To George Borrow, Esq.
Bath House, Lowestoft, October 10/59.
Dear Borrow,—This time last year I was here and wrote to ask about you. You were gone to Scotland. Well, where are you now? As I also said last year: “If you be in Yarmouth and have any mind to see me I will go over some day; or here I am if you will come here. And I am quite alone. As it is I would bus it to Yarmouth but I don’t know if you and yours be there at all, nor if there, whereabout. If I don’t hear at all I shall suppose you are not there, on one of your excursions, or not wanting to be rooted out; a condition I too well understand. I was at Gorleston some months ago for some while; just after losing my greatest friend, the Bedfordshire lad who was crushed to death, coming home from hunting, his horse falling on him. He survived indeed two months, and I had been to bid him eternal adieu, so had no appetite for anything but rest—rest—rest. I have just seen his widow off from here. With kind regards to the ladies, Yours very truly,
Edward FitzGerald.
In a letter to George Crabbe the third, and the grandson of the poet, in 1862, FitzGerald tells him that he has just been reading Borrow’s Wild Wales, “which I like well because I can hear him talking it. But I don’t know if others will like it.” “No one writes better English than Borrow in general,” he says. But FitzGerald, as a lover of style, is vexed with some of Borrow’s phrases, and instances one: “‘The scenery was beautiful to a degree.’ What degree? When did this vile phrase arise?” The criticism is just, but Borrow, in common with many other great English authors whose work will live, was not uniformly a good stylist. He has many lamentable fallings away from the ideals of the stylist. But he will, by virtue of a wonderful individuality, outlive many a good stylist. His four great books are immortal, and one of them is Wild Wales.
We have a glimpse of FitzGerald in the following letter in my possession, by the friend who had introduced him to Borrow, William Bodham Donne:
To George Borrow, Esq.
40 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W.,
November 28/62.My dear Borrow,—Many thanks for the copy of Wild Wales reserved for and sent to me by Mr. R. Cooke. Before this copy arrived I had obtained one from the London Library and read it through, not exactly stans pede in uno, but certainly almost at a stretch. I could not indeed lay it down, it interested me so much. It is one of the very best records of home travel, if indeed so strange a country as Wales is can properly be called home, I have ever met with.
Immediately on closing the third volume I secured a few pages in Fraser’s Magazine for Wild Wales, for though you do not stand in need of my aid, yet my notice will not do you a mischief, and some of the reviewers of Lavengro were, I recollect, shocking blockheads, misinterpreting the letter and misconceiving the spirit of that work. I have, since we met in Burlington Arcade, been on a visit to FitzGerald. He is in better spirits by far than when I saw him about the same time in last year. He has his pictures and his chattels about him, and has picked up some acquaintance among the merchants and mariners of Woodbridge, who, although far below his level, are yet better company than the two old skippers he was consorting with in 1861. They—his present friends—came in of an evening, and sat and drank and talked, and I enjoyed their talk very much, since they discussed of what they understood, which is more than I can say generally of the fine folks I occasionally (very occasionally now) meet in London. I should have said more about your book, only I wish to keep it for print: and you don’t need to be told by me that it is very good.—With best regards to Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke, I am, yours ever truly,
W. B. Donne.
The last letter from FitzGerald to Borrow is dated many years after the correspondence I have here printed. From it we gather that there had been no correspondence in the interval. FitzGerald writes from Little Grange, Woodbridge, in January, 1875, to say that he had received a message from Borrow that he would be glad to see him at Oulton. “I think the more of it,” says FitzGerald, “because I imagine, from what I have heard, that you have slunk away from human company as much as I have.” He hints that they might not like one another so well after a fifteen years’ separation. He declares with infinite pathos that he has now severed himself from all old ties, has refused the invitations of old college friends and old school-fellows. To him there was no companionship possible for his declining days other than his reflections and verses. It is a fine letter, filled with that graciousness of spirit that was ever a trait in FitzGerald’s noble nature. The two men never met again. Borrow died in 1881, FitzGerald two years later.
The year 1854 was an adventurous one in Borrow’s life, for he, so essentially a Celt, had in that year two interesting experiences of the “Celtic Fringe.” He spent the first months of the year in Cornwall, as we have seen, and from July to November he was in Wales. That tour he recorded in pencilled note-books, four of which are in the Knapp Collection in New York, and are duly referred to in Dr. Knapp’s biography, and two of which are in my possession. In addition to this I have the complete manuscript of Wild Wales in Borrow’s handwriting, and many variants of it in countless, carefully written pages. Therein lie the possibilities of a singularly interesting edition of Wild Wales should opportunity offer for its publication. When I examine the manuscript, with its demonstration of careful preparation, I do not wonder that it took Borrow eight years—from 1854 to 1862—to prepare this book for the press. Assuredly we recognise here, as in all his books, that he realised Carlyle’s definition of genius—“the transcendent capacity of taking trouble—first of all.”
