an unholy rascal. “To lie, to steal, to shed human blood”—these are the most marked characteristics with which Borrow endows the gypsies of Spain. “Abject and vile as they have ever been, the gitános have nevertheless found admirers in Spain,” says the author who came to be popularly recognised as the most enthusiastic admirer of the gypsies in Spain and elsewhere. Read to-day by the lover of Borrow’s other books The Zincali will be pronounced a readable collection of anecdotes, interspersed with much dull matter, with here and there a piece of admirable writing. But the book would scarcely have lived had it not been followed by four works of so fine an individuality. Well might Ford ask Borrow for more about himself and less of the extracts from “blunder-headed old Spaniards.” When Borrow came to write about himself he revealed his real kindness for the gypsy folk. He gave us Jasper Petulengro and the incomparable description of “the wind on the heath.” He kindled the imagination of men, proclaimed the joys of vagabondage in a manner that thrilled many hearts. He had some predecessors and many successors, but “none could then, or can ever again,” says the biographer of a later Rye, “see or hear of Romanies without thinking of Borrow.” In her biography of one of these successors in gypsy lore, Charles Godfrey Leland, Mrs. Pennell discusses the probability that Borrow and Leland met in the British Museum. That is admitted in a letter from Leland to Borrow in my possession. To this letter Borrow made no reply. It was wrong of him. But he was then—in 1873—a prematurely old man, worn out and saddened by neglect and a sense of literary failure. For this and for the other vagaries of those latter years Borrow will not be judged harshly by those who read his story here. Nothing could be more courteous than Borrow’s one letter to Leland, written in the failing handwriting—once so excellent—of the last sad decade of his life:
22 Hereford Square, Brompton, Nov. 2, 1871.
Sir,—I have received your letter and am gratified by the desire you express to make my acquaintance. Whenever you please to come I shall be happy to see you.—Yours truly,
George Borrow.
The meeting did not, through Leland’s absence from London, then take place. Two years later it was another story. The failing powers were more noteworthy. Borrow was by this time dead to the world, as the documents before me abundantly testify. It is not, therefore, necessary to assume, as Leland’s friends have done, that Borrow never replied because he was on the eve of publishing a book of his own about the gypsies.
To George Borrow, Esq.
Langham Hotel, Portland Place, March 31st, 1873.
Dear Sir,—I sincerely trust that the limited extent of our acquaintanceship will not cause this note to seem to you too presuming. Breviter, I have thrown the results of my observations among English gypsies into a very unpretending little volume consisting almost entirely of facts gathered from the Romany, without any theory. As I owe all my interest in the subject to your writings, and as I am sincerely grateful to you for the impulse which they gave me, I should like very much to dedicate my book to you. Of course if your kindness permits I shall submit the proofs to you, that you may judge whether the work deserves the honour. I should have sent you the MS., but not long after our meeting at the British Museum I left for Egypt, whence I have very recently returned, to find my publisher clamorous for the promised copy.
It is not—God knows—a mean and selfish desire to help my book by giving it the authority of your name, which induces this request. But I am earnestly desirous for my conscience’ sake to publish nothing in the Romany which shall not be true and sensible, even as all that you have written is true and sensible. Therefore, should you take the pains to glance over my proof, I should be grateful if you would signify to me any differences of opinion should there be ground for any. Dr. A. F. Pott in his Zigeuner (vol. ii. p. 224), intimates very decidedly that you took the word shastr (Exhastra de Moyses) from Sanskrit and put it into Romany; declaring that it would be very important if shaster were Romany. I mention in my book that English gypsies call the New Testament (also any MS.) a shaster, and that a betting-book on a racecourse is called a shaster “because it is written.” I do not pretend in my book to such deep Romany as you have achieved—all that I claim is to have collected certain words, facts, phrases, etc., out of the Romany of the roads—corrupt as it is—as I have found it to-day. I deal only with the gypsy of the Decadence. With renewed apology for intrusion should it seem such, I remain, yours very respectfully,
Charles G. Leland.
