FOOTNOTES:

Love to Hen. and poor Flora. (Keep this.)

FOOTNOTES:[193]Borrow hadThe Sleeping Bardprinted at his own expense in Great Yarmouth in 1860, Mr. Murray giving his imprint on the title-page. See Chapterxxxv.p. 404[194]Which will be published in my edition ofBorrow's Collected Works.[195]Mr. James Barren ofThe Inverness Courierinforms me that Borrow took a well-known route between Fort Augustus and Badenoch, although nowadays it is rarely used, as Wade's Road has been abandoned; it is very dilapidated. It was not quite so bad, he says, in 1858.[196]Mr. Barron points out to me that as there was no direct railway communication Borrow must have gone to Aberdeen or Huntly, and returned from the latter town to Inverness. He must have taken a steamer from Tobermory to Fort William, and thence probably walked by Glen Spean and Laggan to Kingussie. After that he must have traversed one of the passes leading by Ben Macdhui or the Cairngorms to Aberdeenshire.[197]Mr. Sheriff Robertson's son kindly sends me the following extract from the diary of his father, James Robertson, Sheriff of Orkney:'Friday, 26th November, 1858.—In the evening Geo. Petrie called with "Bible Borrow." He is a man about 60, upwards of six feet in height, and of an athletic though somewhat gaunt frame. His hair is pure white though a little bit thin on the top, his features high and handsome, and his complexion ruddy and healthy. He was dressed in black, his surtout was old, his shoes very muddy. He spoke in a loud tone of voice, knows Gaelic and Irish well, quoted Ian Lom, Duncan Ban M'Intyre, etc., is publishing an account of Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic bards. He travelled—on foot principally—from Inverness to Thurso, and is going on to-morrow to Zetland. He walked lately through the upper part of Badenoch, Lochaber, and the adjacent counties, and through Mull, which he greatly admired.... In his rambles he associated exclusively with the lower classes, and when I offered to give him letters of introduction to Wm. F. Skene, Robert Chambers, Joseph Robertson, etc., he declined to accept them. His mother died lately and he was travelling, he said, to divert and throw off his melancholy. He talked very freely on all subjects that one broached, but not with precision, and he appeared to me to be an amiable man and a gentleman, but, withal, something of a projector, if not an adventurer. He is certainly eccentric. I asked him to take wine, etc., and he declined. He said he was bred at the High School of Edinburgh, and that he was there in 1813, and mentioned that he was partly educated in Ireland, and that by birth and descent he is an Englishman.'

[193]Borrow hadThe Sleeping Bardprinted at his own expense in Great Yarmouth in 1860, Mr. Murray giving his imprint on the title-page. See Chapterxxxv.p. 404

[194]Which will be published in my edition ofBorrow's Collected Works.

[195]Mr. James Barren ofThe Inverness Courierinforms me that Borrow took a well-known route between Fort Augustus and Badenoch, although nowadays it is rarely used, as Wade's Road has been abandoned; it is very dilapidated. It was not quite so bad, he says, in 1858.

[196]Mr. Barron points out to me that as there was no direct railway communication Borrow must have gone to Aberdeen or Huntly, and returned from the latter town to Inverness. He must have taken a steamer from Tobermory to Fort William, and thence probably walked by Glen Spean and Laggan to Kingussie. After that he must have traversed one of the passes leading by Ben Macdhui or the Cairngorms to Aberdeenshire.

[197]Mr. Sheriff Robertson's son kindly sends me the following extract from the diary of his father, James Robertson, Sheriff of Orkney:'Friday, 26th November, 1858.—In the evening Geo. Petrie called with "Bible Borrow." He is a man about 60, upwards of six feet in height, and of an athletic though somewhat gaunt frame. His hair is pure white though a little bit thin on the top, his features high and handsome, and his complexion ruddy and healthy. He was dressed in black, his surtout was old, his shoes very muddy. He spoke in a loud tone of voice, knows Gaelic and Irish well, quoted Ian Lom, Duncan Ban M'Intyre, etc., is publishing an account of Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic bards. He travelled—on foot principally—from Inverness to Thurso, and is going on to-morrow to Zetland. He walked lately through the upper part of Badenoch, Lochaber, and the adjacent counties, and through Mull, which he greatly admired.... In his rambles he associated exclusively with the lower classes, and when I offered to give him letters of introduction to Wm. F. Skene, Robert Chambers, Joseph Robertson, etc., he declined to accept them. His mother died lately and he was travelling, he said, to divert and throw off his melancholy. He talked very freely on all subjects that one broached, but not with precision, and he appeared to me to be an amiable man and a gentleman, but, withal, something of a projector, if not an adventurer. He is certainly eccentric. I asked him to take wine, etc., and he declined. He said he was bred at the High School of Edinburgh, and that he was there in 1813, and mentioned that he was partly educated in Ireland, and that by birth and descent he is an Englishman.'