It was on 27th July, 1854, that Borrow, his wife and her daughter, Henrietta Clarke, set out on their journey to North Wales. Dr. Knapp prints two kindly letters from Mrs. Borrow to her mother-in-law written from Llangollen on this tour. “We are in a lovely quiet spot,” she writes, “Dear George goes out exploring the mountains. . . . The poor here are humble, simple, and good.” In the second letter Mrs. Borrow records that her husband “keeps a daily journal of all that goes on, so that he can make a most amusing book in a month.” Yet Borrow took eight years to make it. The failure of The Romany Rye, which was due for publication before Wild Wales, accounts for this, and perhaps also the disappointment that another book, long since ready, did not find a publisher. In the letter from which I have quoted Mary Borrow tells Anne Borrow that her son will, she expects at Christmas, publish The Romany Rye, “together with his poetry in all the European languages.” This last book had been on his hands for many a day, and indeed in Wild Wales he writes of “a mountain of unpublished translations” of which this book, duly advertised in The Romany Rye, was a part.
After an ascent of Snowdon arm in arm with Henrietta, Mrs. Borrow remaining behind, Borrow left his wife and daughter to find their way back to Yarmouth, and continued his journey, all of which is most picturesquely described in Wild Wales. Before that book was published, however, Borrow was to visit the Isle of Man, Scotland, and Ireland. He was to publish The Romany Rye (1857); to see his mother die (1858); and to issue his very limited edition of The Sleeping Bard (1860); and, lastly, to remove to Brompton (1860). It was at the end of the year 1862 that Wild Wales was published. It had been written during the two years immediately following the tour in Wales, in 1855 and 1856. It had been announced as ready for publication in 1857, but doubtless the chilly reception of The Romany Rye in that year, of which we have written, had made Borrow lukewarm as to venturing once more before the public. The public was again irresponsive. The Cornhill Magazine, then edited by Thackeray, declared the book to be “tiresome reading.” The Spectator reviewer was more kindly, but nowhere was there any enthusiasm. Only a thousand copies were sold, and a second edition did not appear until 1865, and not another until seven years after Borrow’s death. Yet the author had the encouragement that comes from kindly correspondents. Here, for example, is a letter that could not but have pleased him:
West Hill Lodge, Highgate,
Dec. 29th, 1862.Dear Sir,—We have had a great Christmas pleasure this year—the reading of your Wild Wales, which has taken us so deliciously into the lovely fresh scenery and life of that pleasant mountain-land. My husband and myself made a little walking tour over some of your ground in North Wales this year; my daughter and her uncle, Richard Howitt, did the same; and we have been ourselves collecting material for a work, the scenes of which will be laid amidst some of our and your favourite mountains. But the object of my writing was not to tell you this; but after assuring you of the pleasure your work has given us—to say also that in one respect it has tantalised us. You have told over and over again to fascinated audiences, Lope de Vega’s ghost story, but still leave the poor reader at the end of the book longing to hear it in vain.
May I ask you, therefore, to inform us in which of Lope de Vega’s numerous works this same ghost story is to be found? We like ghost stories, and to a certain extent believe in them, we deserve therefore to know the best ghost story in the world.
Wishing for you, your wife and your Henrietta, all the compliments of the season in the best and truest sense of expression.—I am, dear sir, yours sincerely,
Mary Howitt.
The reference to Lope de Vega’s ghost story is due to the fact that in the fifty-fifth chapter of Wild Wales, Borrow, after declaring that Lope de Vega was “one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived,” added, that among his tales may be found “the best ghost story in the world.” Dr. Knapp found the story in Borrow’s handwriting among the manuscripts that came to him, and gives it in full. In good truth it is but moderately interesting, although Borrow seems to have told it to many audiences when in Wales, but this perhaps provides the humour of the situation. It seems clear that Borrow contemplated publishing Lope de Vega’s ghost story in a later book. We note here, indeed, a letter of a much later date in which Borrow refers to the possibility of a supplement to Wild Wales, the only suggestion of such a book that I have seen, although there is plenty of new manuscript in my Borrow collection to have made such a book possible had Borrow been encouraged by his publisher and the public to write it.
To J. Evan Williams, Esq.