Francis Hindes Groome remarked when reviewing Borrow’s Word Book in 1874, [151] that when The Gypsies of Spain was published in 1841 “there were not two educated men in England who possessed the slightest knowledge of Romany.” In the intervening thirty-three years all this was changed. There was an army of gypsy scholars or scholar gypsies of whom Leland was one, Hindes Groome another, and Professor E. H. Palmer a third, to say nothing of many scholars and students of Romany in other lands. Not one of them seemed when Borrow published his Word Book of the Romany to see that he was the only man of genius among them. They only saw that he was an inferior philologist to them all. And so Borrow, who prided himself on things that he could do indifferently quite as much as upon things that he could do well, suffered once again, as he was so often doomed to suffer, for the lack of appreciation which was all in all to him, and his career went out in a veritable blizzard. He published nothing after his Romano Lavo-Lil appeared in 1874. He was then indeed a broken and a bitter man, with no further interest in life. Dedications of books to him interested him not at all. In any other mood, or a few years earlier, Leland’s book, The English Gypsies, would have gladdened his heart. In his preface Leland expresses “the highest respect for the labours of Mr. George Borrow in this field,” he quotes Borrow continually and with sympathy, and renders him honour as a philologist that has usually been withheld. “To Mr. Borrow is due the discovery that the word jockey is of gypsy origin and derived from chuckiri, which means a whip,” and he credits Borrow with the discovery of the origin of “tanner” for sixpence; he vindicates him as against Dr. A. F. Pott—a prince among students of gypsydom—of being the first to discover that the English gypsies call the Bible the shaster. But there is a wealth of scientific detail in Leland’s books that is not to be found in Borrow’s, as also there is in Francis Hindes Groome’s works. What had Borrow to do with science? He could not even give the word “Rúmani” its accent, and called it “Romany.” He “quietly appropriated,” says Groome, “Bright’s Spanish gypsy words for his own work, mistakes and all, without one word of recognition. I think one has the ancient impostor there.” “His knowledge of the strange history of the gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil,” says Groome elsewhere. Yet Mr. Hindes Groome readily acknowledges that Borrow is above all writers on the gypsies. “He communicates a subtle insight into gypsydom”—that is the very essence of the matter. Controversy will continue in the future as in the present as to whether the gypsies are all that Borrow thought them. Perhaps “corruption has crept in among them” as it did with the prize-fighters. They have intermarried with the gorgios, thrown over their ancient customs, lost all their picturesque qualities, it may be. But Borrow has preserved in literature for all time, as not one of the philologists and folk-lore students has done, a remarkable type of people. But this is not to be found in his first original work, The Zincali, nor in his last, The Romano Lavo-Lil. This glamour is to be found in Lavengro and The Romany Rye, to which books we shall come in due course. Here we need only refer to the fact that Borrow had loved the gypsies all his life—from his boyish meeting with Petulengro until in advancing years the prototype of that wonderful creation of his imagination—for this the Petulengro of Lavengro undoubtedly was—came to visit him at Oulton. Well might Leland call him “the Nestor of Gypsydom.”
In an admirable appreciation of our author, the one in which he gives the oft-quoted eulogy concerning him as “the delightful, the bewitching, the never-sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow,” Mr. Birrell records the solace that may be found by small boys in the ambiguities of a title-page, or at least might have been found in it in his youth and in mine. In those days in certain Puritan circles a very strong line was drawn between what was known as Sunday reading, and reading that might be permitted on week-days. The Sunday book must have a religious flavour. There were magazines with that particular flavour, every story in them having a pious moral withal. Very closely watched and scrutinised was the reading of young people in those days and in those circles. Mr. Birrell, doubtless, speaks from autobiographical memories when he tells us of a small boy with whose friends The Bible in Spain passed muster on the strength of its title-page. For Mr. Birrell is the son of a venerated Nonconformist minister; and perhaps he, or at least those who were of his household, had this religious idiosyncrasy. It may be that the distinction which pervaded the evangelical circles of Mr. Birrell’s youth as to what were Sunday books, as distinct from books to be read on week-days, has disappeared. In any case think of the advantage of the boy of that generation who was able to handle a book with so unexceptionable a title as The Bible in Spain. His elders would succumb at once, particularly if the boy had the good sense to call their attention to the sub-title—“The Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula.” Nothing could be said by the most devout of seniors against so prepossessing a title-page. But what of the boy who had thus passed the censorship? What a revelation of adventure was open to him. Perhaps he would skip the “preachy” parts in which Borrow was doubtless sincere, although the sincerity has so uncertain a ring to-day. Here are five passages, for example, which do not seem to belong to the book:
In whatever part of the world I, a poor wanderer in the Gospel’s cause, may chance to be
very possibly the fate of St. Stephen might overtake me; but does the man deserve the name of a follower of Christ who would shrink from danger of any kind in the cause of Him whom he calls his Master? “He who loses his life for my sake shall find it,” are words which the Lord Himself uttered. These words were fraught with consolation to me, as they doubtless are to every one engaged in propagating the Gospel, in sincerity of heart, in savage and barbarian lands.