[197]Mr. Sheriff Robertson's son kindly sends me the following extract from the diary of his father, James Robertson, Sheriff of Orkney:

'Friday, 26th November, 1858.—In the evening Geo. Petrie called with "Bible Borrow." He is a man about 60, upwards of six feet in height, and of an athletic though somewhat gaunt frame. His hair is pure white though a little bit thin on the top, his features high and handsome, and his complexion ruddy and healthy. He was dressed in black, his surtout was old, his shoes very muddy. He spoke in a loud tone of voice, knows Gaelic and Irish well, quoted Ian Lom, Duncan Ban M'Intyre, etc., is publishing an account of Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic bards. He travelled—on foot principally—from Inverness to Thurso, and is going on to-morrow to Zetland. He walked lately through the upper part of Badenoch, Lochaber, and the adjacent counties, and through Mull, which he greatly admired.... In his rambles he associated exclusively with the lower classes, and when I offered to give him letters of introduction to Wm. F. Skene, Robert Chambers, Joseph Robertson, etc., he declined to accept them. His mother died lately and he was travelling, he said, to divert and throw off his melancholy. He talked very freely on all subjects that one broached, but not with precision, and he appeared to me to be an amiable man and a gentleman, but, withal, something of a projector, if not an adventurer. He is certainly eccentric. I asked him to take wine, etc., and he declined. He said he was bred at the High School of Edinburgh, and that he was there in 1813, and mentioned that he was partly educated in Ireland, and that by birth and descent he is an Englishman.'

George Borrow's three most important books had all a very interesting history. We have seen the processes by whichThe Bible in Spainwas built up from notebooks and letters. We have seen further the most curious apprenticeship by whichLavengrocame into existence. The most distinctly English book—at least in a certain absence of cosmopolitanism—that Victorian literature produced was to a great extent written on scraps of paper during a prolonged Continental tour which included Constantinople and Budapest. InLavengrowe have only half a book, the whole work, which included what came to be published asThe Romany Rye, having been intended to appear in four volumes. The first volume was written in 1843, the second in 1845, after the Continental tour, which is made use of in the description of the Hungarian, and the third volume in the years between 1845 and 1848. Then in 1852 Borrow wrote out an 'advertisement' of a fourth volume,[198]which runs as follows:

Shortly will be published in one volume. Price 10s.The Rommany Rye, Being the fourth volume ofLavengro. By George Borrow, author ofThe Bible in Spain.

But this volume did not make an appearance 'shortly.' Its author was far too much offended with the critics, too disheartened it may be to care to offer himself again for their gibes. The years rolled on, much of the time being spent at Yarmouth, a little of it at Oulton. There was a visit to Cornwall in 1854, and another to Wales in the same year. The Isle of Man was selected for a holiday in 1855, and not until 1857 didThe Romany Ryeappear. The book was now in two volumes, and we see that the word Romany had dropped an 'm':

The Romany Rye: A Sequel to 'Lavengro.' By George Borrow, author of 'The Bible in Spain,' 'The Gypsies of Spain,' etc., 'Fear God, and take your own part.' In Two Volumes. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1857.

Dr. Knapp publishes some vigorous correspondence between Mrs. Borrow and her husband's publisher written prior to the issue ofThe Romany Rye. 'Mr. Borrow has not the slightest wish to publish the book,' she says. 'The manuscript was left with you because you wished to see it.'[199]This was written in 1855, the wife presumably writing at her husband's dictation. In 1857 the situation was not improved, as Borrow himself writes to Mr. Murray: 'In your last letter you talk ofobliging me by publishing my verse. Now is not that speaking very injudiciously?'[200]At last, however, inApril 1857,The Romany Ryeappeared, and we are introduced once more to many old favourites, to Petulengro, to the Man in Black, and above all to Isopel Berners. The incidents ofLavengroare supposed to have taken place between the 24th May 1825 and the 18th July of that year. InThe Romany Ryethe incidents apparently occur between 19th July and 3rd August 1825. In the opinion of that most eminent of gypsy experts, Mr. John Sampson,[201]the whole of the episodes in the five volumes occurred in seventy-two days. Mr. Sampson agrees with Dr. Knapp in locating Mumper's Dingle in Momber or Monmer Lane, Willenhall,Shropshire. The dingle has disappeared—it is now occupied by the Monmer Lane Ironworks—but you may still find Dingle Bridge and Dingle Lane. The book has added to the glamour of gypsydom, and to the interest in the gypsies which we all derive fromLavengro, but Mr. Sampson makes short work of Borrow's gypsy learning on its philological side. 'No gypsy,' he says, 'ever useschalorengroas a separate word, or talks of thedukkering dookor ofpenning a dukkerin.' 'Borrow's genders are perversely incorrect'; and 'Romany'—a word which can never get out of our language, let philologists say what they will—should have been 'Romani.' '"Haarsträubend" is the fitting epithet,' says Mr. Sampson, 'which an Oriental scholar, Professor Richard Pischel of Berlin, finds to describe Borrow's etymologies.' But all this is very unimportant, and the book remains in the whole of its forty-seven chapters not one whit less a joy to us than does its predecessorLavengro, with its visions of gypsies and highwaymen and boxers.