22 Hereford Square, Brompton, Decr. 31, 1863.
Dear Sir,—I have received your letter and thank you for the kind manner in which you are pleased to express yourself concerning me. Now for your questions. With respect to Lope De Vega’s ghost story, I beg to say that I am thinking of publishing a supplement to my Wild Wales in which, amongst other things, I shall give a full account of the tale and point out where it is to be found. You cannot imagine the number of letters I receive on the subject of that ghost story. With regard to the Sclavonian languages, I wish to observe that they are all well deserving of study. The Servian and Bohemian contain a great many old traditionary songs, and the latter possesses a curious though not very extensive prose literature. The Polish has, I may say, been rendered immortal by the writings of Mickiewicz, whose ‘Conrad Wallenrod’ is probably the most remarkable poem of the present century. The Russian, however, is the most important of all the Sclavonian tongues, not on account of its literature but because it is spoken by fifty millions of people, it being the dominant speech from the Gulf of Finland to the frontiers of China. There is a remarkable similarity both in sound and sense between many Russian and Welsh words, for example “tcheló” is the Russian for forehead, “tal” is Welsh for the same; “iasnüy” (neuter “iasnoe”) is the Russian for clear or radiant, “iesin” the Welsh, so that if it were grammatical in Russian to place the adjective after the noun as is the custom in Welsh, the Welsh compound “Taliesin” (Radiant forehead) might be rendered in Russian by “Tchelōiasnoe,” which would be wondrously like the Welsh name; unfortunately, however, Russian grammar would compel any one wishing to Russianise “Taliesin” to say not “Tchelōiasnoe” but “Iasnoetchelō.”—Yours truly,
George Borrow.
Another letter that Borrow owed to his Wild Wales may well have place here. It will be recalled that in his fortieth chapter he waxes enthusiastic over Lewis Morris, the Welsh bard, who was born in Anglesey in 1700 and died in 1765. Morris’s great-grandson, Sir Lewis Morris (1833–1907), the author of the once popular Epic of Hades, was twenty-nine years of age when he wrote to Borrow as follows:—
To George Borrow, Esq.
Reform Club. Dec. 29, 1862.
Sir,—I have just finished reading your work on Wild Wales, and cannot refrain from writing to thank you for the very lifelike picture of the Welsh people, North and South, which, unlike other Englishmen, you have managed to give us. To ordinary Englishmen the language is of course an insurmountable bar to any real knowledge of the people, and the result is that within six hours of Paddington or Euston Square is a country nibbled at superficially by droves of holiday-makers, but not really better known than Asia Minor. I wish it were possible to get rid of all obstacles which stand in the way of the development of the Welsh people and the Welsh intellect. In the meantime every book which like yours tends to lighten the thick darkness which seems to hang round Wales deserves the acknowledgments of every true Welshman. I am, perhaps, more especially called upon to express my thanks for the very high terms in which you speak of my great-grandfather, Lewis Morris. I believe you have not said a word more than he deserves. Some of the facts which you mention with regard to him were unknown to me, and as I take a very great interest in everything relating to my ancestor I venture to ask you whether you can indicate any source of knowledge with regard to him and his wife, other than those which I have at present—viz., an old number of the Cambrian Register and some notices of him in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1760–70. There is also a letter of his in Lord Teignmouth’s Life of Sir William Jones in which he claims kindred with that great scholar. Many of his manuscript poems and much correspondence are now in the library of the British Museum, most of them I regret to say a sealed book to one who like myself had yet to learn Welsh. But I am not the less anxious to learn all that can be ascertained about my great ancestor. I should say that two of his brothers, Richard and William, were eminent Welsh scholars.
With apologies for addressing you so unceremoniously, and with renewed thanks, I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Lewis Morris.
An interesting letter to Borrow from another once popular writer belongs to this period:
To George Borrow, Esq.
The “Press” Office, Strand,
Westminster, Thursday.One who has read and delighted in everything Mr. Borrow has yet published ventures to say how great has been his delight in reading Wild Wales. No philologist or linguist, I am yet an untiring walker and versifier: and really I think that few things are pleasanter than to walk and to versify. Also, well do I love good ale, natural drink of the English. If I could envy anything, it is your linguistic faculty, which unlocks to you the hearts of the unknown races of these islands—unknown, I mean, as to their real feelings and habits, to ordinary Englishmen—and your still higher faculty of describing your adventures in the purest and raciest English of the day. I send you a Danish daily journal, which you may not have seen. Once a week it issues articles in English. How beautiful (but of course not new to you) is the legend of Queen Dagmar, given in this number! A noble race, the Danes: glad am I to see their blood about to refresh that which runs in the royal veins of England. Sorry and ashamed to see a Russell bullying and insulting them.
Mortimer Collins.