Unhappy land! not until the pure light of the Gospel has illumined thee, wilt thou learn that the greatest of all gifts is charity!
and I thought that to convey the Gospel to a place so wild and remote might perhaps be considered an acceptable pilgrimage in the eyes of my Maker. True it is that but one copy remained of those which I had brought with me on this last journey; but this reflection, far from discouraging me in my projected enterprise, produced the contrary effect, as I called to mind that, ever since the Lord revealed Himself to man, it has seemed good to Him to accomplish the greatest ends by apparently the most insufficient means; and I reflected that this one copy might serve as an instrument for more good than the four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine copies of the edition of Madrid.
I shall not detain the course of my narrative with reflections as to the state of a Church which, though it pretends to be founded on scripture, would yet keep the light of scripture from all mankind, if possible. But Rome is fully aware that she is not a Christian Church, and having no desire to become so, she acts prudently in keeping from the eyes of her followers the page which would reveal to them the truths of Christianity.
All this does not ring quite true, and in any case it is too much on the lines of “Sunday reading” to please the small boy, who must, however, have found a thousand things in that volume that were to his taste—some of the wildest adventures, hairbreadth escapes, extraordinary meetings again and again with unique people—with Benedict Mol, for example, who was always seeking for treasure. Gypsies, bull-fighters, quaint and queer characters of every kind, come before us in rapid succession. Rarely, surely, have so many adventures been crowded into the same number of pages. Only when Borrow remembers, as he has to do occasionally, that he is an agent of the Bible Society does the book lose its vigour and its charm. We have already pointed out that the foundations of the volume were contained in certain letters written by Borrow during his five years in Spain to the secretaries of the Bible Society in London. The recent publication of these letters has revealed to us Borrow’s methods. When he had settled down at Oulton he took down his notebooks, one of which is before me, but finding this was not sufficient, he asked the Bible Society for the loan of his letters to them. Other letters that he hoped to use were not forthcoming, as the following note from Miss Gurney to Mrs. Borrow indicates:
To Mrs. George Borrow
Earlham, 12th June, 1840.
Dear Mrs. Borrow,—I am sorry I cannot find any of Mr. Borrow’s letters from Spain. I don’t think we ever had any, but my brother is from home and I therefore cannot inquire of him.
I send you the only two I can find. I am very glad he is going to publish his travels, which I have no doubt will be very interesting. It must be a pleasant object to assist him by copying the manuscripts. If I should visit Lowestoft this summer I shall hope to see you, but I have no immediate prospect of doing so. With kind regards to all your party, I am, Dear Mrs. Borrow, Yours sincerely,
C. Gurney. [155]
The Bible Society, applied to in the same manner, lent Borrow all his letters to that organisation and its secretaries.
Not all were returned. Many came to Dr. Knapp when he purchased the half of the Borrow papers that were sold after Borrow’s death; the remainder are in my possession.
