trans. by George Henry Needler - "The Nibelungenlied"

C.F. McGlashan - "History of the Donner Party"

John S. C. Abbott - "Napoleon Bonaparte"

Agatha Christie - "The Mysterious Affair at Styles"

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Books: The Life of George Borrow

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






CHAPTER IV: MAY-SEPTEMBER 1825



Fourteen months in London had shown Borrow how hard was the road of
authorship. He confessed that he was not "formed by nature to be a
pallid indoor student." "The peculiar atmosphere of the big city"
did not agree with him, and this fact, together with the anxiety and
hard work of the past twelve months, caused him to flag, and his
first thought was how to recover his health. He was disillusioned as
to the busy world, and the opportunities it offered to a young man
fired with ambition to make a stir in it. He determined to leave
London, which he did towards the end of May, {60a} first despatching
his trunk "containing a few clothes and books to the old town
[Norwich]." He struck out in a south-westerly direction, musing on
his achievements as an author, and finding that in having preserved
his independence and health, he had "abundant cause to be grateful."

Throughout his life Borrow was hypnotised by independence. Like many
other proud natures, he carried his theory of independence to such an
extreme as to become a slave to it and render himself unsociable,
sometimes churlish. It was this virtue carried to excess that drove
Borrow from London. He must tell men what was in his mind, and his
one patron, Sir Richard Phillips, he had mortally offended in this
manner.

Finding that he was unequal to much fatigue, after a few hours'
walking he hailed a passing coach, which took him as far as Amesbury
in Wiltshire. From here he walked to Stonehenge and on to Salisbury,
"inspecting the curiosities of the place," and endeavouring by sleep
and good food to make up the wastage of the last few months. The
weather was fine and his health and spirits rapidly improved as he
tramped on, his "daily journeys varying from twenty to twenty-five
miles." He encountered the mysterious stranger who "touched" against
the evil eye. F. H. Groome asserts, on the authority of W. B. Donne,
that this was in reality William Beckford. Borrow must have met him
at some other time and place, as he had already left Fonthill in
1825. It is, however, interesting to recall that Borrow himself
"touched" against the evil eye. Mr Watts-Dunton has said:


"There was nothing that Borrow strove against with more energy than
the curious impulse, which he seems to have shared with Dr Johnson,
to touch the objects along his path in order to save himself from the
evil chance. He never conquered the superstition. In walking
through Richmond Park he would step out of his way constantly to
touch a tree, and he was offended if the friend he was with seemed to
observe it." {61a}


The chance meeting with Jack Slingsby (in fear of his life from the
Flaming Tinman, and bound by oath not to continue on the same beat)
gave Borrow the idea of buying out Slingsby, beat, plant, pony and
all. "A tinker is his own master, a scholar is not," {61b} he
remarks, and then proceeds to draw tears and moans from the
dispirited Slingsby and his family by a description of the joys of
tinkering, "the happiest life under heaven . . . pitching your tent
under the pleasant hedge-row, listening to the song of the feathered
tribes, collecting all the leaky kettles in the neighbourhood,
soldering and joining, earning your honest bread by the wholesome
sweat of your brow." {62a}

By the expenditure of five pounds ten shillings, plus the cost of a
smock-frock and some provisions, George Borrow, linguist, editor and
translator, became a travelling tinker. With his dauntless little
pony, Ambrol, he set out, a tinkering Ulysses, indifferent to what
direction he took, allowing the pony to go whither he felt inclined.
At first he experienced some apprehension at passing the night with
only a tent or the stars as a roof. Rain fell to mar the opening day
of the adventure, but the pony, with unerring instinct, led his new
master to one of Slingsby's usual camping grounds.

In the morning Borrow fell to examining what it was beyond the pony
and cart that his five pounds ten shillings had purchased. He found
a tent, a straw mattress and a blanket, "quite clean and nearly new."
There were also a frying-pan, a kettle, a teapot (broken in three
pieces) and some cups and saucers. The stock-in-trade "consisted of
various tools, an iron ladle, a chafing-pan, and small bellows,
sundry pans and kettles, the latter being of tin, with the exception
of one which was of copper, all in a state of considerable
dilapidation." The pans and kettles were to be sold after being
mended, for which purpose there was "a block of tin, sheet-tin, and
solder." But most precious of all his possessions was "a small anvil
and bellows of the kind which are used in forges, and two hammers
such as smiths use, one great, and the other small." {62b} Borrow
had learned the blacksmith's art when in Ireland, and the anvil,
bellows and smith's hammers were to prove extremely useful.