But then there is its 'Appendix.' That appendix of eleven petulant chapters undoubtedly did Borrow harm in his day and generation. Now his fame is too great, and his genius too firmly established for these strange dissertations on men and things to offer anything but amusement or edification. They reveal, for example, the singularly non-literary character of this great man of letters. Much—too much—has been made of his dislike of Walter Scott and his writings. As a matter of fact Borrow tells us that he admired Scott both as a prose writer and as a poet. 'Since Scott he had read no modern writer. Scott was greater than Homer,' he told Frances Cobbe. But he takes occasion to condemn his 'Charlie o'er the water nonsense,' anddeclares that his love of and sympathy with certain periods and incidents have made for sympathy with what he always calls 'Popery.'[202]Well, looking at the matter from an entirely opposite point of view, Cardinal Newman declared that the writings of Scott had had no inconsiderable influence in directing his mind towards the Church of Rome.[203]

During the first quarter of this century a great poet was raised up in the North, who, whatever were his defects, has contributed by his works, in prose and verse, to prepare men for some closer and more practical approximation to Catholic truth. The general need of something deeper and more attractive than what had offered itself elsewhere may be considered to have led to his popularity; and by means of his popularity he re-acted on his readers, stimulating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting before them visions, which, when once seen, are not easily forgotten, and silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might afterwards be appealed to as first principles.[204]

FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE ROMANY RYE From the Borrow Papers in the possession of the Author of 'George Borrow and his Circle'FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE ROMANY RYE From the Borrow Papers in the possession of the Author of 'George Borrow and his Circle'

And thus we see that Borrow had a certain prescience in this matter. But Borrow, in good truth, cared little for modern English literature. His heart was entirely with the poets of other lands—the Scandinavians and the Kelts. In Virgil he apparently took little interest, nor in the great poetry of Greece, Rome and England, although we find a reference to Theocritus and Dante in his books. Fortunately for his fame he had readGil Blas,Don Quixote, and, above all,Robinson Crusoe, which last book, first read as a boy of six, coloured his whole life. Defoe and Fielding and Bunyan were the English authors to whom he owed most. Of Byron he has quaint things to say, and of Wordsworth things that are neither quaint nor wise. We recall the man in the field in the twenty-second chapter ofTheRomany Ryewho used Wordsworth's poetry as a soporific. And throughout his life Borrow's position towards his contemporaries in literature was ever contemptuous. He makes no mention of Carlyle or Ruskin or Matthew Arnold, and they in their turn, it may be added, make no mention of him or of his works. Thackeray he snubbed on one of the few occasions they met, and Browning and Tennyson were alike unrevealed to him. Borrow indeed stands quite apart from the great literature of a period in which he was a striking and individual figure. Lacking appreciation in this sphere of work, he wrote of 'the contemptible trade of author,' counting it less creditable than that of a jockey.

But all this is a digression from the progress of our narrative of the advent ofThe Romany Rye. The book was published in an edition of 1000 copies in April 1857, and it took thirty years to dispose of 3750 copies. Not more than 2000 copies of his book were sold in Great Britain during the twenty-three remaining years of Borrow's life. What wonder that he was embittered by his failure! The reviews were far from favourable, although Mr. Elwin wrote not unkindly in an article in theQuarterly Reviewcalled 'Roving Life in England.' No critic, however, was as severe asThe Athenæum, which had calledLavengro'balderdash' and referred toThe Romany Ryeas the 'literary dough' of an author 'whose dullest gypsy preparation we have now read.' In later years, when, alas! it was too late,The Athenæum, through the eloquent pen of Theodore Watts, made good amends. But William Bodham Donne wrote to Borrow with adequate enthusiasm:

12St. James's Square,May 24th, 1857.

My dear Sir,—I received your book some days ago, but would not write to you before I was able to read it, at least once, since it is needless, I hope, for me to assure you that I am truly gratified by the gift.Time to read it I could not find for some days after it was sent hither, for what with winding up my affairs here, the election of my successor, preparations for flitting, etc., etc., I have been incessantly occupied with matters needful to be done, but far less agreeable to do than readingThe Romany Rye. All I have said ofLavengroto yourself personally, or to others publicly or privately, I say again ofThe Romany Rye. Everywhere in it the hand of the master is stamped boldly and deeply. You join the chisel of Dante with the pencil of Defoe.I am rejoiced to see so many works announced of yours, for you have more that is worth knowing to tell than any one I am acquainted with. For your coming progeny's sake I am disposed to wish you had worried the literary-craft less. Brand and score them never so much, they will not turn and repent, but only spit the more froth and venom. I am reckoning of my emancipation with an eagerness hardly proper at my years, but I cannot help it, so thoroughly do I hate London, and so much do I love the country. I have taken a house, or rather a cottage, at Walton on Thames, just on the skirts of Weybridge, and there I hope to see you before I come into Norfolk, for I am afraid my face will not be turned eastward for many weeks if not months.Remember me kindly to Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke, and believe me, my dear Sir, very truly and thankfully yours.

Time to read it I could not find for some days after it was sent hither, for what with winding up my affairs here, the election of my successor, preparations for flitting, etc., etc., I have been incessantly occupied with matters needful to be done, but far less agreeable to do than readingThe Romany Rye. All I have said ofLavengroto yourself personally, or to others publicly or privately, I say again ofThe Romany Rye. Everywhere in it the hand of the master is stamped boldly and deeply. You join the chisel of Dante with the pencil of Defoe.

I am rejoiced to see so many works announced of yours, for you have more that is worth knowing to tell than any one I am acquainted with. For your coming progeny's sake I am disposed to wish you had worried the literary-craft less. Brand and score them never so much, they will not turn and repent, but only spit the more froth and venom. I am reckoning of my emancipation with an eagerness hardly proper at my years, but I cannot help it, so thoroughly do I hate London, and so much do I love the country. I have taken a house, or rather a cottage, at Walton on Thames, just on the skirts of Weybridge, and there I hope to see you before I come into Norfolk, for I am afraid my face will not be turned eastward for many weeks if not months.

