James Hooper

“ The time is ripe, and over ripe, for a commemorative celebration of George Borrow in a city with which he was so long, and so intimately, associated as he was with Norwich. His increasing fame as a foremost literary man of the nineteenth century is amply witnessed to by the various biographies of him, and the numerous appreciations of him by writers of repute, and Mr. Clement Shorter’s forthcoming “Life of Borrow” will certainly add to the cult. ”

“ At Templemore, too, our boy of thirteen learned to ride, mounted on a tremendous “gallant specimen of the genuine Irish cob,” said by Borrow to be nearly extinct in his day. This horse had been the only friend in the world of his groom, but after a blow would not let him mount. So young Borrow mounted the animal barebacked, for, said the groom, “If you are ever to be a frank rider, you must begin without a saddle; . . . leave it all to him.” Following the groom’s directions, the cob gave his young rider every assistance, and great was the lad’s joy! ”

“ Borrow was now to begin the real battle of life, and he had to put in practice, as best he might, his motto, “Fear God, and take your own part.” He had left behind in Norwich the mother he loved so well, she who ever defended him when his odd speeches and unconventional proceedings called forth criticism or censure. His friend William Taylor had given him introductions in London, and “honest six-foot-three,” conscious of possessing unusual powers, mental and physical, set forth to seek literary work. ”

“ Knapp expresses himself as much terrified by the invasion of the free path by “a party rushing madly up, striving to keep pace with a mettlesome steed . . . at the sight of whose enormous hoofs and shaggy fetlocks you are all but ready to perish.” Such niggling super refinement would be quite repugnant to Borrow’s highway robustious temperament. ”

“ The story cannot be mangled without losing its wild significance, but, on further threats, Borrow, to use his own words, “made a motion which the viper understood; and now partly disengaging itself from my bosom, where it had lain perdu, it raised its head to a level with my face, and stared upon my enemy with its glittering eyes.”
The superstitious gypsies were effectively terrified, and invited the lad into their tent: “Don’t be angry, and say no; but look kindly upon us, and satisfied, my precious little God Almighty.” ”

“ Steep is this mound and scarped, evidently by the hand of man; a deep gorge, over which is flung a bridge, separates it, on the south, from a broad swell of open ground called “the hill”; of old the scene of many a tournament and feat of Norman chivalry, but now much used as a show place for cattle, where those who buy and sell beeves and other beasts resort at stated periods.”
Perhaps Borrow inherited from his father—the conqueror of Big Ben Brain, “whose skin was brown and dusky as that of a toad”—the love of fisticuffs which was so prominently marked in his career. ”

“ A living master? Why, there he comes! thou hast had him long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious ”

“ Gazing from those heights, the eye beholds a scene which cannot fail to awaken, even in the least sensitive bosom, feelings of pleasure and admiration. At the foot of the heights flows a narrow and deep river, with an antique bridge communicating with a long and narrow suburb, flanked on either side by rich meadows of the brightest green, beyond which spreads the city, the fine old city, perhaps the most curious specimen at present extant of the genuine old English town. ”

“ That Borrow could not secure employment in the ordinary avenues of the professions and commerce is hardly to be wondered at; he preferred the society of vagabonds, into which he had been driven by his own inclinations as much as, or more than, by force of circumstances. His brother John told him that his want of success in life was more owing to his being unlike other people than to any other cause. ”

“ Our glimpses of the Grammar School life are meagre, but we can readily understand that to a lad of Borrow’s temperament the routine of a well-ordered school was naturally distasteful, though he loved to gain knowledge from any unconventional source open to him. So we find him studying French and Italian with “one banished priest,” the Rev. Thomas D’Eterville, M.A., of Caen University, who, as Borrow says, “lived in an old court of the old town,” having come to Norwich in 1793. ”