How greatly Borrow was disappointed at the comparative failure of Wild Wales may be gathered from a curt message to his publisher which I find among his papers:
Mr. Borrow has been applied to by a country bookseller, who is desirous of knowing why there is not another edition of Wild Wales, as he cannot procure a copy of the book, for which he receives frequent orders. That it was not published in a cheap form as soon as the edition of 1862 was exhausted has caused much surprise.
Borrow, it will be remembered, left Wales at Chepstow, as recorded in the hundred and ninth and final chapter of Wild Wales, “where I purchased a first class ticket, and ensconcing myself in a comfortable carriage, was soon on my way to London, where I arrived at about four o’clock in the morning.” In the following letter to his wife there is a slight discrepancy, of no importance, as to time:
To Mrs. George Borrow
53a Pall Mall, London.
Dear Wife Carreta,—I arrived here about five o’clock this morning—time I saw you. I have walked about 250 miles. I walked the whole way from the North to the South—then turning to the East traversed Glamorganshire and the county of Monmouth, and came out at Chepstow. My boots were worn up by the time I reached Swansea, and was obliged to get them new soled and welted. I have seen wonderful mountains, waterfalls, and people. On the other side of the Black Mountains I met a cartload of gypsies; they were in a dreadful rage and were abusing the country right and left. My last ninety miles proved not very comfortable, there was so much rain. Pray let me have some money by Monday as I am nearly without any, as you may well suppose, for I was three weeks on my journey. I left you on a Thursday, and reached Chepstow yesterday, Thursday, evening. I hope you, my mother, and Hen. are well. I have seen Murray and Cooke.—God bless you, yours,
George Borrow.
(Keep this.)
Before Borrow put the finishing touches to Wild Wales he repeated his visit of 1854. This was in 1857, the year of The Romany Rye. Dr. Knapp records the fact through a letter to Mr. John Murray from Shrewsbury, in which he discusses the possibility of a second edition of The Romany Rye: “I have lately been taking a walk in Wales of upwards of five hundred miles,” he writes. This tour lasted from August 23rd to October 5th. I find four letters to his wife that were written in this holiday. He does not seem to have made any use of this second tour in his Wild Wales, although I have abundance of manuscript notes upon it in my possession.
To Mrs. George Borrow
Tenby, Tuesday, 25.
My dear Carreta,—Since writing to you I have been rather unwell and was obliged to remain two days at Sandypool. The weather has been horribly hot and affected my head and likewise my sight slightly; moreover one of the shoes hurt my foot. I came to this place to-day and shall presently leave it for Pembroke on my way back, I shall write to you from there. I shall return by Cardigan. What I want you to do is to write to me directed to the post office, Cardigan (in Cardiganshire), and either inclose a post office order for five pounds or an order from Lloyd and Co. on the banker of that place for the same sum; but at any rate write or I shall not know what to do. I would return by railroad, but in that event I must go to London, for there are no railroads from here to Shrewsbury. I wish moreover to see a little more. Just speak to the banker and don’t lose any time. Send letter, and either order in it, or say that I can get it at the bankers. I hope all is well. God bless you and Hen.
George Borrow.
To Mrs. George Borrow
Trecastle, Brecknockshire,
South Wales, August 17th.Dear Carreta,—I write to you a few words from this place; to-morrow I am going to Llandovery and from there to Carmarthen; for the first three or four days I had dreadful weather. I got only to Worthen the first day, twelve miles—on the next to Montgomery, and so on. It is now very hot, but I am very well, much better than at Shrewsbury. I hope in a few days to write to you again, and soon to be back to you. God bless you and Hen.
G. Borrow.
To Mrs. George Borrow
Lampeter, 3rd September 1857.
My dear Carreta,—I am making the best of my way to Shrewsbury (My face is turned towards Mama). I write this from Lampeter, where there is a college for educating clergymen intended for Wales, which I am going to see. I shall then start for Radnor by Tregaron, and hope soon to be in England. I have seen an enormous deal since I have been away, and have walked several hundred miles. Amongst other places I have seen St. David’s, a wonderful half ruinous cathedral on the S. Western end of Pembrokeshire, but I shall be glad to get back. God bless you and Hen.
George Borrow.
Henrietta! Do you know who is handsome?
To Mrs. George Borrow
Presteyne, Radnorshire, Monday morning.
Dear Carreta,—I am just going to start for Ludlow, and hope to be at Shrewsbury on Tuesday night if not on Monday morning. God bless you and Hen.
G. Borrow.
When I get back I shall have walked more than 400 miles.
