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Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

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Books: The Life of George Borrow

H >> Herbert Jenkins >> The Life of George Borrow





"Life is sweet, brother . . . There's night and day, brother, both
sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's
likewise the wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who
would wish to die?" {13a}


The Borrows were nomads, permitted by God and the king to tarry not
over long in any one place. In the following July (1811) the West
Norfolks proceeded to Colchester via Norfolk, after fifteen months of
prison duty and straw-plait destroying. {13b} Captain Borrow betook
himself to East Dereham again to seek for likely recruits. In the
meantime George made his first acquaintance with that universal
specific for success in life, for correctness of conduct, for
soundness of principles--Lilly's Latin Grammar, which to learn by
heart was to acquire a virtue that defied evil. The good old
pedagogue who advocated Lilly's Latin Grammar as a remedy for all
ills, would have traced George Borrow's eventual success in life
entirely to the fact that within three years of the date that the
solemn exhortation was pronounced the boy had learned Lilly by heart,
although without in the least degree comprehending him.

Early in 1812 the regiment turned its head north, and by slow
degrees, with occasional counter marchings, continued to progress
towards Edinburgh, which was reached thirteen months later (6th April
1813). "With drums beating, colours flying, and a long train of
baggage-waggons behind," {13c} the West Norfolk Militia wound its way
up the hill to the Castle, the adjutant's family in a chaise forming
part of the procession. There in barracks the regiment might rest
itself after long and weary marches, and the two young sons of the
adjutant be permitted to continue their studies at the High School,
without the probability that the morrow would see them on the road to
somewhere else.

Whilst at Edinburgh George met with his first experience of racial
feeling, which, under uncongenial conditions, develops into race-
hatred. He discovered that one English boy, when faced by a throng
of young Scots patriots, had best be silent as to the virtues of his
own race. He joined in and enjoyed the fights between the "Auld and
the New Toon," and incidentally acquired a Scots accent that somewhat
alarmed his loyal father, who had named him after the Hanoverian
Georges. Proving himself a good fighter, he earned the praise of his
Scots acquaintances, and a general invitation to assist them in their
"bickers" with "thae New Toon blackguards."

He loved to climb and clamber over the rocks, peeping into "all
manner of strange crypts, crannies, and recesses, where owls nestled
and the weasel brought forth her young." He would go out on all-day
excursions, enjoying the thrills of clambering up to what appeared to
be inaccessible ledges, until eventually he became an expert
cragsman. One day he came upon David Haggart {14a} sitting on the
extreme verge of a precipice, "thinking of Willie Wallace."

For fifteen months the regiment remained at Edinburgh. In the spring
of 1814 the waning star of Napoleon had, to all appearances, set, and
he was on his way to his miniature kingdom, the Isle of Elba (28th
April). Europe commenced to disband its huge armies, Great Britain
among the rest. On 21st June the West Norfolks received orders to
proceed to Norwich by ship via Leith and Great Yarmouth. The
Government, relieved of all apprehension of an invasion, had time to
think of the personal comfort of the country's defenders. With
marked consideration, the orders provided that those who wished might
march instead of embarking on the sea. Accordingly Captain Borrow
and his family chose the land route. Arrived at Norwich, the
regiment was formally disbanded amid great festivity. The officers,
at the Maid's Head, the queen of East Anglian inns, and the men in
the spacious market-place, drank to the king's health and peace. The
regiment was formally mustered out on 19th July.

The Borrows took up their quarters at the Crown and Angel in St
Stephen's Street, a thoroughfare that connects the main roads from
Ipswich and Newmarket with the city. George, now eleven years old,
had an opportunity of continuing his education at the Norwich Grammar
School, whilst his brother proceeded to study drawing and painting
with a "little dark man with brown coat . . . and top-boots, whose
name will one day be considered the chief ornament of the old town,"
{15a} and whose works are to "rank among the proudest pictures of
England,"--the Norwich painter, "Old Crome." {15b}

Whilst the two boys were thus occupied, Louis XVIII. was endeavouring
to reorder his kingdom, and on a little island in the Mediterranean,
Napoleon was preparing a bombshell that was to shatter the peace of
Europe and send Captain Borrow hurrying hither and thither in search
of the men who, a few months before, had left the colours, convinced
that a generation of peace was before them.

