1851

He has written a book called "Lavengro," in which he proposes to satisfy the public curiosity about himself, and to illustrate his biography as "Scholar, Gypsy, and Priest." The book, however, is not all fact; it is fact mixed liberally with fiction, a kind of poetic rhapsody; and yet it contains many graphic pictures of real life, life little known of, such as exists to this day among the by-lanes and on the moors of England. One thing is obvious, the book is thoroughly original, like all Mr. Borrow has written. It smells of the green lanes and breezy downs, of the field and the tent; and his characters bear the tan of the sun and the marks of the weather upon their faces. The book is not written as a practised bookmaker would write it; it is not pruned down to suit current tastes. Borrow throws into it whatever he has picked up on the highways and by-ways, garnishing it up with his own imaginative spicery ad libitum, and there you have it,-"Lavengro; the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest!" But the work is not yet completed, seeing that he has only as yet treated us to the two former parts of the character; "The Priest" is yet to come, and then we shall see how it happened that Exeter Hall was enabled to secure the services of this gifted missionary.-SMILES, SAMUEL, 1860, Brief Biographies, p. 158.

Circumstantial as Defoe, rich in combinations as Lesage, and with such an instinct of the picturesque, both personal and local, as none of these possessed, this strange wild man holds on his strange wild way, and leads you captive to the end. His dialogue is copious and appropriate; you feel that like Ben Jonson he is dictating rather than reporting, that he is less faithful and exact than imaginative and determined; but you are none the less pleased with it, and susspicious though you be that the voice is Lavengro's and the hands are the hands of some one else, you are glad to surrender to the illusion, and you regret when it is dispelled.-HENLEY, WILLIAM ERNEST, 1890, Views and Reviews, p. 136.

The most delightful of all his books.FINDLATER, JANE H., 1899, George Borrow, Cornhill Magazine, vol. 80.

GENERAL

strange man named Borrow, who has writHave you seen or heard anything of a ten a book called the "Gypsies in Spain," and the "Bible in Spain?" They are most interesting books, and he is a most strange man. He had a wonderful facility in gaining the confidences of the lower classes, especially the gypsies. He gives all his adventures with wonderful openness, and some of the oddest stories come out. Some of his statements about the priests have given great offence to the Dublin Review people, and they have made a fierce attack on poor Mr. Borrow, but he is a bold man, and can stand his own ground.-MACMILLAN, DANIEL, 1843, Letter to Rev. D. Watt, Apr. 29; Memoir of Daniel Macmillan, ed. Hughes, p. 111.

The "Gypsies of Spain," Mr. Borrow's former work, was a Spanish olla-a hotchpotch of the jockey tramper, philologist, and missionary. It was a thing of shreds and patches-a true book of Spain; the chapters, like her bundle of unamalgamating provinces, were just held together, and no more, by the common tie of religion, yet it was strange, and richly flavoured with genuine borracha. It was the first work of a diffident unexperienced man, who, mistrusting his own powers, hoped to conciliate critics by leaning on Spanish historians and gypsie poets. These corks, if such a term can be applied to the ponderous levities by which he was swamped, are now cast aside; he dashes boldly into the tide, and swims gallantly over the breakers. The Gypsies were, properly speaking, his pilot balloon. The Bible and its distribution have been the business of his existence; wherever moral darkness brooded, there, the Bible in his hand, he forced his way. . . . Mr. Borrow, although no tourist "in search of the picturesque," has a true perception of nature. His out-of-door existence has brought him in close contact with her, in all her changes, in all her fits of sunshine, or of storm; and well can he portray her, whatever be the expression. Always bearing in mind the solemn object of his mission, he colours like Rembrandt, and draws like Spagnoletto, rather than with the voluptuous sunniness of Claude Lorraine and Albano. His chief study is man; and therefore, as among the

classics, landscape becomes an accessory.FORD, RICHARD, 1843, The Bible in Spain, Edinburgh Review, vol. 77, pp. 105, 114.

In George Borrow's works I found a wild fascination, a vivid graphic power of description, a fresh originality, an athletic simplicity (so to speak), which give them a stamp of their own. After reading his "Bible in Spain" I felt as if I had actually traveled at his side, and seen the "wild Sil" rush from its mountain cradle; wandered in the hilly wilderness of the Sierras; encountered and conversed with Manehegan, Castillian, Andalusian, Arragonese, and, above all, with the savage Gitanos. - BRONTË, CHARLOTTE, 1849, Letter to W. S. Williams, Feb. 4; Charlotte Brontë and her Circle, ed. Shorter, p. 189.