In Wild Wales we have George Borrow in his most genial mood. There are none of the hair-breadth escapes and grim experiences of The Bible in Spain, none of the romance and the glamour of Lavengro and its sequel, but there is good humour, a humour that does not obtain in the three more important works, and there is an amazing amount of frank candour of a biographical kind. We even have a reference to Isopel Berners, referred to by Captain Bosvile as “the young woman you used to keep company with . . . a fine young woman and a virtuous.” It is the happiest of Borrow’s books, and not unnaturally. He was having a genuine holiday, and he had the companionship during a part of it of his wife and daughter, of whom he was, as this book is partly written to prove, very genuinely fond. He also enjoyed the singularly felicitous experience of harking back upon some of his earliest memories. He was able to retrace the steps he took in the Welsh language during his boyhood:
That night I sat up very late reading the life of Twm O’r Nant, written by himself in choice Welsh. . . . The life I had read in my boyhood in an old Welsh magazine, and I now read it again with great zest, and no wonder, as it is probably the most remarkable autobiography ever penned.
It is in this ecstatic mood that he passes through Wales. Let me recall the eulogy on “Gronwy” Owen, and here it may be said that Borrow rarely got his spelling correct of the proper names of his various literary heroes, in the various Norse and Celtic tongues in which he delighted. But how much Borrow delighted in his poets may be seen by his eulogy on Goronwy Owen, which in its pathos recalls Carlyle’s similar eulogies over poor German scholars who interested him, Jean Paul Richter and Heyne, for example. Borrow ignored Owen’s persistent intemperance and general impracticability. Here and here only, indeed, does he remind one of Carlyle. He had a great capacity for hero-worship, although the two were not interested in the same heroes. His hero-worship of Owen took him over large tracks of country in search of that poet’s birthplace. He writes of the delight he takes in inspecting the birth-places and haunts of poets. “It is because I am fond of poetry, poets, and their haunts, that I am come to Anglesey.” “I proceeded on my way,” he says elsewhere, “in high spirits indeed, having now seen not only the tomb of the Tudors, but one of those sober poets for which Anglesey has always been so famous.” And thus it is that Wild Wales is a high-spirited book, which will always be a delight and a joy not only to Welshmen, who, it may be hoped, have by this time forgiven “the ecclesiastical cat” of Llangollen, but to all who rejoice in the great classics of the English tongue.
George Borrow’s earlier visits to London are duly recorded, with that glamour of which he was a master, in the pages of Lavengro. Who can cross London Bridge even to-day without thinking of the apple-woman and her copy of Moll Flanders; and many passages of Borrow’s great book make a very special appeal to the lover of London. Then there was that visit to the Bible Society’s office made on foot from Norwich, and the expedition a few months later to pass an examination in the Manchu language. When he became a country squire and the author of the very successful Bible in Spain Borrow frequently visited London, and his various residences may be traced from his letters. Take, for example, these five notes to his wife, the first apparently written in 1848, but all undated:
To Mrs. George Borrow
Tuesday afternoon.
My dear Wife,—I just write you a line to tell you that I am tolerably well as I hope you are. Every thing is in confusion abroad. The French King has disappeared and will probably never be heard of, though they are expecting him in England. Funds are down nearly to eighty. The Government have given up the income tax and people are very glad of it. I am not. With respect to the funds, if I were to sell out I should not know what to do with the money. J. says they will rise. I do not think they will, they may, however, fluctuate a little.—Keep up your spirits, my heart’s dearest, and kiss old Hen. for me.
G. B.
To Mrs. George Borrow
53a, Pall Mall.
Dear Wife Carreta,—I write you a line as I suppose you will be glad to have one. I dine to-night with Murray and Cooke, and we are going to talk over about The Sleeping Bard; both are very civil. I have been reading hard at the Museum and have lost no time. Yesterday I went to Greenwich to see the Leviathan. It is almost terrible to look at, and seems too large for the river. It resembles a floating town—the paddle is 60 feet high. A tall man can stand up in the funnel as it lies down. ’Tis sad, however, that money is rather scarce. I walked over Blackheath and thought of poor dear Mrs. Watson. I have just had a note from FitzGerald. We have had some rain but not very much. London is very gloomy in rainy weather. I was hoping that I should have a letter from you this morning. I hope you and Hen. have been well.—God bless you.
George Borrow.
To Mrs. George Borrow
Pall Mall, 53a, Saturday.
