behold george borrow, then, in a comfortable home on the banks of oulton broad—a family man. his mother—sensible woman—declines her son’s invitation to live with the newly-married pair. she remains in the cottage at norwich where her husband died. the borrows were married in april, 1840, by may they had settled at oulton. it was a pleasantly secluded estate, and borrow’s wife had £450 a year. he had, a month before his marriage, written to mr. brandram to say that he had a work nearly ready for publication, and “two others in a state of forwardness.” the title of the first of these books he enclosed in his letter. it was the zincali: or an account of the gypsies of spain. mr. samuel smiles, in his history of the house of murray—a publisher and his friends—thus relates the circumstances of its publication:—
in november 1840 a tall, athletic gentleman in black called upon mr. murray offering a ms. for perusal and publication. . . . mr. murray could not fail to be taken at first sight with this extraordinary man. he had a splendid physique, standing six feet two in his stockings, and he had brains as well as muscles, as his works sufficiently show. the book now submitted was of a very uncommon character, and neither the author nor the publisher were very sanguine about its success. mr. murray agreed, after perusal, to print and publish 750 copies of the gypsies in spain, and divide the profits with the author.
it was at the suggestion of richard ford, then the greatest living english authority on spain, that mr. murray published the book. it did not really commence to sell until the bible in spain came a year or so later to bring the author reputation. from november, 1840, to june, 1841, only three hundred copies had been sold in spite of friendly reviews in some half-dozen journals, including the athenæum and the literary gazette. the first edition, it may be mentioned, contained on its title-page a description of the author as p. 148“late agent of the british and foreign bible society in spain.” there is very marked compression in the edition now in circulation, and a perusal of the first edition reveals many interesting features that deserve to be restored for the benefit of the curious. but nothing can make the zincali a great piece of literature. it was summarised by the edinburgh review at the time as “a hotch-potch of the jockey, tramper, philologist, and missionary.” that description, which was not intended to be as flattering as it sounds to-day, appears more to apply to the bible in spain. but the zincali is too confused, too ill-arranged a book to rank with borrow’s four great works. there are passages in it, indeed, so eloquent, so romantic, that no lover of borrow’s writings can afford to neglect them. but this was not the book that gypsy-loving borrow, with the temperament of a romany, should have written, or could have written had he not been obsessed by the “science” of his subject. his real work in gypsydom was to appear later in lavengro and the romany rye. for borrow was not a man of science—a philologist, a folk-lorist of the first order.
no one, indeed, who had read only the zincali among borrow’s works could see in it any suspicion of the writer who was for all time to throw a glamour over the gypsy, to make the “children of the open air” a veritable cult, to earn for him the title of “the walking lord of gypsy lore,” and to lay the foundations of an admirable succession of books both in fact and fiction—but not one as great as his own. it is clear that the city of seville, with sarcastic letters from bible society secretaries on one side, and some manner of love romance on the other, was not so good a place for an author to produce a real book as oulton was to become. richard ford’s judgment was sound when he said with quite wonderful prescience:
how i wish you had given us more about yourself, instead of the extracts from those blunder-headed old spaniards, who knew nothing about gypsies! i shall give you the rap, on that, and a hint to publish your whole adventures for the last twenty years. [148]
henceforth borrow was to write about himself and to p. 149become a great author in consequence. for in writing about himself as in lavengro and the romany rye he was to write exactly as he felt about the gypsies, and to throw over them the glamour of his own point of view, the view of a man who loved the broad highway and those who sojourned upon it. in the gypsies of spain we have a conventional estimate of the gypsies. “there can be no doubt that they are human beings and have immortal souls,” he says, even as if he were writing a letter to the bible society. all his anecdotes about the gypsies are unfavourable to them, suggestive only of them as knaves and cheats. from these pictures it is a far cry to the creation of jasper petulengro and isopel berners. the most noteworthy figure in the zincali is the gypsy soldier of valdepenas, an unholy rascal. “to lie, to steal, to shed human blood”—these are the most marked characteristics with which borrow endows the gypsies of spain. “abject and vile as they have ever been, the gitános have nevertheless found admirers in spain,” says the author who came to be popularly recognised as the most enthusiastic admirer of the gypsies in spain and elsewhere. read to-day by the lover of borrow’s other books the zincali will be pronounced a readable collection of anecdotes, interspersed with much dull matter, with here and there a piece of admirable writing. but the book would scarcely have lived had it not been followed by four works of so fine an individuality. well might ford ask borrow for more about himself and less of the extracts from “blunder-headed old spaniards.” when borrow came to write about himself he revealed his real kindness for the gypsy folk. he gave us jasper petulengro and the incomparable description of “the wind on the heath.” he kindled the imagination of men, proclaimed the joys of vagabondage in a manner that thrilled many hearts. he had some predecessors and many successors, but “none could then, or can ever again,” says the biographer of a later rye, “see or hear of romanies without thinking of borrow.” in her biography of one of these successors in gypsy lore, charles godfrey leland, mrs. pennell discusses the probability that borrow and leland met in the british museum. that is admitted in a letter from leland to borrow in my possession. to this letter borrow made no reply. it was wrong of him. but he was then—in 1873—a prematurely p. 150old man, worn out and saddened by neglect and a sense of literary failure. for this and for the other vagaries of those latter years borrow will not be judged harshly by those who read his story here. nothing could be more courteous than borrow’s one letter to leland, written in the failing handwriting—once so excellent—of the last sad decade of his life:
22 hereford square, brompton, nov. 2, 1871.