This Borrow is a remarkable man. As agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society he has undertaken journeys into remote lands, and, acquainted from his early youth not only with many European languages, but likewise with the Romany of the English gipsies, he sought out with zest the gipsies everywhere, and became their faithful missionary. He has made himself so thoroughly master of their ways and customs that he soon passed for "one of their blood." He slept in their tents in the forests of Russia and Hungary, visited them in their robber caves in the mountainous pass-regions of Italy, lived with them five entire years in Spain, where he, for his endeavours to distribute the Gospel in that Catholic country, was imprisoned with the very worst of them for a time in the dungeons of Madrid. He at last went over to North Africa, and sought after his Tartars even there. It is true no one has taken equal pains with Borrow to introduce himself amongst this rude and barbarous people, but on that account he has been enabled better than any other to depict their many mysteries, and the frequent impressions which his book has passed through within a short period show with what interest the English public have received his graphic descriptions.-SUNDT, ELLERT, 1850, Beretniag om Fante eller Landstrigger folket i Norge.

Though we do not doubt that Mr. Borrow is a good counsel in his own cause, we are yet strongly of opinion that Time in his case has some wrongs to repair, and that "Lavengro" has not obtained the fame which was its due. It contains passages

which in their way are not surpassed by anything in English literature. The truth and vividness of the description both of scenes and persons, coupled with the purity, force, and simplicity of the language, should confer immortality upon many of its pages. ... To this we must add that various portions of the history are known to be a faithful narrative of Mr. Borrow's career, while we ourselves can testify, as to many other parts of his volumes, that nothing can excel the fidelity with which he has described both men and things. Far from his showing any tendency to exaggeration, such of his characters as we chance to have known, and they are not a few, are rather within the However picturtruth than beyond it. esquely they may be drawn, the lines are invariably those of nature. Why under these circumstances he should envelop the question in mystery is more than we can divine. There can be no doubt that the larger part, and possibly the whole, of the work is a narrative of actual occurrences, and just as little [doubt] that it would gain. immensely by a plain avowal of the fact.ELWIN, WHITWELL, 1857, Roving Life in England, Quarterly Review, vol. 101, p. 472.

No man's writing can take you into the country as Borrow's can: it makes you feel the sunshine, see the meadows, smell the flowers, hear the skylark sing and the grasshopper chirrup.-Who else can do it? I know of none.-WATTS, THEODORE, 1881, Reminiscences of George Borrow, The Athenæum, No. 2810, p. 307.

There is this difficulty in writing about him, that the audience must necessarily consist of fervent devotees on the one hand, and of complete infidels, or at least complete know-nothings, on the other. To any one who, having the faculty to understand either, has read "Lavengro" or "The Bible in Spain," or even "Wild Wales," praise bestowed on Borrow is apt to seem impertinence. To anybody else (and unfortunately the anybody else is in a large majority) praise bestowed on Borrow is apt to look like that very dubious kind of praise which is bestowed on somebody of whom no one but the praiser has ever heard. I cannot think of any single writer (Peacock himself is not an exception) who is in quite parallel case. . . . Strong and vivid as Borrow's drawing of places and persons is, he always contrives to throw in touches which somehow give the air of being rather

a vision than a fact. Never was such a John-a-Dreams as this solid, pugilistic John Bull. Part of this literary effect of his is due to his quaint habit of avoiding, where he can, the mention of proper names. The description, for instance, of Old Sarum and Salisbury itself in "Lavengro," is sufficient to identify them to the most careless reader, even if the name of Stonehenge had not occurred on the page before; but they are not named. The description of Bettws-yCoed in "Wild Wales," though less poetical is equally vivid. Yet here it would be quite possible for a reader, who did not know the place and its relation to other named places, to pass without any idea of the actual spot.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1886, Essays in English Literature, 17801860, pp. 404, 412.

It was by his publication of the "Gipsies in Spain," but more especially by the "Bible in Spain," that Borrow won a high place in literature. The romantic interest of these two works drew the public towards the man as much as towards the writer, and he was the wonder of a few years. But in the writings which followed he went too far. "Lavengro," which followed his first successes in 1850, and which, besides being a personal narrative, was a protest against the "kidglove" literature introduced by Bulwer and Disraeli, made him many enemies and lost him not a few friends. The book, which has been called an "epic of ale," glorified boxing, spoke up for an open-air life, and assailed the "gentility nonsense of the time." Such things were unpardonable, and Borrow, the hero of a season before, was tabooed as the high-priest of vulgar tastes. In the sequel to the book which had caused so much disfavour he chastised those who had dared to ridicule him and his work. But it was of no avail. He was passing into another age, and the critics could now afford to ignore his onslaught. "Wild Wales," published in 1862, though a desultory work, contained much of the old vigorous stuff which characterised previous writings, but it attracted small attention, and "Romano Lavo-Lil," when it appeared in 1872, was known only to the specially interested and the curious. Still Borrow remained unchanged. His strong individuality asserted itself in his narrowed circle. His love for the roadside, the heath, the gipsies' dingle, was as true as in other days. He was the same lover of strange books, the