Dear Carreta,—I am thinking of coming to you on Thursday. I do not know that I can do anything more here, and the dulness of the weather and the mists are making me ill. Please to send another five pound note by Tuesday morning. I have spent scarcely anything of that which you sent except what I owe to Mrs. W., but I wish to have money in my pocket, and Murray and Cooke are going to dine with me on Tuesday; I shall be glad to be with you again, for I am very much in want of your society. I miss very much my walks at Llangollen by the quiet canal; but what’s to be done? Everything seems nearly at a standstill in London, on account of this wretched war, at which it appears to me the English are getting the worst, notwithstanding their boasting. They thought to settle it in an autumn’s day; they little knew the Russians, and they did not reflect that just after autumn comes winter, which has ever been the Russians’ friend. Have you heard anything about the rent of the Cottage? I should have been glad to hear from you this morning. Give my love to Hen. and may God bless you, dear.
George Borrow.
(Keep this.)
To Mrs. George Borrow
No. 53a Pall Mall.
Dear Carreta,—I hope you received my last letter written on Tuesday. I am glad that I came to London. I find myself much the better for having done so. I was going on in a very spiritless manner. Everybody I have met seems very kind and glad to see me. Murray seems to be thoroughly staunch. Cooke, to whom I mentioned the F.T., says that Murray was delighted with the idea, and will be very glad of the 4th of Lavengro. I am going to dine with Murray to-day, Thursday. W. called upon me to-day. I wish you would send me a blank cheque, in a letter so that if I want money I may be able to draw for a little. I shall not be long from home, but now I am here I wish to do all that’s necessary. If you send me a blank cheque, I suppose W. or Murray would give me the money. I hope you got my last letter. I received yours, and Cooke has just sent the two copies of Lavengro you wrote for, and I believe some engravings of the picture. I shall wish to return by the packet if possible, and will let you know when I am coming. I hope to write again shortly to tell you some more news. How is mother and Hen., and how are all the creatures? I hope all well. I trust you like all I propose—now I am here I want to get two or three things, to go to the Museum, and to arrange matters. God bless you. Love to mother and Hen.
George Borrow.
To Mrs. George Borrow
No. 58 Jermyn Street, St. James.
Dear Carreta,—I got here safe, and upon the whole had not so bad a journey as might be expected. I put up at the Spread Eagle for the night for I was tired and hungry; have got into my old lodgings as you see, those on the second floor, they are very nice ones, with every convenience; they are expensive, it is true, but they are cheerful, which is a grand consideration for me. I have as yet seen nobody, for it is only now a little past eleven. I can scarcely at present tell you what my plans are, perhaps to-morrow I shall write again. Kiss Hen., and God bless you.
G. B.
Borrow was in London in 1845 and again in 1848. There must have been other occasional visits on the way to this or that starting point of his annual holiday, but in 1860 Borrow took a house in London, and he resided there until 1874, when he returned to Oulton. In a letter to Mr. John Murray, written from Ireland in November, 1859, Mrs. Borrow writes to the effect that in the spring of the following year she will wish to look round “and select a pleasant holiday residence within three to ten miles of London.” There is no doubt that a succession of winters on Oulton Broad had been very detrimental to Mrs. Borrow’s health, although they had no effect on Borrow, who bathed there with equal indifference in winter as in summer, having, as he tells us in Wild Wales, “always had the health of an elephant.” And so Borrow and his wife arrived in London in June, and took temporary lodgings at 21 Montagu Street, Portman Square. In September they went into occupation of a house in Brompton—22 Hereford Square, which is now commemorated by a County Council tablet. Here Borrow resided for fourteen years, and here his wife died on 30th January, 1869. She was buried in Brompton Cemetery, where Borrow was laid beside her twelve years later. For neighbours on the one side the Borrows had Mr. Robert Collinson and, on the other, Miss Frances Power Cobbe and her companion, Miss M. C. Lloyd. From Miss Cobbe we have occasional glimpses of Borrow, all of them unkindly. She was of Irish extraction, her father having been grandson of Charles Cobbe, Archbishop of Dublin. Miss Cobbe was an active woman in all kinds of journalistic and philanthropic enterprises in the London of the ’seventies and ’eighties of the last century, writing in particular in the now defunct newspaper, the Echo, and she wrote dozens of books and pamphlets, all of them forgotten except her Autobiography, in which she devoted several pages to her neighbour in Hereford Square. Borrow had no sympathy with fanatical women with many “isms,” and the pair did not agree, although many neighbourly courtesies passed between them for a time. Here is an extract from Miss Cobbe’s Autobiography:
George Borrow, who, if he were not a gypsy by blood, ought to have been one, was for some years our near neighbour in Hereford Square. My friend was amused by his quaint stories and his (real or sham) enthusiasm for Wales, and cultivated his acquaintance. I never liked him, thinking him more or less of a hypocrite. His missions, recorded in The Bible in Spain, and his translations of the Scriptures into the out-of-the-way tongues, for which he had a gift, were by no means consonant with his real opinions concerning the veracity of the said Bible.