It is a nice point, seventy years after they were written, as to whom they belong. In any case the Bible Society must have kept copies of everything, for when, in 1911, they came to publish the Letters the collection was sufficiently complete. That publication revealed some interesting sidelights. It proved on the one hand that Borrow had drawn more upon his diaries than upon his letters, although he frequently reproduced fragments of his diaries in his letters. It revealed further the extraordinary frankness with which Borrow wrote to his employers. It is true that it further reveals the manner in which he throws a sop of godliness to the worthy secretaries. But the main point is in the discovery revealed to us that Borrow was not an artist in his letters. Borrow was never a good letter writer, although I think that many of the letters that appear for the first time in these pages will prove that his letters are very interesting as contributions to biography. If some of the letters that helped to make up The Bible in Spain are interesting, it is because in them Borrow incorporated considerable fragments of anecdote and adventure from his note-books. It is quite a mistake to assume, as does Dr. Knapp, that the “Rev. and Dear Sir” at the head of a letter was the only variation. You will look in vain in the Bible Society correspondence for many a pearl that is contained in The Bible in Spain, and happily you will look in vain in The Bible in Spain for many an unctuous sentence which concludes some of the original letters. In one case, indeed, a letter concludes with Heber’s hymn—
“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,”
with which Borrow’s correspondent must already have been sufficiently familiar. But Borrow could not be other than Borrow, and the secretaries of the Bible Society had plentiful matter with which to astonish them. The finished production, however, is a fascinating book. You read it again and it becomes still more entertaining. No wonder that it took the world by storm and made its author the lion of a season. “A queer book will be this same Bible in Spain,” wrote Borrow to John Murray in August, 1841, “containing all my queer adventures in that queer country . . . it will make two nice foolscap octavo volumes.” It actually made three volumes, and Borrow was as irritated at Mr. Murray’s delay in publishing as that publisher afterwards became at Borrow’s own delay over Lavengro. The whole book was laboriously copied out by Mrs. Borrow. When this copy was sent to Mr. Murray, it was submitted to his “reader,” who reported “numerous faults in spelling and some in grammar,” to which criticism Borrow retorted that the copy was the work of “a country amanuensis.” The book was published in December, 1842, but has the date 1843 on its title-page. In its three-volumed form 4750 copies of the book were issued by July, 1843, after which countless copies were sold in cheaper one-volumed form. Success had at last come to Borrow. He was one of the most talked-of writers of the day. His elation may be demonstrated by his discussion with Dawson Turner as to whether he should leave the manuscript of The Bible in Spain to the Dean and Chapter’s Library at Norwich or to the British Museum, by his gratification at the fact that Sir Robert Peel referred to his book in the House of Commons, and by his pleasure in the many appreciative reviews which, indeed, were for the most part all that an ambitious author could desire. “Never,” said The Examiner, “was book more legibly impressed with the unmistakable mark of genius.” “There is no taking leave of a book like this,” said the Athenæum. “Better Christmas fare we have never had it in our power to offer our readers.”
The publication of The Bible in Spain made Borrow famous for a time. Hitherto he had been known only to a small religious community, the coterie that ran the Bible Society. Even the large mass of people who subscribed to that Society knew its agent in Spain only by meagre allusions in the Annual Reports. Now the world was to talk about him, and he enjoyed being talked about. Borrow declared—in 1842—that the five years he passed in Spain were the most happy years of his existence. But then he had not had a happy life during the previous years, as we have seen, and in Russia he had a toilsome task with an added element of uncertainty as to the permanence of his position. The five years in Spain had plentiful adventure, and they closed in a pleasant manner. Yet the year that followed, even though it found him almost a country squire, was not a happy one. Once again the world did not want him and his books—not the Gypsies of Spain for example. Seven weeks after publication it had sold only to the extent of some three hundred copies. But the happiest year of Borrow’s life was undoubtedly the one that followed the publication of The Bible in Spain. Up to that time he had been a mere adventurer; now he was that most joyous of beings—a successful author; and here, from among his Papers, is a carefully preserved relic of his social triumph:
To George Borrow, Esq., at Mr. Murray’s,
Bookseller, Albemarle Street
4 Carlton Terrace, Tuesday, 30th May.
The Prussian Minister and Madam Bunsen would be very happy to see Mr. Borrow to-morrow, Wednesday evening, about half past nine o’clock or later, when some German national songs will be performed at their house, which may possibly suit Mr. Borrow’s taste. They hoped to have met him last night at the Bishop of Norwich’s, but arrived there too late. They had already commissioned Lady Hall (sister to Madam Bunsen) to express to Mr. Borrow their wish for his acquaintance.
In a letter to his wife he writes of this visit to the Prussian Minister, where he had for company “Princes and Members of Parliament.” “I was the star of the evening,” he says; “I thought to myself, ‘what a difference!’” There is an independent version of the function in the Annals of the Harford Family, where a correspondent writes:
There was present the amusing author of The Bible in Spain, a man who is remarkable for his extraordinary powers as a linguist, and for the originality of his character, not to speak of the wonderful adventures he narrates, and the ease and facility with which he tells them. He kept us laughing a good part of breakfast time by the oddity of his remarks, as well as the positiveness of his assertions, often rather startling, and, like his books, partaking of the marvellous.