A few days after pitching his tent, Borrow received from his old
enemy Mrs Herne, Mr Petulengro's mother-in-law, a poisoned cake,
which came very near to ending his career. He then encountered the
Welsh preacher ("the worthiest creature I ever knew") and his wife,
who were largely instrumental in saving him from Mrs Herne's poison.
Having remained with his new friends for nine days, he accompanied
them as far as the Welsh border, where he confessed himself the
translator of Ab Gwilym, giving as an excuse for not accompanying
them further that it was "neither fit nor proper that I cross into
Wales at this time, and in this manner. When I go into Wales, I
should wish to go in a new suit of superfine black, with hat and
beaver, mounted on a powerful steed, black and glossy, like that
which bore Greduv to the fight of Catraeth. I should wish,
moreover," he continued, "to see the Welshmen assembled on the border
ready to welcome me with pipe and fiddle, and much whooping and
shouting, and to attend me to Wrexham, or even as far as
Machynllaith, where I should wish to be invited to a dinner at which
all the bards should be present, and to be seated at the right hand
of the president, who, when the cloth was removed, should arise, and
amidst cries of silence, exclaim--'Brethren and Welshmen, allow me to
propose the health of my most respectable friend the translator of
the odes of the great Ab Gwilym, the pride and glory of Wales.'"
{63a}

He returned with Mr Petulengro, who directed him to Mumber Lane
(Mumper's Dingle), near Willenhall, in Staffordshire, "the little
dingle by the side of the great north road." Here Borrow encamped
and shod little Ambrol, who kicked him over as a reminder of his
clumsiness.

He had refused an invitation from Mr Petulengro to become a Romany
chal and take a Romany bride, the granddaughter of his would-be
murderess, who "occasionally talked of" him. He yearned for solitude
and the country's quiet. He told Mr Petulengro that he desired only
some peaceful spot where he might hold uninterrupted communion with
his own thoughts, and practise, if so inclined, either tinkering or
the blacksmith's art, and he had been directed to Mumper's Dingle,
which was to become the setting of the most romantic episode in his
life.

In the dingle Borrow experienced one of his worst attacks of the
"Horrors"--the "Screaming Horrors." He raged like a madman, a prey
to some indefinable, intangible fear; clinging to his "little horse
as if for safety and protection." {64a} He had not recovered from
the prostrating effects of that night of tragedy when he was called
upon to fight Anselo Herne, "the Flaming Tinman," who somehow or
other seemed to be part of the bargain he had made with Jack
Slingsby, and encounter the queen of road-girls, Isopel Berners. The
description of the fight has been proclaimed the finest in our
language, and by some the finest in the world's literature.

Isopel Berners is one of the great heroines of English Literature.
As drawn by Borrow, with her strong arm, lion-like courage and tender
tearfulness, she is unique. However true or false the account of her
relations with Borrow may be, she is drawn by him as a living woman.
He was incapable of conceiving her from his imagination. It may go
unquestioned that he actually met an Isopel Berners, {64b} but
whether or no his parting from her was as heart-rendingly tragic as
he has depicted it, is open to very grave question.

With this queen of the roads he seems to have been less reticent and
more himself than with any other of his vagabond acquaintance, not
excepting even Mr Petulengro. To the handsome, tall girl with "the
flaxen hair, which hung down over her shoulders unconfined," and the
"determined but open expression," he showed a more amiable side of
his character; yet he seems to have treated her with no little
cruelty. He told her about himself, how he "had tamed savage mares,
wrestled with Satan, and had dealings with ferocious publishers,"
bringing tears to her eyes, and when she grew too curious, he
administered an antidote in the form of a few Armenian numerals. If
his Autobiography is to be credited, Isopel loved him, and he was
aware of it; but the knowledge did not hinder him from torturing the
poor girl by insisting that she should decline the verb "to love" in
Armenian.