One only needs to quote this by the light of the story as told so far in these pages to see how entirely Miss Cobbe misunderstood Borrow, or rather how little insight she was able to bring to a study of his curious character. The rest of her attempt at interpretation is largely taken up to demonstrate how much more clever and more learned she was than Borrow. Altogether it is a sorry spectacle, this of the pseudo-philanthropist relating her conversations with a man broken by misfortune and the death of his wife. Many of Miss Cobbe’s statements have passed into current acceptance. I do not find them convincing. Archdeacon Whately on the other hand tells us that he always found Borrow “most civil and hospitable,” and his sister gives us the following “impression”:
When Mr. Borrow returned from this Spanish journey, which had been full, as we all know, of most entertaining adventures, related with much liveliness and spirit by himself, he was regarded as a kind of “lion” in the literary circles of London. When we first saw him it was at the house of a lady who took great pleasure in gathering “celebrities” in various ways around her, and our party was struck with the appearance of this renowned traveller—a tall, thin, spare man with prematurely white hair and intensely dark eyes, as he stood upright against the wall of one of the drawing-rooms and received the homage of lion-hunting guests, and listened in silence to their unsuccessful attempts to make him talk.
During this sojourn in London, which was undertaken because Oulton and Yarmouth did not agree with his wife, Borrow suffered the tragedy of her loss. Borrow dragged on his existence in London for another five years, a much broken man. It is extraordinary how little we know of Borrow during that fourteen years’ sojourn in London; how rarely we meet him in the literary memoirs of this period. Happily one or two pleasant friendships relieved the sadness of his days; and in particular the reminiscences of Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton assist us to a more correct appreciation of the Borrow of these last years of London life. Of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s “memories,” we shall write in our next chapter. Here it remains only to note that Borrow still continued to interest himself in his various efforts at translation, and in 1861 and 1862 the editor of Once a Week printed various ballads and stories from his pen. The volumes of this periodical are before me, and I find illustrations by Sir John Millais, Sir E. J. Poynter, Simeon Solomon and George Du Maurier; stories by Mrs. Henry Wood and Harriet Martineau, and articles by Walter Thornbury.
In 1862 Wild Wales was published, as we have seen. In 1865 Henrietta married William MacOubrey, and in the following year, Borrow and his wife went to visit the pair in their Belfast home. In the beginning of the year 1869 Mrs. Borrow died, aged seventy-three. There are no records of the tragedy that are worth perpetuating. Borrow consumed his own smoke. With his wife’s death his life was indeed a wreck. No wonder he was so “rude” to that least perceptive of women, Miss Cobbe. Some four or five years more Borrow lingered on in London, cheered at times by walks and talks with Gordon Hake and Watts-Dunton, and he then returned to Oulton—a most friendless man.
We should know little enough of George Borrow’s later years were it not for his friendship with Thomas Gordon Hake and Theodore Watts-Dunton. Hake was born in 1809 and died in 1895. In 1839 he settled at Bury St. Edmunds as a physician, and he resided there until 1853. Here he was frequently visited by the Borrows. We have already quoted his prophecy concerning Lavengro that “its roots will strike deep into the soil of English letters.” In 1853 Dr. Hake and his family left Bury for the United States, where they resided for some years. Returning to England they lived at Roehampton and met Borrow occasionally in London. During these years Hake was, according to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, “the earthly Providence of the Rossetti family,” but he was not, as his Memoirs show, equally devoted to Borrow. In 1872, however, he went to live in Germany and Italy for a considerable period. Concerning the relationship between Borrow and Hake, Mr. Watts-Dunton has written:
After Hake went to live in Germany, Borrow told me a good deal about their intimacy, and also about his own early life: for, reticent as he naturally was, he and I got to be confidential and intimate. His friendship with Hake began when Hake was practising as a physician in Norfolk. It lasted during the greater part of Borrow’s later life. When Borrow was living in London his great delight was to walk over on Sundays from Hereford Square to Coombe End, call upon Hake, and take a stroll with him over Richmond Park. They both had a passion for herons and for deer. At that time Hake was a very intimate friend of my own, and having had the good fortune to be introduced by him to Borrow I used to join the two in their walks. Afterwards, when Hake went to live in Germany, I used to take those walks with Borrow alone. Two more interesting men it would be impossible to meet. The remarkable thing was that there was between them no sort of intellectual sympathy. In style, in education, in experience, whatever Hake was, Borrow was not. Borrow knew almost nothing of Hake’s writings, either in prose or in verse. His ideal poet was Pope, and when he read, or rather looked into, Hake’s World’s Epitaph, he thought he did Hake the greatest honour by saying, “there are lines here and there that are nigh as good as Pope!”