On 1st March Napoleon was at Cannes; eighteen days later Louis XVIII.
fled from Paris. Everywhere there were feverish preparations for
war. John Borrow threw aside pencil and brush and was gazetted
ensign in his father's regiment (29th May). Europe united against
the unexpected and astonishing danger. By the time Captain Borrow
had finished his task, however, the crisis was past, Waterloo had
been won and Napoleon was on his way to St Helena.

By a happy inspiration it was decided to send the West Norfolks to
Ireland, where "disturbances were apprehended" and private stills
flourished. On 31st August the regiment, some eight hundred strong,
sailed in two vessels from Harwich for Cork, the passage occupying
eight days. The ship that carried the Borrows was old and crazy,
constantly missing stays and shipping seas, until it seemed that only
by a miracle she escaped "from being dashed upon the foreland."

After a few days' rest at Cork, the "city of contradictions," where
wealth and filth jostled one another in the public highways and
"boisterous shouts of laughter were heard on every side," the
regiment marched off in two divisions for Clonmel in Tipperary.
Walking beside his father, who was in command of the second division,
and holding on to his stirrup-leather, George found a new country
opening out before him. On one occasion, as they were passing
through a village of low huts, "that seemed to be inhabited solely by
women and children," he went up to an old beldam who sat spinning at
the door of one of the hovels and asked for some water. She
"appeared to consider for a moment, then tottering into her hut,
presently reappeared with a small pipkin of milk, which she offered .
. . with a trembling hand." When the lad tendered payment she
declined the money, and patted his face, murmuring some
unintelligible words. Obviously there was nothing in the boy's
nature now that appeared strange to simple-minded folk. Probably the
intercourse with other boys at Edinburgh and Norwich had been
beneficial in its effect. Keenly interested in everything around
him, George fell to speculating as to whether he could learn Irish
and speak to the people in their own tongue.

At Clonmel the Borrows lodged with an Orangeman, who had run out of
his house as the Adjutant rode by at the head of his men, and
proceeded to welcome him with flowery volubility. On the advice of
his host Captain Borrow sent George to a Protestant school, where he
met the Irish boy Murtagh, who figures so largely in Lavengro and The
Romany Rye. Murtagh settled any doubts that Borrow may have had as
to his ability to acquire Erse, by teaching it to him in exchange for
a pack of cards.

On 23rd December 1815 Ensign John Thomas Borrow was promoted to the
rank of lieutenant, he being then in his sixteenth year. In the
following January, after only a few months' stay, the West Norfolks
were moved on to Templemore. It was here that George learned to
ride, and that without a saddle, and had awakened in him that
"passion for the equine race" that never left him. {17a}

The nine months spent in Ireland left an indelible mark upon Borrow's
imagination. In later life he repeatedly referred to his knowledge
of the country, its people, and their language. In overcoming the
difficulties of Erse, he had opened up for himself a larger prospect
than was to be enjoyed by a traveller whose first word of greeting or
enquiry is uttered in a hated tongue.

On 11th May 1816 the West Norfolk Militia was back again at Norwich.
Peace was now finally restored to Europe, and every nation was far
too impoverished, both as regards men and money, to nourish any
schemes of aggression. Napoleon was safe at St Helena, under the eye
of that instinctive gaoler, Sir Hudson Lowe. The army had completed
its work and was being disbanded with all possible speed. The turn
of the West Norfolk Militia came on 17th June, when they were
formally mustered out for the second time within two years. Three
years later their Adjutant was retired upon full-pay--eight shillings
a day.



CHAPTER II: MAY 1816-MARCH 1824



For the first time since his marriage, Captain Borrow found himself
at liberty to settle down and educate his sons. He had spent much of
his life in Norfolk, and he decided to remain there and make Norwich
his home. It was a quiet and beautiful old-world city: healthy,
picturesque, ancient, and, above all, possessed of a Grammar School,
where George could try and gather together the stray threads of
education that he had acquired at various times and in various
dialects. It was an ideal city for a warrior to take his rest in;
but probably what counted most with Captain Borrow was the Grammar
School--more than the Norman Cathedral, the grim old Castle that
stands guardian-like upon its mound, the fact of its being a garrison
town, or even the traditions that surrounded the place. He had two
sons who must be appropriately sent out into the world, and Norwich
offered facilities for educating both. He accordingly took a small
house in Willow Lane, to which access was obtained by a covered
passage then called King's, but now Borrow's Court.