Remember me kindly to Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke, and believe me, my dear Sir, very truly and thankfully yours.

Wm. B. Donne.

And perhaps a letter from the then Town Clerk of Oxford is worth reproducing here:

Town Clerk's Office, Oxford,19th August 1857.

Sir,—We have, attached to our Corporation, an ancient jocular court composed of 13 of the poor old freemen who attend the elections and have a king who sits attired in scarlet with a crown and sentences interlopers (non-freeman) to be cold-burned,i.e.a bucket or so of water introduced to the offender's sleeve by means of the city pump; but this infliction is of course generally commuted by a small pecuniary compensation.They call themselves 'Slaveonians' or 'Sclavonians.' The only notice we have of them in the city records is by the name of 'Slovens Hall.' ReadingRomany RyeI notice your account of the Sclaves and venture to trouble you with this, and to enquire whether you think that the Sclaves might be connected through the Saxons with the ancient municipal institutions of this country. You are no doubt aware that Oxford is one of the most ancient Saxon towns, being a royal bailiwick and fortified before the Conquest,—Yours truly.

They call themselves 'Slaveonians' or 'Sclavonians.' The only notice we have of them in the city records is by the name of 'Slovens Hall.' ReadingRomany RyeI notice your account of the Sclaves and venture to trouble you with this, and to enquire whether you think that the Sclaves might be connected through the Saxons with the ancient municipal institutions of this country. You are no doubt aware that Oxford is one of the most ancient Saxon towns, being a royal bailiwick and fortified before the Conquest,—Yours truly.

George P. Hester.

In spite of contemporary criticism,The Romany Ryeis a great book, or rather it contains the concluding chapters of a great book. Sequels are usually proclaimed to be inferior to their predecessors. ButThe Romany Ryeis not a sequel. It is part ofLavengro, and is therefore Borrow's most imperishable monument.

FOOTNOTES:[198]Borrow was fond of writing out title-pages for his books, and I have a dozen or so of these draft title-pages among my Borrow Papers.[199]Dr. Knapp'sLife, vol. ii. p. 167.[200]Borrow's association with the firm of Murray deserves a chapter to itself, but the material for writing such a chapter has already been used by Dr. Knapp and Mr. Herbert Jenkins. The present Mr. John Murray, John Murrayiv., has seventy letters from Borrow to his firm in his possession. The first of the name to publish Borrow's works was John Murrayii., who died in 1843. John Murrayiii., who died in 1892, and his partner and cousin Robert Cooke, were Borrow's friends. He had differences at times, but he was loyal to them and they were loyal to him as good authors and good publishers ought to be. With all his irritability Borrow had the sense to see that there was substantial reason in their declining to issue his translations. That, although at the end there were long intervals of silence, the publishers and their author remained friends is shown by letters written to his daughter after Borrow's death, and by the following little note from Borrow to John Murray which was probably never sent. It is in the feeble, broken handwriting of what was probably the last year of Borrow's life.To John Murray, Esq.'Oulton(no date).'My dear Friend,—Thank you most sincerely for sending me the last vol. of theQuarterly, a truly remarkable one it is, full of literature of every description—I should have answered the receipt of it before had I not been very unwell. Should you come to these parts do me the favour to look in upon me—it might do me good, and say the same thing from me to my kind and true friend Robt. Cooke. His last visit to me did me much good, and another might probably do me the same. What a horrible state the country seems to be in, and no wonder—a monster-minister whose principal aim seems to be the ruin of his native land, a parliament either incompetent or indifferent. However, let us hope for the best. Pray send my cordial respects to Mrs. Murray and kind regards to the rest of your good family.—Ever sincerely yours,George Borrow.'[201]Mr. Sampson has written an admirable introduction toThe Romany Ryein Methuen's 'Little Library,' but he goes rather far in his suggestion that Borrow instead of writing 'Joseph Sell' for £20, possibly obtained that sum by imitating 'the methods of Jerry Abershaw, Galloping Dick,' or some of the 'fraternity of vagabonds' whose lives Borrow had chronicled in hisCelebrated Trials, in other words, that he stole the money.[202]The Romany Rye, Appendix, ch. vii.[203]It is interesting to note that all the surviving members of Sir Walter Scott's family belong to the Roman Catholic Church, as do certain members of the family of Newman's opponent, Charles Kingsley. Several members of Charles Dickens's family are also Roman Catholics.[204]Essays Critical and Historicalby John Henry Cardinal Newman, vol. i., Longmans. See alsoApologia pro Vita Sua, pp. 96-97.

[198]Borrow was fond of writing out title-pages for his books, and I have a dozen or so of these draft title-pages among my Borrow Papers.

[199]Dr. Knapp'sLife, vol. ii. p. 167.