On the other hand, Hake’s acquaintance with Borrow’s works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to shine generally in any society.
So far as Hake was concerned the sole link between them was that of reminiscence of earlier days and adventures in Borrow’s beloved East Anglia. Among many proofs I would adduce of this I will give one. I am the possessor of the MS. of Borrow’s Gypsies of Spain, written partly in a Spanish notebook as he moved about Spain in his colporteur days. It was my wish that Hake would leave behind him some memorial of Borrow more worthy of himself and his friend than those brief reminiscences contained in Memoirs of Eighty Years. I took to Hake this precious relic of one of the most wonderful men of the nineteenth century, in order to discuss with him differences between the MS. and the printed text. Hake was writing in his invalid chair,—writing verses. “What does it all matter?” he said. “I do not think you understand Lavengro,” I said. Hake replied, “And yet Lavengro had an advantage over me, for he understood nobody. Every individuality with which he was brought into contact had, as no one knows better than you, to be tinged with colours of his own before he could see it at all.” That, of course, was true enough; and Hake’s asperities when speaking of Borrow in Memoirs of Eighty Years,—asperities which have vexed a good many Borrovians,—simply arose from the fact that it was impossible for two such men to understand each other. When I told him of Mr. Lang’s angry onslaught upon Borrow in his notes to the Waverley Novels, on account of his attacks upon Scott, he said, “Well, does he not deserve it?” When I told him of Miss Cobbe’s description of Borrow as a poseur, he said to me, “I told you the same scores of times. But I saw Borrow had bewitched you during that first walk under the rainbow in Richmond Park. It was that rainbow, I think, that befooled you.” Borrow’s affection for Hake, however, was both strong and deep, as I saw after Hake had gone to Germany and in a way dropped out of Borrow’s ken. Yet Hake was as good a man as ever Borrow was, and for certain others with whom he was brought in contact as full of a genuine affection as Borrow was himself.
Mr. Watts-Dunton refers here to Hake’s asperities when speaking of Borrow. They are very marked in the Memoirs of Eighty Years, and nearly all the stories of Borrow’s eccentricities that have been served up to us by Borrow’s biographers are due to Hake. It is here we read of his snub to Thackeray. “Have you read my Snob Papers in Punch?” Thackeray asked him. “In Punch?” Borrow replied. “It is a periodical I never look at.” He was equally rude, or shall we say Johnsonian, according to Hake, when Miss Agnes Strickland asked him if she might send him her Queens of England. He exclaimed, “For God’s sake don’t, madam; I should not know where to put them or what to do with them.” Hake is responsible also for that other story about the woman who, desirous of pleasing him, said, “Oh, Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!” On which he exclaimed, “Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account books?” Dr. Johnson was guilty of many such vagaries, and the readers of Boswell have forgiven him everything because they are conveyed to them through the medium of a hero-worshipper. Borrow never had a Boswell, and despised the literary class so much that he never found anything in the shape of an apologist until he had been long dead.
I find no letter from Hake to Borrow among my papers, but three to his wife:
Bury St. Edmunds, Jan. 27, ’48. Evening.
My dear Mrs. Borrow,—It gave me great pleasure, as it always does, to see your handwriting; and as respects the subject of your note you may make yourself quite easy, for I believe the idea has crossed no other mind than your own. How sorry I am to learn that you have been so unwell since your visit to us. I hope that by care you will get strong during this bracing weather. I wish that you were already nearer to us, and cannot resign the hope that we shall yet enjoy the happiness of having you as our neighbours. I have felt a strong friendship for Mr. Borrow’s mind for many years, and have ardently wished from time to time to know him, and to have realised my desire I consider one of the most happy events of my life. Until lately, dear Mrs. Borrow, I have had no opportunity of knowing you and your sweet simple-hearted child; but now I hope nothing will occur to interrupt a regard and friendship which I and Mrs. Hake feel most truly towards you all. Tell Mr. Borrow how much we should like to be his Sinbad. I wish he would bring you all and his papers and come again to look about him. There is an old hall at Tostock, which, I hear to-day, is quite dry; if so it is worthy of your attention. It is a mile from the Elmswell station, which is ten minutes’ time from Bury. This hall has got a bad name from having been long vacant, but some friends of mine have been over it and they tell me there is not a damp spot on the premises. It is seven miles from Bury. Mrs. Hake has written about a house at Rougham, but had no answer. The cottage at Farnham is to let again. I know not whether Mr. Harvey will make an effort for it. A little change would do you all good, and we can receive Miss Clarke without any difficulty. Give our kindest regards to your party, and believe me, dear Mrs. Borrow, sincerely yours,
T. G. Hake.