“ At Templemore George Borrow, tall and large-limbed for a lad of thirteen, still had adventures; for on an excursion to visit his brother at Loughmore, he encountered the fierce “Dog of Peace” and its master, Jerry Grant, the outlaw—“a fairy man, in league with fairies and spirits, and able to work much harm by supernatural means, on which account the peasants held him in great awe.” The account of Sergeant Bagge’s encounter with this wizardly creature is in Borrow’s best style. ”

“ The criss-cross experiences of his boyhood, together with his mixed Cornish and Gallic heredity, were elements that very largely helped to create the whimsical character of George Borrow. We have now come to the time when the old soldier, with his pension of eight shillings a day, and his excellent and devoted wife, settled with their two sons at the little house in Willow Lane, Norwich. ”

“ 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 at its meridian, fling a broad shadow upon the face of the pool ”

“ Shaw said that “George Borrow never did a worse service to humanity than by writing ‘Lavengro,’ with its glorification of vagabond life.” Though one cannot acquit Borrow of inconsistency, we must remember that “The Gypsies of Spain” was written in 1840, and that he sent a notice of it to Mr. Brandram of the Bible Society in March of that year, ending his letter with the words: “I hope yet to die in the cause of my Redeemer.” ”

“ Yes, there it spreads from north to south, with its venerable houses, its numerous gardens, its thrice twelve churches, its mighty mound, which, if tradition speaks true, was raised by human hands to serve as the grave heap of an old heathen king, who sits deep within it, with his sword in his hand and his gold and silver treasures about him. ”

“ It is quite noteworthy that Borrow makes no mention of his term at the Grammar School in “Lavengro,” but, after his Irish experiences, opens a chapter with the following eloquent description of Norwich:—
“A fine old city, truly, is that, view it from whatever side you will, but it shows best from the east, where the ground, bold and elevated, overlooks the fair and fertile valley in which it stands. ”

“ Hilaire Belloc, of the comity of wayfaring men—initiates in the charities of the roads—men who love the dewy perfume of the meadows when the day is young, the blazing splendours of noon on the highway, and the magic of moonlight in many a dale, on many a hill. Men, moreover, who find nothing “low” in listening to the tapestried talk of wayside taverns, where, indeed, even to-day many a scrap of folk-lore and remnant of age-old superstitions may be learned. The spirit of Borrow has inspired and evolved the noble army of caravanners, with Lady Grosvenor and Mr. ”

“ Next followed the momentous meeting with Ambrose Smith—the Jasper Petulengro of Borrow’s pages—and, as the band of gypsies were departing, Jasper, turning round, leered into the little Gorgio’s face, held out his hand, and said, “Goodbye, Sap, I daresay we shall meet again; remember we are brothers, two gentle brothers.” Gazing after the retreating company, the sap-engro said to himself, “A strange set of people, I p. 12wonder who they can be.” Such was Borrow’s first introduction to the Romany folk. ”

“ But in Borrow we expect contrarieties, so we find him saying that when he detected a man poking fun at him in Welsh he flung back his head, closed his eyes, and laughed aloud; and later on, walking in Wales with the rain at his back, he flung his umbrella over his shoulder and laughed. “Oh, how a man laughs who has a good umbrella when he has the rain at his back” (“Wild Wales,” pp. 301, 470) .
Passing by Borrow’s meetings with the Armenian merchant, we come to the time when, as he says, he found himself reduced to his last half-crown, and set about writing the “Life and Adventures p. ”

“ Borrow avers that he fled from London “from fear of consumption,” that he must do something or go mad, so, having a knowledge of smithing that enabled him to acquire the tinkering craft, he became a sort of Petulengro himself. A few days after pitching his tent in Mumper’s Dingle, near Willenhall, as he slept against an ash tree, a voice seemed to cry in his ear Danger! Danger! and he awoke to see Leonora, a pretty gypsy girl of thirteen, wearing a handsome necklace of corals and gold. She offered him a manricli, or cake, saying “Eat, pretty brother, grey-haired brother.” ”