During the most nomadic portion of his life, when, with discouraging
rapidity, he was moving from place to place, Captain Borrow never for
one moment seems to have forgotten his obligations as a father.
Whenever he had been quartered in a town for a few months, he had
sought out a school to which to send John and George, notably at
Huddersfield and Sheffield. Had he known it, these precautions were
unnecessary; for he had two sons who were of what may be called the
self-educating type: John, by virtue of the quickness of his parts;
George, on account of the strangeness of his interests and his thirst
for a knowledge of men and the tongues in which they communicate to
each other their ideas. It would be impossible for an unconventional
linguist, such as George Borrow was by instinct, to remain
uneducated, and it was equally impossible to educate him.

Quite unaware of the trend of his younger son's genius, Captain
Borrow obtained for him a free-scholarship at the Grammar School,
then under the headmastership of the Rev. Edward Valpy, B.D., whose
principal claims to fame are his severity, his having flogged the
conqueror of the "Flaming Tinman," and his destruction of the School
Records of Admission, which dated back to the Sixteenth Century.
Among Borrow's contemporaries at the Grammar School were "Rajah"
Brooke of Sarawak (for whose achievements he in after life expressed
a profound admiration), Sir Archdale Wilson of Delhi, Colonel Charles
Stoddart, Dr James Martineau, and Thomas Borrow Burcham, the London
Magistrate.

Borrow was now thirteen, and, it would appear, as determined as ever
to evade as much as possible academic learning. He was "far from an
industrious boy, fond of idling, and discovered no symptoms by his
progress either in Latin or Greek of that philology, so prominent a
feature of his last work (Lavengro)." {20a} Borrow was an idler
merely because his work was uncongenial to him. "Mere idleness is
the most disagreeable state of existence, and both mind and body are
continually making efforts to escape from it," he wrote in later
years concerning this period. He wanted an object in life, an
occupation that would prove not wholly uncongenial. That he should
dislike the routine of school life was not unnatural; for he had
lived quite free from those conventional restraints to which other
boys of his age had always been accustomed. Occupation of some sort
he must have, if only to keep at a distance that insistent melancholy
that seems to have been for ever hovering about him, and the tempter
whispered "Languages." {21a} One day chance led him to a bookstall
whereon lay a polyglot dictionary, "which pretended to be an easy
guide to the acquirement of French, Italian, Low Dutch, and English."
He took the two first, and when he had gleaned from the old volume
all it had to teach him, he longed for a master. Him he found in the
person of an old French emigre priest, {21b} a study in snuff-colour
and drab with a frill of dubious whiteness, who attended to the
accents of a number of boarding-school young ladies. The progress of
his pupil so much pleased the old priest that "after six months'
tuition, the master would sometimes, on his occasional absences to
teach in the country, request his so forward pupil to attend for him
his home scholars." {21c} It was M. D'Eterville who uttered the
second recorded prophecy concerning George Borrow: "Vous serez un
jour un grand philologue, mon cher," he remarked, and heard that his
pupil nourished aspirations towards other things than mere philology.

In the study of French, Spanish, and Italian, Borrow spent many hours
that other boys would have devoted to pleasure; yet he was by no
means a student only. He found time to fish and to shoot, using a
condemned, honey-combed musket that bore the date of 1746. His
fishing was done in the river Yare, which flowed through the estate
of John Joseph Gurney, the Quaker-banker of Earlham Hall, two miles
out of Norwich. It was here that he was reproached by the voice,
"clear and sonorous as a bell," of the banker himself; not for
trespassing, but "for pulling all those fish out of the water, and
leaving them to gasp in the sun."

At Harford Bridge, some two miles along the Ipswich Road, lived "the
terrible Thurtell," a patron and companion of "the bruisers of
England," who taught Borrow to box, and who ultimately ended his own
inglorious career by being hanged (9th January 1824) for the murder
of Mr Weare, and incidentally figuring in De Quincey's "On Murder
Considered As One of the Fine Arts." It was through "the king of
flash-men" that Borrow saw his first prize-fight at Eaton, near
Norwich.