sir,—i have received your letter and am gratified by the desire you express to make my acquaintance. whenever you please to come i shall be happy to see you.—yours truly,
george borrow.
the meeting did not, through leland’s absence from london, then take place. two years later it was another story. the failing powers were more noteworthy. borrow was by this time dead to the world, as the documents before me abundantly testify. it is not, therefore, necessary to assume, as leland’s friends have done, that borrow never replied because he was on the eve of publishing a book of his own about the gypsies.
to george borrow, esq.
langham hotel, portland place, march 31st, 1873.
dear sir,—i sincerely trust that the limited extent of our acquaintanceship will not cause this note to seem to you too presuming. breviter, i have thrown the results of my observations among english gypsies into a very unpretending little volume consisting almost entirely of facts gathered from the romany, without any theory. as i owe all my interest in the subject to your writings, and as i am sincerely grateful to you for the impulse which they gave me, i should like very much to dedicate my book to you. of course if your kindness permits i shall submit the proofs to you, that you may judge whether the work deserves the honour. i should have sent you the ms., but not long after our meeting at the british museum i left for egypt, whence i have very recently returned, to find my publisher clamorous for the promised copy.
it is not—god knows—a mean and selfish desire to help my book by giving it the authority of your name, which induces this request. but i am earnestly desirous for my conscience’ sake to publish nothing in the romany which shall not be true and sensible, even as all that you have written is true and sensible. therefore, should you take the pains to glance over my proof, i p. 151should be grateful if you would signify to me any differences of opinion should there be ground for any. dr. a. f. pott in his zigeuner (vol. ii. p. 224), intimates very decidedly that you took the word shastr (exhastra de moyses) from sanskrit and put it into romany; declaring that it would be very important if shaster were romany. i mention in my book that english gypsies call the new testament (also any ms.) a shaster, and that a betting-book on a racecourse is called a shaster “because it is written.” i do not pretend in my book to such deep romany as you have achieved—all that i claim is to have collected certain words, facts, phrases, etc., out of the romany of the roads—corrupt as it is—as i have found it to-day. i deal only with the gypsy of the decadence. with renewed apology for intrusion should it seem such, i remain, yours very respectfully,
charles g. leland.
francis hindes groome remarked when reviewing borrow’s word book in 1874, [151] that when the gypsies of spain was published in 1841 “there were not two educated men in england who possessed the slightest knowledge of romany.” in the intervening thirty-three years all this was changed. there was an army of gypsy scholars or scholar gypsies of whom leland was one, hindes groome another, and professor e. h. palmer a third, to say nothing of many scholars and students of romany in other lands. not one of them seemed when borrow published his word book of the romany to see that he was the only man of genius among them. they only saw that he was an inferior philologist to them all. and so borrow, who prided himself on things that he could do indifferently quite as much as upon things that he could do well, suffered once again, as he was so often doomed to suffer, for the lack of appreciation which was all in all to him, and his career went out in a veritable blizzard. he published nothing after his romano lavo-lil appeared in 1874. he was then indeed a broken and a bitter man, with no further interest in life. dedications of books to him interested him not at all. in any other mood, or a few years earlier, leland’s book, the english gypsies, would have gladdened his heart. in his preface leland expresses “the highest respect for the labours of mr. george borrow in this field,” he quotes borrow continually and with sympathy, and renders him honour as a philologist that has usually been withheld. “to mr. borrow is due p. 152the discovery that the word jockey is of gypsy origin and derived from chuckiri, which means a whip,” and he credits borrow with the discovery of the origin of “tanner” for sixpence; he vindicates him as against dr. a. f. pott—a prince among students of gypsydom—of being the first to discover that the english gypsies call the bible the shaster. but there is a wealth of scientific detail in leland’s books that is not to be found in borrow’s, as also there is in francis hindes groome’s works. what had borrow to do with science? he could not even give the word “rúmani” its accent, and called it “romany.” he “quietly appropriated,” says groome, “bright’s spanish gypsy words for his own work, mistakes and all, without one word of recognition. i think one has the ancient impostor there.” “his knowledge of the strange history of the gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil,” says groome elsewhere. yet mr. hindes groome readily acknowledges that borrow is above all writers on the gypsies. “he communicates a subtle insight into gypsydom”—that is the very essence of the matter. controversy will continue in the future as in the present as to whether the gypsies are all that borrow thought them. perhaps “corruption has crept in among them” as it did with the prize-fighters. they have intermarried with the gorgios, thrown over their ancient customs, lost all their picturesque qualities, it may be. but borrow has preserved in literature for all time, as not one of the philologists and folk-lore students has done, a remarkable type of people. but this is not to be found in his first original work, the zincali, nor in his last, the romano lavo-lil. this glamour is to be found in lavengro and the romany rye, to which books we shall come in due course. here we need only refer to the fact that borrow had loved the gypsies all his life—from his boyish meeting with petulengro until in advancing years the prototype of that wonderful creation of his imagination—for this the petulengro of lavengro undoubtedly was—came to visit him at oulton. well might leland call him “the nestor of gypsydom.”