Borrow’s next letter to his wife is more chastened:
To Mrs. George Borrow, Oulton, Suffolk
Wednesday, 58 Jermyn Street.
Dear Carreta,—I was glad to receive your letter; I half expected one on Tuesday. I am, on the whole, very comfortable, and people are kind. I passed last Sunday at Clapham with Mrs. Browne; I was glad to go there for it was a gloomy day. They are now glad enough to ask me: I suppose I must stay in London through next week. I have an invitation to two grand parties, and it is as well to have something for one’s money. I called at the Bible Society—all remarkably civil, Joseph especially so. I think I shall be able to manage with my own Dictionary. There is now a great demand for Morrison. Yesterday I again dined at the Murrays. There was a family party; very pleasant. To-morrow I dine with an old school-fellow. Murray is talking of printing a new edition to sell for five shillings: those rascals, the Americans, have, it seems, reprinted it, and are selling it for eighteen pence. Murray says he shall print ten thousand copies; it is chiefly wanted for the Colonies. He says the rich people and the libraries have already got it, and he is quite right, for nearly three thousand copies have been sold at 27s. [159] There is no longer the high profit to be made on books there formerly was, as the rascals abroad pirate the good ones, and in the present state of copyright there is no help; we can, however, keep the American edition out of the Colonies, which is something. I have nothing more to say save to commend you not to go on the water without me; perhaps you would be overset; and do not go on the bridge again till I come. Take care of Habismilk and Craffs; kiss the little mare and old Hen.
George Borrow.
The earliest literary efforts of Borrow in Spain were his two translations of St. Luke’s Gospel—the one into Romany, the other into Basque. This last book he did not actually translate himself, but procured “from a Basque physician of the name of Oteiza.”
The most distinguished of Borrow’s friends in the years that succeeded his return from Spain was Richard Ford, whose interests were so largely wrapped up in the story of that country. Ford was possessed of a very interesting personality, which was not revealed to the public until Mr. Rowland E. Prothero issued his excellent biography in 1905, although Ford died in 1858. This delay is the more astonishing as Ford’s Handbook for Travellers in Spain was one of the most famous books of its day. Ford’s father, Sir Richard Ford, was a friend of William Pitt, and twice sat in Parliament, being at one time Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. He ended his official career as a police magistrate at Bow Street, but deserves to be better known to fame as the creator of the mounted police force of London. Ford was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, inheriting a fortune from his father, and from his mother an extraordinary taste for art. Although called to the Bar he never practised, but spent his time in travelling on the Continent, building up a valuable collection of books and paintings. He was three times married, and all these unions seem to have been happy, in spite of an almost unpleasant celerity in the second alliance, which took place nine months after the death of his first wife. A very large portion of his life he devoted to Spain, which he knew so intimately that in 1845 he produced that remarkable Handbook in two closely printed volumes, a most repellent-looking book in appearance to those who are used to contemporary typography, usually so attractive. Ford, in fact, was so full of his subject that instead of a handbook he wrote a work which ought to have appeared in half a dozen volumes. In later editions the book was condensed into one of Mr. Murray’s usual guide-books, but the curious may still enjoy the work in its earliest form, so rich in discussions of the Spanish people, their art and architecture, their history and their habits. The greater part of the letters in Mr. Prothero’s collection are addressed to Addington, who was our ambassador to Madrid for some years, until he was superseded by George Villiers, Lord Clarendon, with whom Borrow came so much in contact. Those letters reveal a remarkably cultivated mind and an interesting outlook on life, an outlook that was always intensely anti-democratic. It is impossible to sympathise with him in his brutal reference to the execution by the Spaniards of Robert Boyd, a young Irishman who was captured with Torrijos by the Spanish Government in 1831. Richard Ford apparently left Spain very shortly before George Borrow entered that country. Ford passed through Madrid on his way to England in September, 1833. He then settled near Exeter, purchasing an Elizabethan cottage called Heavitree House, with twelve acres of land, and devoted himself to turning it into a beautiful mansion. Presumably he first met Borrow in Mr. John Murray’s famous drawing-room soon after the publication of The Gypsies in Spain. He tells Addington, indeed, in a letter of 14th January, 1841:
I have made acquaintance with an extraordinary fellow, George Borrow, who went out to Spain to convert the gypsies. He is about to publish his failure, and a curious book it will be. It was submitted to my perusal by the hesitating Murray.