Borrow's attitude towards Isopel was curiously complex; he seemed to
find pleasure in playing upon her emotions. At times he appeared as
deliberately brutal to her, as to the gypsy girl Ursula when he
talked with her beneath the hedge. He forced from Isopel a
passionate rebuke that he sought only to vex and irritate "a poor
ignorant girl . . . who can scarcely read or write." He asked her to
marry him, but not until he had convinced her that he was mad. How
much she had become part of his life in the dingle he did not seem to
realise until after she had left him. Isopel Berners was a woman
whose character was almost masculine in its strength; but she was
prepared to subdue her spirit to his, wished to do so even. With her
strength, however, there was wisdom, and she left Borrow and the
dingle, sending him a letter of farewell that was certainly not the
composition of "a poor girl" who could "scarcely read or write." The
story itself is in all probability true; but the letter rings false.
Isopel may have sent Borrow a letter of farewell, but not the one
that appears in The Romany Rye.

Among Borrow's papers Dr Knapp discovered a fragment of manuscript in
which Mr Petulengro is shown deliberating upon the expediency of
emulating King Pharaoh in the number of his wives. Mrs Petulengro
desires "a little pleasant company," and urges her husband to take a
second spouse. He proceeds:-


"Now I am thinking that this here Bess of yours would be just the
kind of person both for my wife and myself. My wife wants something
gorgiko, something genteel. Now Bess is of blood gorgious; if you
doubt it, look at her face, all full of pawno ratter, white blood,
brother; and as for gentility, nobody can make exceptions to Bess's
gentility, seeing she was born in the workhouse of Melford the
Short."


Mr Petulengro sees in Bess another advantage. If "the Flaming
Tinman" {66a} were to descend upon them, as he once did, with the
offer to fight the best of them for nothing, and Tawno Chikno were
absent, who was to fight him? Mr Petulengro could not do so for less
than five pounds; but with Bess as a second wife the problem would be
solved. She would fight "the Flaming Tinman."

This proves nothing, one way or the other, and can scarcely be said
to "dispel any allusions," as Dr Knapp suggests, or confirm the story
of Isopel. Why did Borrow omit it from Lavengro? Not from caprice
surely. It has been stated that those who know the gypsies can vouch
for the fact that no such suggestion could have been made by a gypsy
woman.

It would appear that Isopel Berners existed, but the account of her
given by Borrow in Lavengro and The Romany Rye is in all probability
coloured, just as her stature was heightened by him. If she were
taller than he, she must have appeared a giantess. Borrow was an
impressionist, and he has probably succeeded far better in giving a
faithful picture of Isopel Berners than if he had been
photographically accurate in his measurements.

According to Borrow's own account, he left Willenhall mounted upon a
fine horse, purchased with money lent to him by Mr Petulengro, a
small valise strapped to the saddle, and "some desire to meet with
one of those adventures which upon the roads of England are generally
as plentiful as blackberries." From this point, however, The Romany
Rye becomes dangerous as autobiography. {66b}

For one thing, it was unlike Borrow to remain in debt, and it is
incredible that he should have ridden away upon a horse purchased
with another man's money, without any set purpose in his mind.
Therefore the story of his employment at the Swan Inn, Stafford,
where he found his postilion friend, and the subsequent adventures
must be reluctantly sacrificed. They do not ring true, nor do they
fit in with the rest of the story. That he experienced such
adventures is highly probable; but it is equally probable that he
took some liberty with the dates.

Up to the point where he purchases the horse, Borrow's story is
convincing; but from there onwards it seems to go to pieces, that is
as autobiography. The arrival of Ardry (Arden) at the inn, {67a}
PASSING THROUGH STAFFORD ON HIS WAY TO WARWICK to be present at a dog
and lion fight that had already taken place (26th July), is in itself
enough to shake our confidence in the whole episode of the inn. In
The Gypsies of Spain Mr Petulengro is made to say:


"I suppose you have not forgot how, fifteen years ago, when you made
horseshoes in the little dingle by the side of the great north road,
I lent you fifty cottors [guineas] to purchase the wonderful trotting
cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat, which three days
after you sold for two hundred. Well, brother, if you had wanted the
two hundred instead of the fifty, I could have lent them to you, and
would have done so, for I knew you would not be long pazorrhus
[indebted] to me." {67b}


It seems more in accordance with Borrow's character to repay the loan
within three days than to continue in Mr Petulengro's debt for weeks,
at one time making no actual effort to realise upon the horse. The
question as to whether Borrow received a hundred and fifty (as he
himself states) or two hundred pounds is immaterial. It is quite
likely that he sold the horse before he left the dingle, and that the
adventures he narrates may be true in all else save the continued
possession of his steed, that is, with the exception of the Francis
Ardry episode, the encounter with the man in black, and the arrival
at Horncastle during the fair. If Borrow left London on 24th May,
and he could not have left earlier, as has been shown, he must have
visited the Fair (Tamworth) with Mr Petulengro on 26th July, and set
out from Willenhall about 2nd August.