same passionate wanderer among strange people, the same champion of English manliness, and the same hater of genteel humbug and philistinism. Few men have put forth so many high qualities and maintained them untarnished throughout so long a career as did this striking figure of the nineteenth century.-HAKE, A. EGMONT, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. V, p. 407.

For invalids and delicate persons leading retired lives, there are no books like Borrow's. Lassitude and Languor, horrid hags, simply pick up their trailing skirts and scuttle out of any room into which he enters. They cannot abide him. A single chapter of Borrow is air and exercise; and, indeed, the exercise is not always gentle.BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE, 1892, Res Judicata, p. 126.

Lovers of George Borrow are wont to claim that he is one of the choicest of bedside comrades. Mr. Birrell, indeed, stoutly maintains that slumber, healthy and calm, follows the reading of his books just as it follows a brisk walk or rattling drive. "A single chapter of Borrow is air and exercise."

Neither need we be wide awake when we skim over his pages. We can read with half-closed eyes, and we feel his stir and animation pleasantly from without, just as we feel the motion of a carriage when we are heavy with sleep.-REPPLIER, AGNES, 1894, In the Dozy Hours and Other Papers, p. 10.

"Lavengro" is like nothing else in either biography or fiction-and it is both fictitious and biographical. It is the gradual revelation of a strange, unique being. But the revelation does not proceed in an orderly and chronological fashion; it is not begun in the first chapter, and still less is it completed in the last. After a careful perusal of the book, you will admit that though it has fascinated and impressed you, you have quite failed to understand it.. "Romany Rye" is the continuation of "Lavengro," but scarcely repeats its charm; its most remarkable feature is an "Appendix," in which Borrow expounds his views upon things in general, including critics and politics. It is a marvellous trenchant piece of writing, and from the literary point of view delightful; but it must have hurt a good many people's feelings at the time it was published, and even now shows the author on his harsh side only. We may agree with all he says, and yet

wish he had uttered it in a less rasping tone. .. Writing with him was spontaneous, but never heedless or unconsidered; it was always the outcome of deep thought and vehement feeling. Other writers and their books may be twain, but Borrow and his books are one. Perhaps they might be improved in art, or arrangement, or subject; but we should no longer care for them then, because they would cease to be Borrow. Borrow may not have been a beauty or a saint; but a man he was; and good or bad, we would not alter a hair of him.-HAWTHORNE, JULIAN, 1897, Library of the World's Best Literature, ed. Warner, vol. IV, pp. 2178, 2179.

Capricious as was Borrow's social satire, there was in it salutary truth. The public needed to be addressed with a frankness that Thackeray was unwilling to venture upon, before it could free itself from the slough of sentiment and sham. . . . Borrow carried his readers back over the romantic revivals to the adventures of Defoe. But hanging over his books is a dreamy, poetic glamour wanting in the old picaresque novel.-CROSS, WILBUR L., 1899, The Development of the English Novel, p. 211.

It is sometimes needful to declare the beginning from the end. George Borrow died. on July 26, 1881. His literary activity covered a period of over fifty years, from 1823 to 1874. The Bibliography of his printed works is given in thirty-four numbers. The "Zincali," the account of the Gypsies of Spain, has had eight English editions and three American reprints, besides a garbled Italian Version; the "Bible in Spain," no less than twenty-seven editions and reprints and translations into German, French, and Russian; "Lavengro, " the "Romany Rye," and "Wild Wales," too, have been widely read. Such an extended literary career would alone justify a formal biography, but it is the smallest part of the justification, for no literary figure of the nineteenth century has stood for a more interesting personality than the author of the "Bible in Spain."ADLER, CYRUS, 1899, George Borrow, Conservative Review, vol. 2, p. 22.

