William A. Dutt

“ There was something about Borrow that made it hard to evade his questioning; he had such a masterful way with him, and his keen eyes fixed upon a man as though they would pierce him through and read his most secret thoughts. He himself attributes his success with the gipsies to his knowledge of the Romany tongue and customs, while they firmly believed that he had gipsy blood in his veins. ”

“ To-day, a little colony of dwellers in red-brick villas have invaded the lonely spot where Borrow lived; but even now you have but to turn aside a few steps from the lake side to reach the edge of far-stretching marshland levels that have changed their face but little during the passage of many centuries. Farther away the marshlanders have seized upon any slight piece of rising ground to establish a firm foundation for their humble homes ”

“ Amidst scenes that have little changed since the Iceni hid in the marshland-bordering woods, and crept out in their coracles on the rush-fringed meres, he is at home with Nature, and becomes her friend, her lover. ”

“ Still Borrow was not unpopular with the villagers, many of whom, long after his death, remembered little acts of kindness on his part by which they had benefited. To the sick and infirm he was always a good friend, though his almost invariable remedy for all the ills that flesh is heir to were wine and ale. He was exceedingly fond of animals, and nothing aroused his wrath more than to see them badly treated. On one occasion, while out walking not far from his home, he encountered some men who were ill-using a fallen horse. ”

“ Often the swarthy, horse-dealing gipsy was the mouthpiece through which he breathed forth his own abhorrence of conventional restraints and the thronging crowds of busy streets. He loved the open air country life that he lived near the Suffolk coast, where the fresh salt winds sweep up from the sea across gorse-clad denes and pleasant pasture-lands. He was happiest when amongst the “summer saturated heathen” of the heath and glen. Who can doubt that the much-quoted conversation in the twenty-fifth chapter of p. 75“Lavengro,” gives expression to much of Borrow’s own philosophy? ”

“ On the right is a green level, a smiling meadow; grass of the richest decks the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow on the face of the pool ”

“ Borrow, with his patriotic exaltation of all things English, gave way before the proselytising agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It would be hard to find a writer who does not contradict himself at times, and Borrow was so much a man of “moods” that it would be uncharitable to set him down as a hypocrite, as Caroline Fox does, because all his sayings and doings do not tally with a superhuman exactitude. ”

“ It is impossible for the imagination to conceive anything more perfectly beautiful than were the features of this man, and the most skilful sculptor of Greece might have taken them as his model for a hero and a god. ”

“ Lapse of time has emphasised the impossibility of ascertaining how much is fact and how much fiction in the fascinating account of his wanderings. Criticism on that point is unjustifiable, for Borrow announced that the book was “a dream,” and a history only up to a certain point. From what the writer has gathered, however, from those who knew Borrow intimately, he has good reason to believe that there are more facts recorded in the latter part of “Lavengro,” and in “The Romany Rye,” than are credited by many students of “Don Jorge’s” writings. ”

“ They are not, as a rule, in a hurry to come to blows, for they know that in the event of injury or police-court proceedings resulting from an encounter, prejudice is strongly against the gipsy. Still, the Romany blood pulses quickly, and when it flies to the swarthy cheek and sets the eyes flashing, the time has come for someone to beware. ”

“ Many a wanderer, whatever else he may let go, holds in his heart the hope that one day he may go back to the place where his boyhood’s days were spent, even though it be but to dwell alone amidst the phantoms of long dead dreams and long lost loves. ”

“ When her lover leaves her, and wanders off to wooings far away, she reproaches him by her silence; and when he has time to think, he remembers with regret and longing the restful loveliness that was once about him like a mantle of peace. ”

“ Marrying into the ‘mumping’ and house-dwelling families has brought this about, and soon there will be no true Romanies left. Here and there you may meet a few, such as the Grays, Lees, and Coopers, and one or two of the Pinfolds; but they, too, are going the way of the rest. Yes, as you say, it is a pity, for after all the Romanies are a strange people, and, bad as they may have been, they were not without their good points. They knew a good horse when they saw one, and they let people see how a man, if he chooses, can shift for himself, without being beholden to any one. ”

“ Few of the women ever thought of marrying out of the Romany tribe, and their virtue and constancy were an example to all classes of society.
This last-mentioned fact is the more striking in view of the intense admiration often felt for the handsome chis by men who were not of the gipsy race. Commenting upon it not long ago, [77] an Athenæum reviewer said: “Between some Englishmen and gipsy women there is an extraordinary attraction—an attraction, we may say in passing, which did not exist between Borrow and the gipsy women with whom he was brought into contact. ”

“ She holds back no secret from him if he wills that he should learn it; she charms him with her many moods. Her laughter is the sunlight, and ere it has died away she has hidden coyly in a veil of mist ”

“ Any one who is familiar with the living descendants of the Romanies of Borrow’s early lifetime will know that amongst the few characteristics of their fathers that have been preserved down to the present day is that skill at boxing or fisticuffs which was an absolute necessity in a time when their hand was against every man and every man’s hand against them. Nearly all the male Romanies are possessed of a lithe, sinewy, active frame, combined with a quickness of hand and eye that gives them a considerable advantage over less alert antagonists of heavier build. ”

“ Contemporary with Borrow at Norwich Grammar School were several lads whose names were afterwards written in large and shining letters on the scroll of fame. Amongst these were James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Archdale Wilson, and, as has already been said, Dr. James Martineau. The old city has always borne itself with dignity during the passage of events that have gone to make up its history, as though conscious of its ability to send p. 18forth into the world sons who would do honour to her record and old foundations and traditions. ”