It has been pointed out by that distinguished scholar and gentleman-
gypsy, Mr John Sampson, {68a} that as the Horse Fair at Horncastle
was held 12th-21st August, if Borrow took the horse there it could
not have been in the manner described in The Romany Rye, where he is
shown as spending some considerable time at the inn, if we may judge
by the handsome cheque (10 pounds) offered to him by the landlord as
a bonus on account of his services. Then there was the accident and
the consequent lying-up at the house of the man who knew Chinese, but
could not tell what o'clock it was. To confirm Borrow's itinerary
all this must have been crowded into less than three weeks, fully a
third of which Borrow spent in recovering from his fall. This would
mean that for less than a fortnight's work, the innkeeper offered him
ten pounds as a gratuity, in addition to the bargain he had made,
which included the horse's keep.

Mr Sampson has supported his itinerary with several very important
pieces of evidence. Borrow states in Lavengro that "a young moon
gave a feeble light" as he mounted the coach that was to take him to
Amesbury. The moon was in its first quarter on 24th May. There
actually was a great thunderstorm in the Willenhall district about
the time that Borrow describes (18th July). It is Mr Sampson also
who has identified the fair to which Borrow went with the gypsies as
that held at Tamworth on 26th July.

Whatever else Borrow may have been doing immediately after leaving
the dingle, he appears to have been much occupied in speculating as
to the future. Was he not "sadly misspending his time?" He was
forced to the conclusion that he had done nothing else throughout his
life but misspend his time. He was ambitious. He chafed at his
narrow life. "Oh! what a vast deal may be done with intellect,
courage, riches, accompanied by the desire of doing something great
and good!" {69a} he exclaims, and his thoughts turned instinctively
to the career of his old school-fellow, Rajah Brooke of Sarawak.
{69b} He was now, by his own confession, "a moody man, bearing on my
face, as I well knew, the marks of my strivings and my strugglings,
of what I had learnt and unlearnt." {69c} He recognised the
possibilities that lay in every man, only awaiting the hour when they
should be called forth. He believed implicitly in the power of the
will. {69d} He possessed ambition and a fine workable theory of how
success was to be obtained; but he lacked initiative. He expected
fortune to wait for him on the high-road, just as he knew adventures
awaited him. He would not go "across the country," to use a phrase
of the time common to postilions. He was too independent, perhaps
too sensitive of being patronised, to seek employment. That he cared
"for nothing in this world but old words and strange stories," was an
error into which his friend Mr Petulengro might well fall. The
mightiness of the man's pride could be covered only by a cloak of
assumed indifference. He must be independent of the world, not only
in material things, but in those intangible qualities of the spirit.
It was this that lost him Isopel Berners, whose love he awakened by a
strong right arm and quenched with an Armenian noun. Again, his
independence stood in the way of his happiness. A man is a king, he
seemed to think, and the attribute of kings is their splendid
isolation, their godlike solitude. If his Ego were lonely and crying
out for sympathy, Borrow thought it a moment for solitude, in which
to discipline his insurgent spirit. The "Horrors" were the result of
this self-repression. When they became unbearable, his spirit broke
down, the yearning for sympathy and affection overmastered him, and
he stumbled to his little horse in the desolate dingle, and found
comfort in the faithful creature's whinny of sympathy and its
affectionate licking of his hand. The strong man clung to his dumb
brute friend as a protection against the unknown horror--the
screaming horror that had gripped him.

One quality Borrow possessed in common with many other men of strange
and taciturn personality. He could always make friends when he
chose. Ostlers, scholars, farmers, gypsies; it mattered not one jot
to him what, or who they were. He could earn their respect and
obtain their good-will, if he wished to do so. He demanded of men
that they should have done things, or be capable of doing things.
They must know everything there was to be known about some one thing;
and the ostler, than whom none could groom a horse better, was worthy
of being ranked with the best man in the land. He demanded of every
man that he should justify his existence, and was logical in his
attitude, save in the insignificant particular that he applied the
same rule to himself only in theory.