No truer books were ever penned than "The Bible in Spain" and "Lavengro❞— "Romany Rye." There is no mystery There is no mystery about them, if you have the key. And what is the key?-only Sympathy! Believe them and read and weep and feel. Believe

them and then investigate. Investigate the times in which Borrow lived and wandered and struggled and wrought, as the First Volume of this work will show. Not in the public documents of civil history, but in out-of-the-way pamphlets, obscure handbooks, local almanacs, rural newspapers, and old magazines-all long ago. obsolete and now despised, found on the twopenny shelf of country book-stalls on market days. That is where I met "Lavengro" and "Romany Rye" and rejoiced to find them true. There I found the author of them to be no banshee, no brownie, no mystery at all. The brétima-the haze of Galicia the forerunner of corpse-candles, witches, and all the "fairy family" of Celtic mythology-fades into thin air under the microscope of honest inspection, and untiring search in letters, records, newspapers, poll-books, army lists, and all the forgotten. dust-heaps of shop and attic. Of course men easily ignore the details of family gossip current only with the mothers and grandmothers of the century. - KNAPP, WILLIAM I., 1899, ed. Lije, Writings and Correspondence of George Borrow, vol. II, p. 159.

In "Lavengro" he speaks of the choughs continually circling about the spire of Norwich cathedral, when, no doubt, he is referring to the jackdaws: he calls the planet. Jupiter a star; and he writes a book descriptive of wide journeyings in Spain without telling us anything worth knowing of the wild life of that country. Humanity always interested him, more than birds and flowers; during his travels in "Wild Wales" he was always on the look-out for roadside inns, and desirous of hobnobbing with their rustic frequenters. The gipsies' horse-dealing transactions, and the philological puzzles of their ancient language, occupied his mind and pen for hours together; but he leaves it to a Romany chal to describe the charm of the gipsies' open-air and roving life, contenting himself with setting down. the rover's words without comment. True, he would seem to imply that the sun, moon, and stars, and the wind on the heath were as much to him as to Jasper Petulengro; but when he stood on a Welsh mountain-top, where, one would think, the wide outlook would have inspired him, he only sees a fitting opportunity for pompous declamation.-DUTT, WILLIAM A., 1901, In Larengro's Country, Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 84, p. 148.

315

PERSONAL

So

There was a good deal of the Bohemian in Burton. He was ill at ease when in full dress; he liked space and air; he was an inveterate wanderer-never happier than when tramping across the country-side, or camping among the heather. He did not care to become the mouthpiece of any clique or coterie. He valued his independence and his right to think for himself. And he was a most intrepid thinker. So long as he felt he was in the right, it did not matter to him what weight of authority might be arrayed against him. . . . The alacrity and alertness of Burton's gait were characteristic of his mind. To the last he retained an almost boyish buoyancy both of body and mind. His spare and weatherbeaten frame was sustained by an amazing vitality. The gaunt and attenuated figure, with the habitual stoop, which passed you at express speed, turning neither to right nor left-the hat which possibly had seen better days, thrown far back upon the head; the black surtout, which had been cut without any very close acquaintance on the part of the tailor with the angularities of the form it was to cover, streaming behind might excite a passing smile; but we all knew that it was a fine, manly, independent, sincere, honourable soul that was lodged in this somewhat shabby tabernacle; and the incongruities were quickly forgotten. . . . Altogether he was a man whose memory will be cherished most by those who knew him best-a man without guile, generous, sweettempered, honourable, incapable of meanness, who hated shams and pretences of every sort, and lived with singular simplicity (in an age from which simplicity has

been banished), a pure, honest, laborious, useful life.-SKELTON, JOHN, 1881, John Hill Burton, Essays in History and Biography, pp. 329, 330, 331.

His defect in conversation was that he was a bad listener. His own part was well sustained. His enormous store of varied information poured forth naturally and easily, and was interspersed with a wonderful stock of lively anecdotes and jokes. But he always lacked that greatest power of the conversationalist, the subtle ready sympathy which draws forth the best power of others. He was invaluable at a dull dinnertable, furnishing the whole frais de la conversation himself. . . . Returning from his office to dinner at five, he would, after dinner, retire to the library for twenty minutes or half-an-hour's perusal of a novel as mental rest. . . . Although he would only read those called exciting, they did not, apparently, excite him, for he read them as slowly as if he were learning them by heart. He would return to the drawing-room to drink a large cup of extremely strong tea, then retire again to the library to commence his day of literary work about eight in the evening. He would read or write without cessation, and without the least appearance of fatigue or excitement, till one or two in the morning. . . . Constitutionally irritable, energetic, and utterly persistent, Dr. Burton did not know what dulness or depression of spirits was. . . . John Hill Burton can never have been handsome, and he so determinately neglected his person, as to increase its natural defects. His greatest mental defect was an almost entire want of imagination. From this cause the characters of those nearest and dearest to him