“ Borrow said, ‘I suppose you dine with your publishers sometimes?’ It was Latham’s opportunity; he could not resist it, and replied, ‘Never; I hope I should never do anything so low. You do not dine with Mr. John Murray, I presume?’ ‘Indeed, I do,’ said Borrow, emotionally. ‘He is a most kind friend. When I have had sickness in my house he has been unfailing in his goodness towards me. There is no man I value more.’ Latham’s conversation was fast falling under the influence of wine ”

“ The method is not commendable, but the object that prompts it is highly praiseworthy—from a Romany point of view.
But to-day the old race of genuine Romanies is fast dying out, and soon we shall have wholly lost the traces of a people who for many centuries have constituted a familiar feature of English country life. One of the last surviving chals of an old East Anglian gipsy family, in reply to a remark of the writer said, not long ago, “Yes, it is quite true that the old race of gipsies is dying out; there are very few of the real old Romanies to be met with at the present day. ”

“ The eighteenth century had almost run its course when the exigencies of England’s conflict with the French brought Thomas Borrow, a stalwart Cornishman, into East Anglia, on recruiting service. For several years the worthy West-countryman had served his king in the rank and file of the British army before he was appointed sergeant-major of the newly raised body of West Norfolk Militia. The headquarters of this regiment was East Dereham, a pleasant little country town situated about sixteen miles from the Norfolk capital. ”

“ The reason for this, assigned by the gipsies themselves, is not a flattering one to East Englanders. They will tell you, if you are in their confidence, that they come to East Anglia on account of the simplicity and gullibility of its inhabitants. Nowhere else can the swarthy chals find gorgios so ready to purchase a doctored nag, or the dark-eyed chis so easily cozen credulous villagers and simple servant-girls by the mysteries of dukkeripen. Every fair-ground and race-course is dotted with their travelling vans; the end of every harvest sees them congregate on the village greens ”

“ There are many tasks and occupations which a man is unwilling to perform, but let no one think that he is therefore in love with idleness; he turns to something which is more agreeable to his inclination, and doubtless more suited to his nature, but he is not in love with idleness. ”

“ Borrow has left a dependable record of a meeting which took p. 74place between them at his Oulton home, during the Christmas of 1842. “He stayed with me during the greater part of the morning, discoursing on the affairs of Egypt, the aspect of which, he assured me, was becoming daily worse and worse. There is no living for the poor people, brother, said he, the chokengres (police) pursue us from place to place, and the gorgios are become either so poor or miserly, that they grudge our cattle a bite of grass by the wayside, and ourselves a yard of ground to light a fire upon. ”

“ Borrow’s defence is carried on in his own peculiar and inimitable style, it is an onslaught into the camp of the enemy. Speaking of the prize-fighters, whom a reviewer condemned as blackguards, he exclaims p. 62defiantly, “Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more noble, more heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring? Did ever one of the English aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by rushing up the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret, and rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? ”

“ Edmunds was contemporary with Borrow’s settling down at Oulton, writes in his Memoirs: “George Borrow was one of those whose mental powers are strong, and whose bodily frame is yet stronger—a conjunction of forces often detrimental to a literary career in an age of intellectual predominance. ”

“ As is well known, the accomplished scholar and translator was an intimate friend of Southey’s, and it was to the poet he p. 26wrote: “A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller’s ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ with the view of translating it for the press. His name is George Henry Borrow, and he has learnt German with extraordinary rapidity; indeed, he has the gift of tongues, and though not yet eighteen understands twelve languages—English, Welsh, Erse, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.” ”

“ The writer has seen something of the gipsy’s skill and adroitness under such conditions, and the impression made was a lasting one. He has known, too, of a small, slim-built Romany thrashing a strong, six-feet-high p. 67constable, for unwarrantable interference with the former’s mother in a public bar. The Romany race is fast dying out from our midst; but it is dying what the sportsman would call “game.”
Although Borrow’s obvious admiration for the brawny men of the prize-ring brought him almost universal condemnation, his opinions were unchanged by his critics’ wrath and denunciations. ”

“ As a lad, he probably found it hard to justify himself in his father’s eyes, but there is a passage in “Lavengro,” written five-and-twenty years later, which clearly expresses his views:
p. 17“I have heard talk of the pleasures of idleness, yet it is my own firm belief that no one ever yet took pleasure in it. Mere idleness is the most disagreeable state of existence, and both mind and body are continually making efforts to escape from it. It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true ”

“ Often with rod and gun (he had an old Tower musket nearly eighty years old) he would go down amongst the marshes to angle or shoot as the fancy took him and the season gave him sport. Fortunately, the old fowling-piece was sound, although condemned on account of its age, and he never came to harm by it; indeed, if we may believe him in this matter—and it is always hard to put implicit faith in a solitary sportsman or angler—he did considerable execution amongst the birds of the Broadland. ”

“ I told them that there was nothing I so much hated as fashionable life, but that, as I was anything but a selfish person, I would endeavour to stifle my abhorrence of it for a time and attend them either to Leamington or Harrogate. ”

“ The Norwich Castle Hill provided Borrow with many opportunities of observing the habits of the East Anglian Romanies, who, in his day, attended in considerable numbers the horse sales and fairs that were held in the old city. Thither would come the Smiths or Petulengros, Bosviles, Grays and Pinfolds; and often, when they left the Hill, he would accompany them to their camps on Mousehold Heath and to neighbouring fairs and markets. ”