Ford’s article upon Borrow’s book appeared in The British and Foreign Review, and Ford was delighted that the book had created a sensation, and that he had given sound advice as to publishing the manuscript. When The Bible in Spain was ready, Ford was one of the first to read it. Then he wrote to John Murray:
I read Borrow with great delight all the way down per rail. You may depend upon it that the book will sell, which after all is the rub.
And in that letter Ford describes the book as putting him in mind of Gil Blas with “a touch of Bunyan.” Lockhart himself reviewed the book in The Quarterly, so Ford had to go to the rival organ—The Edinburgh Review—receiving £44 for the article, which sum, he tells us, he invested in Château Margaux.
Ford’s first letter to Borrow in my collection is written in Spanish, but I content myself with giving only a translation:
To George Borrow, Esq., Oulton Hall, Lowestoft
(Translated from the Spanish)Heavitree House, Exeter, Jan. 19, 1842.
Dear Friend,—I was glad to hear from you of the successful termination of your literary work. Fancy those rogues of Zincali! They have managed to make good money—I always thought Messrs. M. very decent people, it usually happens that those who have much to do with good class of people become themselves somewhat large-minded and liberal. You must admit that I am a model critic, and that I cry, “Luck to the Books.” Full well do I know how you thank the most noble and illustrious public! Go ahead, therefore, and leave nothing forgotten in the ink-pot; but by all that is holy, shun the Spanish historians, who are liars and fools! I regret very much that you should have left London; I leave here on Saturday with the intention of paying a visit of about three weeks to the maternal home, as is my custom in the month of the Christmas boxes. Very much would I have liked to see you and discuss with you about things of Spain and other gypsy lore and fancy topics, but of which at present nothing do I understand. I shall not fail to take with me the papers and documents which you kindly sent me to Cheltenham. I will make them into a parcel and leave them with Messrs. Murray, so that you can send for them whenever you like. I shall do my best to penetrate those mysteries and that strange people. Mr. Murray, junior, writes in a pleased tone respecting The Bible in Spain. I should like to write an article on a subject so full of interest. Possibly my article on the gypsies will appear in the next number, and in such case it will prove more useful to you than if it appeared now. The life and memory of reviews are very short. They appear like butterflies, and die in a day. The dead and the departed have no friends. The living to the feast, the dead to the grave. No sooner does a new number appear than the last one is already forgotten and joins the things of the past. What do you think? At a party recently in which a drawing was held, I drew the Krallis de los Zincali. I beg to enclose the table (or index) for your Majesty’s guidance; really, I must have in my veins a few drops of the genuine wanderer. Mr. Gagargos has been just appointed Spanish Consul in Tunis, where he will not lack means for progressing in the Arabic language and literature.—Yours, in all friendliness,
Richard Ford.
Here is a second letter of the following month:
February 26th, Heavitree House, Exeter.
Batuschca Borrow,—I am glad that the paper pleased you, and I think it calculated to promote the sale, which a too copious extracting article does not always do, as people think that they have had the cream. Napier sent me £44 for the thirty-two pages; this, with Kemble’s £50, 8s. for the Zincali, nearly reaches £100: I lay it out in claret, being not amiss to do in the world, and richer by many hundreds a year than last year, but with a son at Eton and daughters coming out, and an overgrown set of servants, money is never to be despised, and I find that expenditure by some infernal principle has a greater tendency to increase than income, and that when the latter increases it never does so in the ratio of the former—enough of that. How to write an article without being condensed—epigrammatical and epitomical cream-skimming that is—I know not, one has so much to say and so little space to say it in.
I rejoice to hear of your meditated biography; really I am your wet nurse, and you ought to dedicate it to me; take time, but not too much; avoid, all attempts to write fine; just dash down the first genuine uppouring idea and thoughts in the plainest language and that which comes first, and then fine it and compress it. Let us have a glossary; for people cry out for a Dragoman, and half your local gusto evaporates.
I am amazed at the want of profits—’tis sad to think what meagre profits spring from pen and ink; but Cervantes died a beggar and is immortal. It is the devil who comes into the market with ready money: No solvendum in futuro: I well know that it is cash down which makes the mare to go; dollars will add spurs even to the Prince of Mustard’s paces.