“ Herne, who, gloating over her enemy, told him he had taken drows, as, however he began to move they set their juggal (dog) at him; but the animal, fled from the flash of the tinker’s eye, and Mrs. Herne realised that he would live—the dook (spirit of divination) told her so. The arrival of the Welsh preacher Peter Williams, and his wife Winifred, in their cart put the gypsy witch-wife and her daughter to flight. The Welshman administered some oil, which, after two hours of suspense, and with the help of an opiate, saved the life of Lavengro. ”

“ Whilst drinking his beer he cheered the heart of the sorrowful Jack Slingsby by buying his whole tinker’s stock-in-trade—beat, plant, pony, and all—concluding that “a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not.” ”

“ I turned away, and never saw Isopel Berners again.”
This little book, concerned chiefly with Norwich, cannot follow the wayfarings of Borrow, so enchantingly described in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye,” in chapters which justify to the full Mr. Birrell’s enthusiastic admiration when he wrote: “The delightful, the bewitching, the never sufficiently to be praised George Borrow—Borrow, the Friend of Man, at whose bidding lassitude and languor strike their tents and flee; and health and spirits, adventure and human comradeship, take up the reins of life, whistle to the horses and away you go!” ”

“ These words are closely applicable to Borrow’s own writings; many of the critics fell foul of them, though Lockhart said Borrow had “a true eye for the picturesque, and a fund of real racy humour,” while Elwin, fourteen years later (1857) , praised his descriptions “as accurate as they are p. 43picturesque. They abound in dramatic and delicate strokes of nature, of which no extracts give an adequate idea, and are painted with a force that brings men, events and prospects before the eye with the vividness of reality. In this power of verbal delineation Mr. Borrow has never been outdone. ”

“ In Chapter XV. of “The Romany Rye,” Borrow thus describes the last farewell to Belle, as he called her: “I found the Romany party waiting for me, and everything in readiness for departing. Mr. Petulengro and Tawno Chikno were mounted on two old horses. The rest, who intended to go to the fair, amongst whom were two or p. 38three women, were on foot. On arriving at the extremity of the plain, I looked towards the dingle. Isopel Berners stood at the mouth, the beams of the early morning sun shone full on her noble face and figure. I waved my hand towards her. She slowly lifted up her right arm. ”

“ John Oldershaw, Archdeacon of Norfolk from 1797 till his death, January 31st, 1847, aged ninety-three. As he was one of the most active magistrates in the county, he would naturally be on friendly terms with so prominent a lawyer as Mr. Simpson, whose handsome wife, moreover, was in the habit of giving entertainments which rather worried her spouse. The episode of the Wake of Freya, included in Chapter XX. of Dr. Knapp’s edition of “Lavengro,” and the fine eulogy of Crome in the succeeding chapter, should inspire every reader’s genuine interest. ”

“ I am, I believe, dying.” The facsimile of this note in Knapp’s “Life of Borrow” is as tremulous as if the writer was suffering from delirium tremens, which, of course, he was not.
We have in “Lavengro” a very interesting account of the boy Borrow being taken twice every Sunday to the fine parish church at East Dereham, where, from a corner of a spacious pew, he would fix his eyes on the dignified high-Church rector and the dignified high-Church clerk, “from whose lips would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the Most High.” ”

“ Mr. Elwin once said to me that most of the Norwich antipathetic references to Borrow arose from his waywardness and wildness as a youth, and considered that p. 29there was no evidence that he was ever dissipated or loose in his life. We may largely discount Harriet Martineau’s acid references to Taylor’s harum-scarum young men, especially as she romanced about that very wild young man Polidori, Byron’s erstwhile physician, who, during his stay in Norwich—1817-8—was ever at the Martineaus’ house. ”

“ More emphatically still, he asks: “Can the rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more heroic men than those who were called respectively Pearce, Cribb, and Spring?” Both “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye,” be it noted, were written long after Borrow’s association with the Bible Society had come to an end.
Those who wish to visualize in some degree the rendezvous of “the bruisers of England, men of tremendous renown,” should look upon the building, once the Bowling Green Hotel, by Chapel Field Gardens. ”