[200]Borrow's association with the firm of Murray deserves a chapter to itself, but the material for writing such a chapter has already been used by Dr. Knapp and Mr. Herbert Jenkins. The present Mr. John Murray, John Murrayiv., has seventy letters from Borrow to his firm in his possession. The first of the name to publish Borrow's works was John Murrayii., who died in 1843. John Murrayiii., who died in 1892, and his partner and cousin Robert Cooke, were Borrow's friends. He had differences at times, but he was loyal to them and they were loyal to him as good authors and good publishers ought to be. With all his irritability Borrow had the sense to see that there was substantial reason in their declining to issue his translations. That, although at the end there were long intervals of silence, the publishers and their author remained friends is shown by letters written to his daughter after Borrow's death, and by the following little note from Borrow to John Murray which was probably never sent. It is in the feeble, broken handwriting of what was probably the last year of Borrow's life.To John Murray, Esq.'Oulton(no date).'My dear Friend,—Thank you most sincerely for sending me the last vol. of theQuarterly, a truly remarkable one it is, full of literature of every description—I should have answered the receipt of it before had I not been very unwell. Should you come to these parts do me the favour to look in upon me—it might do me good, and say the same thing from me to my kind and true friend Robt. Cooke. His last visit to me did me much good, and another might probably do me the same. What a horrible state the country seems to be in, and no wonder—a monster-minister whose principal aim seems to be the ruin of his native land, a parliament either incompetent or indifferent. However, let us hope for the best. Pray send my cordial respects to Mrs. Murray and kind regards to the rest of your good family.—Ever sincerely yours,George Borrow.'

To John Murray, Esq.'Oulton(no date).

'My dear Friend,—Thank you most sincerely for sending me the last vol. of theQuarterly, a truly remarkable one it is, full of literature of every description—I should have answered the receipt of it before had I not been very unwell. Should you come to these parts do me the favour to look in upon me—it might do me good, and say the same thing from me to my kind and true friend Robt. Cooke. His last visit to me did me much good, and another might probably do me the same. What a horrible state the country seems to be in, and no wonder—a monster-minister whose principal aim seems to be the ruin of his native land, a parliament either incompetent or indifferent. However, let us hope for the best. Pray send my cordial respects to Mrs. Murray and kind regards to the rest of your good family.—Ever sincerely yours,

George Borrow.'

[201]Mr. Sampson has written an admirable introduction toThe Romany Ryein Methuen's 'Little Library,' but he goes rather far in his suggestion that Borrow instead of writing 'Joseph Sell' for £20, possibly obtained that sum by imitating 'the methods of Jerry Abershaw, Galloping Dick,' or some of the 'fraternity of vagabonds' whose lives Borrow had chronicled in hisCelebrated Trials, in other words, that he stole the money.

[202]The Romany Rye, Appendix, ch. vii.

[203]It is interesting to note that all the surviving members of Sir Walter Scott's family belong to the Roman Catholic Church, as do certain members of the family of Newman's opponent, Charles Kingsley. Several members of Charles Dickens's family are also Roman Catholics.

[204]Essays Critical and Historicalby John Henry Cardinal Newman, vol. i., Longmans. See alsoApologia pro Vita Sua, pp. 96-97.

Edward FitzGerald once declared that he was about the only friend with whom Borrow had never quarrelled.[205]There was probably no reason for this exceptional amity other than the 'genius for friendship' with which FitzGerald has been rightly credited. There were certainly, however, many points of likeness between the two men which might have kept them at peace. Both had written copiously and out of all proportion to the public demand for their work. Both revelled in translation. FitzGerald's eight volumes in a magnificent American edition consists mainly of translations from various tongues which no man presumably now reads. All the world has read and will long continue to read his translation or paraphrase of Omar Khayyám'sRubáiyát. 'Old Fitz,' as his friends called him, lives by that, although his letters are among the best in literature. Borrow wrote four books that will live, but had publishers been amenable he would have published forty, and all as unsaleable as the major part of FitzGerald's translations. Both men were Suffolk squires, and yet delighted more in the company of a class other than their own, FitzGerald of boatmen, Borrow of gypsies; both were counted eccentrics in their respective villages. Perhaps aloneamong the great Victorian authors they lived to be old without receiving in their lives any popular recognition of their great literary achievements. But FitzGerald had a more cultivated mind than Borrow. He loved literature and literary men whilst Borrow did not. His criticism of books is of the best, and his friendships with bookmen are among the most interesting in literary history. 'A solitary, shy, kind-hearted man,' was the verdict upon him of the frequently censorious Carlyle. When Anne Thackeray asked her father which of his friends he had loved best, he answered 'Dear old Fitz, to be sure,' and Tennyson would have said the same. Borrow had none of these gifts as a letter-writer and no genius for friendship. The charm of his style, so indisputable in his best work, is absent from his letters; and his friends were alienated one after another. Borrow's undisciplined intellect and narrow upbringing were a curse to him, from the point of view of his own personal happiness, although they helped him to achieve exactly the work for which he was best fitted. Borrow's acquaintance with FitzGerald was commenced by the latter, who, in July 1853, sent from Boulge Hall, Suffolk, to Oulton Hall, in the same county, his recently published volumeSix Dramas of Calderon. He apologises for making so free with 'a great man; but, as usual, I shall feel least fear before a man like yourself who both do fine things in your own language and are deep read in those of others.' He also refers to 'our common friend Donne,' so that it is probable that they had met at Donne's house.[206]The next letter, also published by Dr. Knapp, that FitzGerald writes to Borrow is dated from his home in Great PortlandStreet in 1856. He presents his friend with a Turkish Dictionary, and announces his coming marriage to Miss Barton, 'Our united ages amount to 96!—a dangerous experiment on both sides'—as it proved. The first reference to Borrow in the FitzGeraldLettersissued by his authorised publishers is addressed to Professor Cowell in January 1857:

I was with Borrow a week ago at Donne's, and also at Yarmouth three months ago: he is well, but not yet agreed with Murray. He read me a long translation he had made from the Turkish: which I could not admire, and his taste becomes stranger than ever.[207]

But Borrow's genius if not his taste was always admired by FitzGerald, as the following letter among my Borrow Papers clearly indicates. Borrow had publishedThe Romany Ryeat the beginning of May:

OULTON COTTAGE FROM THE BROAD Showing the summer house on the left from a sketch by Henrietta MacOubrey. The house which has replaced it has another aspect.OULTON COTTAGE FROM THE BROADShowing the summer house on the left from a sketch by Henrietta MacOubrey. The house which has replaced it has another aspect.