The passion for horses that came suddenly to Borrow with his first
ride upon the cob in Ireland had continued to grow. He had an
opportunity of gratifying it at the Norwich Horse Fair, held each
Easter under the shadow of the Castle, and famous throughout the
country. {22a} It was here, in 1818, that Borrow encountered again
Ambrose Petulengro, an event that was to exercise a considerable
influence upon his life. Mr Petulengro had become the head of his
tribe, his father and mother having been transported for passing bad
money. He was now a man, with a wife, a child, and also a mother-in-
law, who took a violent dislike to the tall, fair-haired gorgio.
Borrow's life was much broadened by his intercourse with Mr
Petulengro. He was often at the gypsy encampment on Mousehold, a
heath just outside Norwich, where, under the tuition of his host, he
learned the Romany tongue with such rapidity as to astonish his
instructor and earn for him among the gypsies the name of "Lav-
engro," word-fellow or word-master. He also boxed with the godlike
Tawno Chikno, who in turn pronounced him worthy to bear the name
"Cooro-mengro," fist-fellow or fist-master. He frequently
accompanied Mr Petulengro to neighbouring fairs and markets, riding
one of the gypsy's horses. At other times the two would roam over
the gorse-covered Mousehold, discoursing largely about things Romany.

The departure of Mr Petulengro and his retinue from Norwich threw
Borrow back once more upon his linguistic studies, his fishing, his
shooting, and his smouldering discontent at the constraints of school
life. It was probably an endeavour on Borrow's part to make himself
more like his gypsy friends that prompted him to stain his face with
walnut juice, drawing from the Rev. Edward Valpy the question:
"Borrow, are you suffering from jaundice, or is it only dirt?" The
gypsies were not the only vagabonds of Borrow's acquaintance at this
period. There were the Italian peripatetic vendors of weather-
glasses, who had their headquarters at Norwich. In after years he
met again more than one of these merchants. They were always glad to
see him and revive old memories of the Norwich days.

About this time he saved a boy from drowning in the Yare. {23a} It
may be this act with which he generously credits his brother John
when he says -


"I have known him dash from a steep bank into a stream in his full
dress, and pull out a man who was drowning; yet there were twenty
others bathing in the water, who might have saved him by putting out
a hand, without inconvenience to themselves, which, however, they did
not do, but stared with stupid surprise at the drowning one's
struggles." {24a}


From the first Borrow had shown a strong distaste for the humdrum
routine of school life. In a thousand ways he was different from his
fellows. He had been accustomed to meet strange and, to him, deeply
interesting people. Now he was bidden adopt a course of life against
which his whole nature rebelled. It was impossible. He missed the
atmosphere of vagabondage that had inspired and stimulated his early
boyhood.

The crisis came at last. There was only one way to avoid the awkward
and distasteful destiny that was being forced upon him. He entered
into a conspiracy with three school-fellows, all younger than
himself, to make a dash for a life that should offer wider
opportunities to their adventurous natures. The plan was to tramp to
Great Yarmouth and there excavate on the seashore caves for their
habitation. From these headquarters they would make foraging
expeditions, and live on what they could extract from the surrounding
country, either by force or by the terror that they inspired. One
morning the four started on their twenty-mile trudge to the sea; but,
when only a few miles out, one of their number became fearful and
turned back.

Encouraged by their leader, the others continued on their way. The
father of the other two boys appears to have got wind of the project
and posted after them in a chaise. He came up with them at Acle,
about eleven miles from Norwich. When they were first seen, Borrow
was striving to hearten his fellow buccaneers, who were tired and
dispirited after their long walk. The three were unceremoniously
bundled into the chaise and returned to their homes and,
subsequently, to the wrath of the Rev. Edward Valpy. {25a}

The names of the three confederates were John Dalrymple (whose heart
failed him) and Theodosius and Francis Purland, sons of a Norwich
chemist. The Purlands are credited with robbing "the paternal till,"
while Dalrymple confined himself to the less compromising duty of
"gathering horse-pistols and potatoes." If the boys robbed their
father's till, why did they beg? In the ballad entitled The
Wandering Children and the Benevolent Gentleman, Borrow depicts the
"eldest child" as begging for charity for these hungry children, who
have had "no breakfast, save the haws." This does not seem to
suggest that the boys were in the possession of money. Again, it was
the father of one of their schoolfellows who was responsible for
their capture, according to Dr Knapp, by asking them to dinner whilst
he despatched a messenger to the Rev. Edward Valpy. The story of
Borrow's being "horsed" on Dr Martineau's back is apocryphal.
Martineau himself denied it. {25b}

There is no record of how Captain Borrow received the news of his
younger son's breach of discipline. It probably reminded him that
the boy was now fifteen and it was time to think about his future.
The old soldier was puzzled. Not only had his second son shown a
great partiality for acquiring Continental tongues, but he had
learned Irish, and Captain Borrow seemed to think that by learning
the language of Papists and rebels, his son had sullied the family
honour. To his father's way of thinking, this accomplishment seemed
to bar him from most things that were at one and the same time
honourable and desirable.