It is a bore not receiving even the crumbs which drop from such tables as those spread by Mr. Eyre: Murray, however, is a deep cove, y muy pratico en cosas de libreteria: and he knew that the first out about Afghan would sell prodigiously. I doubt now if Lady Sale would now be such a general Sale. Murray builds solid castles in Eyre. Los de España rezalo bene de ser siempre muy Cosas de España: Cachaza! Cachaza! firme, firme! Arriba! no dejei nada en el tintero; basta que sea nuevo y muy piquunte cor sal y ajo: a los Ingleses le gustan mucho las Longanizas de Abarbenel y los buenos Choriyos de Montanches:
El handbook sa her concluido jeriayer: abora principia el trabajo: Tengo benho un monton de papel acombroso. El menester reducirlo a la mitad y eso so hara castratandolo de lo bueno duro y particolar a romperse el alma:
I had nothing to do whatever with the manner in which the handbook puff was affixed to your book. I wrote the said paper, but concluded that Murray would put it, as usual, in the flyleaf of the book, as he does in his others, and the Q. Rev.
Sabe mucho el hijo—ha imaginado altacar mi obresilla al flejo de vuestra immortalidad y lo que le toca de corazon, facilitarsele la venta.
Yo no tengo nada en eso y quedé tanalustado amo Vm a la primera vista de aquella hoja volante. Conque Mantengare Vm bueno y alegre y mande Vm siempre, a S: S: S: y buen Critico, L: I: M: B.,
R. F.
During these years—1843 and onwards—Borrow was regularly corresponding with Ford, as we learn from Ford’s own words:—
Borrow writes me word that his Life is nearly ready, and it will run the Bible hull down. If he tells truth it will be a queer thing. I shall review it for The Edinburgh.
To George Borrow, Esq., Oulton Hall, Lowestoft
123 Park Mansions, Thursday, April 13, 1843.
Batuschca B.,—Knowing that you seldom see a newspaper I send you one in which Peel speaks very handsomely of your labour. Such a public testimonial is a good puff, and I hope will attract purchasers.—Sincerely yours,
R. F.
This refers to a speech of Peel’s in the House of Commons, in which in reply to a very trivial question by Dr. Bowring, then M.P. for Bolton, upon the subject of the correspondence of the British Government with Turkey, the great statesman urged:
It might have been said to Mr. Borrow, with respect to Spain, that it would be impossible to distribute the Bible in that country in consequence of the danger of offending the prejudices which prevail there; yet he, a private individual, by showing some zeal in what he believed to be right, succeeded in triumphing over many obstacles. [164]
Borrow was elated with the compliment, and asked Mr. Murray two months later if he could not advertise the eulogium with one of his books.
In June, 1844, while the Handbook for Travellers in Spain was going to press, Ford went on a visit to Borrow at Oulton Hall, and describes the pair as “two rum coves in a queer country”; and further gives one of the best descriptions of the place:
His house hangs over a lonely lake covered with wild fowl, and is girt with dark firs through which the wind sighs sadly.
When the Handbook for Travellers in Spain was published in 1845 it was agreed that Borrow should write the review for The Quarterly. Instead of writing a review Borrow, possessed by that tactlessness which so frequently overcame him, wrote an article on “Spain and the Spaniards,” very largely of abuse, an absolutely useless production from the point of view of Ford the author, and of Lockhart, his editor friend. Borrow never forgave Lockhart for returning this manuscript, but that it had no effect on Ford’s friendship is shown by the letter on p. 167, dated 1846, written long after the unfortunate episode, and another in Dr. Knapp’s Life, dated 1851.
To Mrs. Borrow, Oulton Hall, Lowestoft
Oct. 6, 1844, Cheltenham.
My dear Madam,—I trouble you with a line to say that I have received a letter from Don Jorge, from Constantinople. He evidently is now anxious to be quietly back again on the banks of your peaceful lake; he speaks favourably of his health, which has been braced up by change of air, scenery, and occupations, so I hope he will get through next winter without any bronchitis, and go on with his own biography.
He asks me when Handbook will be done? Please to tell him that it is done and printing, but that it runs double the length which was contemplated: however, it will be a queer book, and tell him that we reserve it until his return to review it. I am now on the point of quitting this pretty place and making for my home at Hevitre, where we trust to arrive next Thursday.
Present my best compliments to your mother, and believe me, your faithful and obedient servant,
Rch. Ford.
When you write to Don Jorge thank him for his letter.