THE SUMMER HOUSE OULTON, AS IT IS TO DAY Which when compared with Miss MacOubrey's sketch shows that it has been reroofed and probably rebuilt altogether.THE SUMMER HOUSE OULTON, AS IT IS TO DAYWhich when compared with Miss MacOubrey's sketch shows that it has been reroofed and probably rebuilt altogether.

Goldington Hall, Bedford,May 24/57[208]

My dear Sir,—Your Book was put into my hands a week ago just as I was leaving London; so I e'en carried it down here, and have been reading it under the best Circumstances:—at such a Season—in the Fields as they now are—and in company with a Friend I love best in the world—who scarce ever reads a Book, but knows better than I do what they are made of from a hint.Well, lying in a Paddock of his, I have been travelling along with you to Horncastle, etc.,—in a very delightful way for the most part; something as I have travelled, and love to travel, with Fielding, Cervantes, and Robinson Crusoe—and a smack of all these there seems to me, with something beside, in your book. But, as will happen in Travel, there were some spots I didn't like so well—didn't likeat all: and sometimes wished to myself that I, a poor 'Man of Taste,' had been at your Elbow (who are a Man of much more than Taste) to divert you, or get you by some means to pass lightlier over some places. But you wouldn't have heeded me, and won't heed me, andmustgo your own way, I think—And in the parts I least like, I am yet thankful for honest, daring, and original Thought and Speech such as one hardly gets in these mealy-mouthed days. It was very kind of you to send me your book.My Wife is already established at a House called 'Albert's Villa,' or some such name, at Gorlestone—but a short walk from you: and I am to find myself there in a few days. So I shall perhaps tell you more of my thoughts ere long. Now I shall finish this large Sheet with a Tetrastich of one Omar Khayyám who was an Epicurean Infidel some 500 years ago:

Well, lying in a Paddock of his, I have been travelling along with you to Horncastle, etc.,—in a very delightful way for the most part; something as I have travelled, and love to travel, with Fielding, Cervantes, and Robinson Crusoe—and a smack of all these there seems to me, with something beside, in your book. But, as will happen in Travel, there were some spots I didn't like so well—didn't likeat all: and sometimes wished to myself that I, a poor 'Man of Taste,' had been at your Elbow (who are a Man of much more than Taste) to divert you, or get you by some means to pass lightlier over some places. But you wouldn't have heeded me, and won't heed me, andmustgo your own way, I think—And in the parts I least like, I am yet thankful for honest, daring, and original Thought and Speech such as one hardly gets in these mealy-mouthed days. It was very kind of you to send me your book.

My Wife is already established at a House called 'Albert's Villa,' or some such name, at Gorlestone—but a short walk from you: and I am to find myself there in a few days. So I shall perhaps tell you more of my thoughts ere long. Now I shall finish this large Sheet with a Tetrastich of one Omar Khayyám who was an Epicurean Infidel some 500 years ago:

[209]

and am yours very truly,Edward FitzGerald.

In a letter to Cowell about the same time—June 5, 1857—FitzGerald writes that he is about to set out for Gorleston, Great Yarmouth:

Within hail almost lives George Borrow, who has lately published, and given me, two new volumes of Lavengro calledRomany Rye, with some excellent things, and some very bad (as I have made bold to write to him—how shall I face him!) You would not like the book at all I think.[210]

It was Cowell, it will be remembered, who introduced FitzGerald to the Persian poet Omar, and afterwards regretted the act. The first edition ofThe Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyámappeared two years later, in 1859. Edward Byles Cowell was born in Ipswich in 1826, and he was educated at the Ipswich Grammar School. It was in the library attached to the Ipswich Library Institution that Cowell commenced the study of Oriental languages. In 1842 he entered the business of his father and grandfather as a merchant and maltster. When only twenty years of age he commenced his friendship with Edward FitzGerald, and their correspondence may be found in Dr. Aldis Wright'sFitzGerald Correspondence. In 1850 he left his brother to carry on the business and entered himselfat Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he passed six years. At intervals he read Greek with FitzGerald and, later, Persian. FitzGerald commenced to learn this last language, which was to bring him fame, when he was forty-four years of age. In 1856 Cowell was appointed to a Professorship of English History at Calcutta, and from there he sent FitzGerald a copy of the manuscript ofOmar Khayyám, afterwards lent by FitzGerald to Borrow. Much earlier than this—in 1853—FitzGerald had written to Borrow:

At Ipswich, indeed, is a man whom you would like to know, I think, and who would like to know you; one Edward Cowell: a great scholar, if I may judge.... Should you go to Ipswich do look for him! a great deal more worth looking for (I speak with no sham modesty, I am sure) than yours,—E. F. G.[211]

Twenty-six years afterwards—in 1879—we find FitzGerald writing to Dr. Aldis Wright to the effect that Cowell had been seized with 'a wish to learn Welsh under George Borrow':

And as he would not venture otherwise, I gave him a Note of Introduction, and off he went, and had an hour with the old Boy, who was hard of hearing and shut up in a stuffy room, but cordial enough; and Cowell was glad to have seen the Man, and tell him that it was hisWild Waleswhich first inspired a thirst for this language into the Professor.[212]

This introduction and meeting are described by Professor Cowell in the following letter:[213]

Cambridge,December 10, 1892.