The boy's own inclinations pointed to the army; but Captain Borrow
had apparently seen too much of the army in war time, and the
slowness of promotion, to think of it as offering a career suitable
to his son, now that there was every prospect of a prolonged peace.
He thought of the church as an alternative; but here again that fatal
facility the boy had shown in learning Erse seemed to stand out as a
barrier. "I have observed the poor lad attentively and really I do
not see what to make of him," Captain Borrow is said to have
remarked. What could be expected of a lad who would forsake Greek
for Irish, or Latin for the barbarous tongue of homeless vagabonds?
Certainly not a good churchman. At length it became obvious to the
distressed parents that there was only one choice left them--the law.

About this period Borrow fell ill of some nameless and unclassified
disease, which defied the wisdom of physicians, who shook their heads
gravely by his bedside. An old woman, however, cured him by a
decoction prepared from a bitter root. The convalescence was slow
and laborious; for the boy's nerves were shattered, and that deep,
haunting melancholy, which he first called the "Fear" and afterwards
the "Horrors," descended upon him.

On the 30th of March 1819 Borrow was articled for five years to
Simpson & Rackham, solicitors, of Tuck's Court, St Giles, Norwich.
{26a} He consequently left home to take up his abode at the house of
the senior partner in the Upper Close. {27a} Mr William Simpson was
a man of considerable importance in the city; for besides being
Treasurer of the County, he was Chamberlain and Town Clerk, whilst
his wife was famed for her hospitality, in particular her expensive
dinners.

With that unerring instinct of contrariety that never seemed to
forsake him, Borrow proceeded to learn, not law but Welsh. When the
eyes of authority were on him he transcribed Blackstone, but when
they were turned away he read and translated the poems of Ab Gwilym.
He performed his tasks "as well as could be expected in one who was
occupied by so many and busy thoughts of his own."

At the end of Tuck's Court was a house at which was employed a Welsh
groom, a queer fellow who soon attracted the notice of Simpson &
Rackham's clerks, young gentlemen who were bent on "mis-spending the
time which was not legally their own." {27b} They would make audible
remarks about the unfortunate and inoffensive Welsh groom, calling
out after him "Taffy"--in short, rendering the poor fellow's life a
misery with their jibes, until at last, almost distracted, he had
come to the determination either to give his master notice or to hang
himself, that he might get away from that "nest of parcupines."
Borrow saw in the predicament of the Welsh groom the hand of
providence. He made a compact with him, that in exchange for lessons
in Welsh, he, Borrow, should persuade his fellow clerks to cease
their annoyance.

From that time, each Sunday afternoon, the Welsh groom would go to
Captain Borrow's house to instruct his son in Welsh pronunciation;
for in book Welsh Borrow was stronger than his preceptor. Borrow had
learned the language of the bards "chiefly by going through Owen
Pugh's version of 'Paradise Lost' twice" with the original by his
side. After which "there was very little in Welsh poetry that I
could not make out with a little pondering." {28a} This had occupied
some three years. The studies with the groom lasted for about twelve
months, until he left Norwich with his family. {28b}

Captain Borrow's thoughts were frequently occupied with the future of
his younger son, a problem that had by no means been determined by
signing the articles that bound him to Simpson & Rackham. The boy
was frank and honest and did not scruple to give expression to ideas
of his own, and it was these ideas that alarmed his father. Once at
the house of Mr Simpson, and before the assembled guests, he told an
archdeacon, worth 7000 pounds a year, that the classics were much
overvalued, and compared Ab Gwilym with Ovid, to the detriment of the
Roman. To Captain Borrow the possession of ideas upon any subject by
one so young was in itself a thing to be deplored; but to venture an
opinion contrary to that commonly held by men of weight and substance
was an unforgivable act of insubordination.