He was shrewd and a good judge of character, provided it were
Protestant character, and could hold his own with a Jew or a Gypsy.
He was fully justified in his boast of being able to take "precious
good care of" himself, and "drive a precious hard bargain"; yet these
qualities were not to find a market until he was thirty years of age.

Sometime during the autumn (1825) Borrow returned to Norwich, where
he busied himself with literary affairs, among other things writing
to the publishers of Faustus about the bill that was shortly to fall
due. The fact of the book having been destroyed at both the Norwich
libraries, gave him the idea that he might make some profit by
selling copies of the suppressed volume. Hence his offer to Simpkin
& Marshall to take copies in lieu of money.



CHAPTER V: SEPTEMBER 1825-DECEMBER 1832



From the autumn of 1825 until the winter of 1832, when he obtained an
introduction to the British & Foreign Bible Society, only fragmentary
details of Borrow's life exist. He decided to keep sacred to himself
the "Veiled Period," as it came to be called. In all probability it
was a time of great hardship and mortification, and he wished it to
be thought that the whole period was devoted to "a grand philological
expedition," or expeditions. There is no doubt that some portion of
the mysterious epoch was so spent, but not all. Many of the
adventures ascribed to characters in Lavengro and The Romany Rye
were, most probably, Borrow's own experiences during that period of
mystery and misfortune. Time after time he was implored to "lift up
a corner of the curtain"; but he remained obdurate, and the seven
years are in his life what the New Orleans days were in that of Walt
Whitman.

Soon after his return to Norwich, Borrow seems to have turned his
attention to the manuscripts in the green box. In the days of happy
augury, before he had quarrelled with Sir Richard Phillips, there had
appeared in The Monthly Magazine the two following paragraphs:-


"We have heard and seen much of the legends and popular superstitions
of the North, but, in truth, all the exhibitions of these subjects
which have hitherto appeared in England have been translations from
the German. Mr Olaus Borrow, who is familiar with the Northern
Languages, proposes, however, to present these curious reliques of
romantic antiquity directly from the Danish and Swedish, and two
elegant volumes of them now printing will appear in September. They
are highly interesting in themselves, but more so as the basis of
most of the popular superstitions of England, when they were
introduced during the incursions and dominion of the Danes and
Norwegians." (1st September 1824.)

"We have to acknowledge the favour of a beautiful collection of
Danish songs and ballads, of which a specimen will be seen among the
poetical articles of the present month. One, or more, of these very
interesting translations will appear in each succeeding number."
(1st December 1824.)


It seems to have been Borrow's plan to run his ballads serially
through The Monthly Magazine and then to publish them in book-form.
His initial contribution to The Monthly Magazine had appeared in
October 1823. The first of the articles, entitled "Danish Traditions
and Superstitions," appeared August 1824, and continued, with the
omission of one or two months, until December 1825, there being in
all nine articles; but there was only one instalment of "Danish Songs
and Ballads." {73a}

Borrow was determined that these ballads, at least, should be
published, and he set to work to prepare them for the press. Allan
Cunningham, with whom Borrow was acquainted, contributed, at his
request, a metrical dedication. The volume appeared on 10th May, in
an edition of five hundred copies at ten shillings and sixpence each.
It appears that some two hundred copies were subscribed for, thus
ensuring the cost of production. The balance, or a large proportion
of it, was consigned to John Taylor, the London publisher, who
printed a new title-page and sold them at seven shillings each,
probably the trade price for a half-guinea book.

Cunningham wrote to Borrow advising him to send out freely copies for
review, and with each a note saying that it was the translator's
ultimate intention to publish an English version of the whole Kiaempe
Viser with notes; also to "scatter a few judiciously among literary
men." It is doubtful if this sage counsel were acted upon; for there
is no record of any review or announcement of the work. This in
itself was not altogether a misfortune; for Borrow did not prove
himself an inspired translator of verse. Apart from the two hundred
copies sold to subscribers, the book was still-born.

After the publication of Romantic Ballads, Borrow appears to have
returned to London, not to his old lodging at Milman Street, possibly
on account of the associations, but to 26 Bryanston Street, Portman
Square, from which address he wrote to Benjamin Haydon the following
note:- {74a}


DEAR SIR, -

I should feel extremely obliged if you would allow me to sit to you
as soon as possible. I am going to the South of France in little
better than a fortnight, and I would sooner lose a thousand pounds
than not have the honour of appearing in the picture.