Dear Sir,—I fear I cannot help you much by my reminiscences of Borrow. I never had the slightest interest in the gipsies, but I always had a corner in my heart for Spain and Wales, and consequentlyThe Bible in SpainandWild Waleshave always been favourite books. But though Borrow's works were well known to me, I never saw him but once, and what I saw of him then made me feel that he was one of those men who put the best part of themselves into their books. We get the pure gold there without the admixture of alloy which daily life seemed to impart.I was staying one autumn at Lowestoft some ten years or more ago when I asked my dear old friend, Mr. Edward FitzGerald, to give me a letter of introduction to Mr. George Borrow. Armed with this I started on my pilgrimage and took a chaise for Oulton Hall. I remember as we drew near we turned into a kind of drift road through the fields where the long sweeping boughs of the trees hung so low that I lost my hat more than once as we drove along. My driver remarked that the old gentleman would not allow any of his trees to be cut. When we reached the hall I went in at the gate into the farmyard, but I could see nobody about anywhere. I walked up to the front door, but nobody answered my knock except some dogs, who began barking from their kennels. At last in answer to a very loud knock, the door was opened by an old gentleman whom I at once recognised by the engraving to be Borrow himself. I gave him my letter and introduced myself. He replied in a tone of humorous petulance, 'What is the good of your bringing me a letter when I haven't got my spectacles to read it?' However, he took me into his room, where I fancy my knock had roused him from a siesta. We soon got into talk. He began by some unkind remarks about one or two of our common friends, but I soon turned the subject to books, especially Spanish and Welsh books. Here I own I was disappointed in his conversation. I talked to him about Ab Gwilym, whom he speaks so highly of inWild Wales, but his interest was languid. He did not seem interested when I told him that the London Society of Cymmrodorion were publishing in their journal the Welsh poems of Iolo Goch, the bard of Owen Glendower who fought with our Henry v., two of whose poems Borrow had given spirited translations of inWild Wales. He told me he had heaps of translations from Welsh books somewhere in his cupboards but he did not know where to lay his hand onthem. He did not show me one Welsh or Spanish book of any kind. You may easily imagine that I was disappointed with my interview and I never cared to visit him again. Borrow was a man of real genius, and hisBible in SpainandWild Walesare unique books in their way, but with all his knowledge of languages he was not a scholar. I should be the last person to depreciate hisSleeping Bard, for I owe a great deal to it as it helped me to read the Welsh original, but it is full of careless mistakes. The very title is wrong; it should not be theVisions of the Sleeping Bardbut theVisions of the Bard Sleep, as the bard or prophet Sleep shows the author in a series of dreams—his visions of life, death, and hell, which form the three chapters of the book.Borrow knew nothing of philology. His strange version of 'Om mani padme hûm' (Oh! the gem in the lotus ho!) must have been taken from some phonetic representation of the sounds as heard by an ignorant traveller in China or Mongolia.I have written this long letter lured on by my recollections, but after all I can tell you nothing. Surely it is best that Borrow should remain a name; we have the best part of him still living in his best books.

I was staying one autumn at Lowestoft some ten years or more ago when I asked my dear old friend, Mr. Edward FitzGerald, to give me a letter of introduction to Mr. George Borrow. Armed with this I started on my pilgrimage and took a chaise for Oulton Hall. I remember as we drew near we turned into a kind of drift road through the fields where the long sweeping boughs of the trees hung so low that I lost my hat more than once as we drove along. My driver remarked that the old gentleman would not allow any of his trees to be cut. When we reached the hall I went in at the gate into the farmyard, but I could see nobody about anywhere. I walked up to the front door, but nobody answered my knock except some dogs, who began barking from their kennels. At last in answer to a very loud knock, the door was opened by an old gentleman whom I at once recognised by the engraving to be Borrow himself. I gave him my letter and introduced myself. He replied in a tone of humorous petulance, 'What is the good of your bringing me a letter when I haven't got my spectacles to read it?' However, he took me into his room, where I fancy my knock had roused him from a siesta. We soon got into talk. He began by some unkind remarks about one or two of our common friends, but I soon turned the subject to books, especially Spanish and Welsh books. Here I own I was disappointed in his conversation. I talked to him about Ab Gwilym, whom he speaks so highly of inWild Wales, but his interest was languid. He did not seem interested when I told him that the London Society of Cymmrodorion were publishing in their journal the Welsh poems of Iolo Goch, the bard of Owen Glendower who fought with our Henry v., two of whose poems Borrow had given spirited translations of inWild Wales. He told me he had heaps of translations from Welsh books somewhere in his cupboards but he did not know where to lay his hand onthem. He did not show me one Welsh or Spanish book of any kind. You may easily imagine that I was disappointed with my interview and I never cared to visit him again. Borrow was a man of real genius, and hisBible in SpainandWild Walesare unique books in their way, but with all his knowledge of languages he was not a scholar. I should be the last person to depreciate hisSleeping Bard, for I owe a great deal to it as it helped me to read the Welsh original, but it is full of careless mistakes. The very title is wrong; it should not be theVisions of the Sleeping Bardbut theVisions of the Bard Sleep, as the bard or prophet Sleep shows the author in a series of dreams—his visions of life, death, and hell, which form the three chapters of the book.

