Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 425, March, 1851

We have read the book, and we are disappointed. The performance bears no adequate relation to the promise. The story – if that can be designated as a story which the author describes as "a dream, partly of study, partly of adventure," is in the form of an autobiography, in which we recognise Mr Borrow in the characters of Lavengro and the Scholar. The Gipsy is a horse-couper, with a tolerable taste for the ring; and the Priest a Romish Jesuit, with a decided taste for gin and water. The scene is laid in the British islands; and the adventures, though interesting in their way, neither bear the impress of the stamp of truth, nor are they so arranged as to make the work valuable, if we consider it in the light of fiction.

Of Mr Borrow personally we know nothing. In common with many others, we admired the lively style and freshness of his earlier book, The Bible in Spain; and, without altogether swallowing as genuine the whole of its details, we were willing to believe, that the author was a person of uncommon attainments, energy, and perseverance; a good philologer, and an intimate acquaintance of the gipsies. This much we were ready to concede. But ever and anon there occurred oblique hints and obscure inuendoes, which seemed to point at some secret or mystery pertinent to the author, just as, in a melodrama, it is common for an individual in a slouched hat and russet mantle to insinuate that he is somebody in disguise, without condescending to favour us with a glimpse of his visage. These we set down at their proper value – that is, we considered them, sheer humbug. It was Mr Borrow's own fault if we did him wrong. He may be, for aught we know, as notable a personage as Paracelsus; but if so, he ought to claim his honours boldly, not copy a trick which is now somewhat stale through repetition.

In Lavengro the same thing occurs, and even more conspicuously. We cannot, by possibility, separate the ingredients of fact from those of fiction. Mr Borrow will not permit us to know whether it is an autobiography or a pure romance. In all probability it partakes of the nature of both. Enough of reality is retained to identify it with the actual author; enough of fiction introduced to make that author appear a most singularly gifted being. If Apollonius of Tyana had undertaken the task of compiling his own memoirs, instead of trusting to the pen of Damis, he could not have hit upon a better plan. Benvenuto Cellini and Vidocq, by adopting this method, have each of them earned a very fair portion of celebrity; and we do not in the least degree doubt that Mr Borrow will be equally successful. His situations are often striking; the characters which he introduces must have the charm of novelty to the great majority of readers; his descriptive powers are above the common mark; and his ideas are frequently original. If, in the more ambitious passages, his style is occasionally turgid, we are inclined to overlook that blemish in consideration of his other accomplishments; if the humour of his characters is sometimes forced and tiresome, we are ever and anon repaid by sketches which would do credit to the skill of a more refined artist. Yet, with all this, the original fault remains. We cannot yield to Mr Borrow that implicit credence which is the right of a veracious autobiographer; we cannot accord him that conventional credence which we give to the avowed romancer. The fact destroys the fiction; and the fiction neutralises the fact.

Is it fact or fiction that Mr Borrow is a snake-tamer, a horse-charmer, and something more? These qualities certainly are claimed by the hero of this autobiography, who, before he was three years of age, could handle a viper without injury, and even, as the following extract will show, caused a Jew to stand aghast at the superhuman extent of his acquirements.

"One day a Jew – I have quite forgotten the circumstance, but I was long subsequently informed of it – one day a travelling Jew knocked at the door of a farm-house in which we had taken apartments; I was near at hand sitting in the bright sunshine, drawing strange lines on the dust with my fingers, an ape and dog were my companions; the Jew looked at me and asked me some questions, to which, though I was quite able to speak, I returned no answer. On the door being opened, the Jew, after a few words, probably relating to pedlery, demanded who the child was, sitting in the sun; the maid replied that I was her mistress's younger son, a child weak here, pointing to her forehead. The Jew looked at me again, and then said: 'Pon my conscience, my dear, I believe that you must be troubled there yourself to tell me any such thing. It is not my habit to speak to children, inasmuch as I hate them, because they often follow me and fling stones after me; but I no sooner looked at that child than I was forced to speak to it – his not answering shows his sense, for it has never been the custom of the wise to fling away their words in indifferent talk and conversation; the child is a sweet child, and has all the look of one of our people's children. Fool, indeed! did I not see his eyes sparkle just now when the monkey seized the dog by the ear? – they shone like my own diamonds – does your good lady want any – real and fine? Were it not for what you tell me, I should say it was a prophet's child. Fool, indeed! he can write already, or I'll forfeit the box which I carry on my back, and for which I would be loth to take two hundred pounds!" He then leaned forward to inspect the lines which I had traced. All of a sudden he started back and grew white as a sheet; then, taking off his hat, he made some strange gestures to me, cringing, chattering, and showing his teeth, and shortly departed, muttering something about 'holy letters,' and talking to himself in a strange tongue. The words of the Jew were in due course of time reported to my mother, who treasured them in her heart, and from that moment began to entertain brighter hopes of her youngest born than she had ever before ventured to foster."