Borrow knew nothing of philology. His strange version of 'Om mani padme hûm' (Oh! the gem in the lotus ho!) must have been taken from some phonetic representation of the sounds as heard by an ignorant traveller in China or Mongolia.

I have written this long letter lured on by my recollections, but after all I can tell you nothing. Surely it is best that Borrow should remain a name; we have the best part of him still living in his best books.

'He gave the people of his best;His worst he kept, his best he gave.'

I don't see why we should trouble ourselves about his 'worst.' He had his weaker side like all of us, the foolish part of his nature as well as the wise; but 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum' especially applies in such cases.—I remain, dear sir, yours sincerely,

E. B. Cowell.

There is one short letter from FitzGerald to Borrow in Dr. Aldis Wright'sFitzGerald Letters. It is dated June 1857 and from it we learn that FitzGerald lent Borrow the Calcutta manuscript ofOmar Khayyám, upon which he based his own immortal translation, and from a letter to W. H. Thompson in 1861 we learn that Cowell, who had inspired the writing of FitzGerald'sOmar Khayyám, Donne and Borrow were the only three friends to whom he had sent copies of his 'peccadilloesin verse' as he calls his remarkable translation,[214]and this two years after it was published. A letter, dated July 6, 1857,[215]asks for the return of FitzGerald's copy of the Ouseley manuscript ofOmar Khayyám, Borrow having clearly already returned the Calcutta manuscript. This letter concludes on a pathetic note:

My old Parson Crabbe is bowing down under epileptic fits, or something like, and I believe his brave old white head will soon sink into the village church sward. Why,ourtime seems coming. Make way, gentlemen!

Borrow comes more than once into the story of FitzGerald's great translation ofOmar Khayyám, which in our day has caused so great a sensation, and deserves all the enthusiasm that it has excited as the

' ... golden Eastern lay,Than which I know no version doneIn English more divinely well,'

to quote Tennyson's famous eulogy. Cowell, to his after regret, for he had none of FitzGerald'sdolce far nientepaganism, had sent FitzGerald from Calcutta, where he was, the manuscript of Omar Khayyám'sRubáiyátin Persian, and FitzGerald was captured by it. Two years later, as we know, he produced the translation, which was so much more than a translation. 'Omar breathes a sort of consolation to me,' he wrote to Cowell. 'Borrow is greatly delighted with your MS. of Omar which I showed him,' he says in another letter to Cowell (June 23, 1857), 'delighted at the terseness so unusual in Oriental verse.'[216]

The next two letters by FitzGerald from my Borrow Papers are of the year 1859, the year of the first publication of theRubáiyát:

10Marine Parade, Lowestoft.

My dear Borrow,—I have come here with three nieces to give them sea air and change. They are all perfectly quiet, sensible, and unpretentious girls; so as, if you will come over here any day or days, we will find you board and bed too, for a week longer at any rate. There is a good room below, which we now only use for meals, but which you and I can be quite at our sole ease in. Won't you come?I purpose (and indeed have been some while intentioning) to go over to Yarmouth to look for you. But I write this note in hope it may bring you hither also.Donne has got his soldier boy home from India—Freddy—I always thought him a very nice fellow indeed. No doubt life is happy enough to all of them just now. Donne has been on a visit to the Highlands—which seems to have pleased him—I have got an MS. of Bahram and his Seven Castles (Persian), which I have not yet cared to look far into. Will you? It is short, fairly transcribed, and of some repute in its own country, I hear. Cowell sent it me from Calcutta; but it almost requireshiscompany to make one devote one's time to Persian, when, with what remains of one's old English eyes, one can read the Odyssey and Shakespeare.With compliments to the ladies, believe me, Yours very truly,

I purpose (and indeed have been some while intentioning) to go over to Yarmouth to look for you. But I write this note in hope it may bring you hither also.

Donne has got his soldier boy home from India—Freddy—I always thought him a very nice fellow indeed. No doubt life is happy enough to all of them just now. Donne has been on a visit to the Highlands—which seems to have pleased him—I have got an MS. of Bahram and his Seven Castles (Persian), which I have not yet cared to look far into. Will you? It is short, fairly transcribed, and of some repute in its own country, I hear. Cowell sent it me from Calcutta; but it almost requireshiscompany to make one devote one's time to Persian, when, with what remains of one's old English eyes, one can read the Odyssey and Shakespeare.

With compliments to the ladies, believe me, Yours very truly,

Edward FitzGerald.

I didn't know you were back from your usual summer tour till Mr. Cobb told my sister lately of having seen you.

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'sWild Wales, 'whichIlike 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 beautifulto a degree,"Whatdegree? 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 isWild Wales.

We have a glimpse of FitzGerald in the following letter in my possession, by the friend who hadintroduced him to Borrow, William Bodham Donne:[217]

40Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W.,November 28/62.

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