This beats Benvenuto hollow! Nay, we are not quite certain that it does not distance the celebrated experiment of Psammetichus, king of Egypt, who, in order to ascertain which was the original language of the world, separated two infants from their mothers, intrusting them to the care of a dumb person, who daily fed them with milk. The first word which they uttered, and perseveringly reiterated, was "Beccos," which in the Phœnician language signified bread; and as nothing could be more natural than that children should clamour for their porridge, the speech of the Phœnicians was acknowledged as the native dialect of mankind. Wee Georgy Borrow, however, in company with Jocko and Snap, seems to have outstripped in precocity the Psammetichian foundlings. What "holy letters" from the Talmud the "prophet's child" inscribed, which had such a marvellous effect upon the mind and conscience of Ikey Solomons we know not, and perhaps ought not even to guess. Perhaps it was some sentence from Rabbi Jehuda Hakkadosh, bearing upon the real value of the diamonds which the impostor was proffering for sale.

A few years afterwards he becomes acquainted with an old man, whose principal occupation consisted in catching snakes, and who, upon one occasion, had enjoyed the inestimable privilege of an interview with "the king of the vipers." Practised as he was at pouching the vermin, old Adderley could teach nothing to his pupil, who, from the hour of his birth, was privileged to take a cockatrice by the tail, and seize on a cobra with impunity. He gifts him, however, with a pet viper, a fellow of infinite fancy, who nestles in Georgy's bosom, and whose timely apparition from beneath the folds of the vest not only saves him from a threatened drubbing at the hands of a Herculean gipsy, but introduces him to the acquaintance of a young gentleman of that nomad persuasion, one Jasper Petulengro, who is also the representative of the Pharaohs! More unmingled rubbish than is contained in this part of the book, it never was our fortune to turn over; and Mr Borrow must have a low estimate indeed of the public taste, when he ventures to put forward such twaddle. Fancy the intrepid snake-charming urchin of some nine or ten years' standing, thus defying Gipsy Cooper.

"Myself. I tell you what, my chap, you had better put down that thing of yours; my father lies concealed within my tepid breast, and if to me you offer any harm or wrong, I'll call him forth to, help me with his forked tongue!"

Ancient Pistol could not have spoken more magnanimously; indeed, both in rythm and rhyme, this challenge is conceived in the style of Pistol's strophe. But we shall skip this absurd passage, with all its accompaniments of candied nutmegs, and the dispersion of the Egyptian encampment.

Mr Borrow was the younger son of an officer in a marching regiment; and in the course of the peregrinations of the corps, found himself located in Edinburgh Castle. His father, though somewhat appalled at the notion of his children acquiring the fatal taint of a Scottish dialect, determined, very wisely, to send both his boys to the High School; which circumstance calls forth the following magnificent apostrophe: —

"Let me call thee up before my mind's eye, High School, to which every morning the two English brothers took their way from the proud old Castle, through the lofty streets of the Old Town. High School! – called so, I scarcely know why; neither lofty in thyself nor by position, being situated in a flat bottom; oblong structure of tawny-stone, with many windows fenced with iron-netting – with thy long hall below, and thy five chambers above, for the reception of the five classes, into which the eight hundred urchins, who styled thee instructress, were divided. Thy learned rector and his four subordinate dominies; thy strange old porter of the tall form and grizzled hair, hight Boee, and doubtless of Norse ancestry, as his name declares; perhaps of the blood of Bui hin Digri, the hero of northern song – the Jomsborg Viking, who clove Thorsteinn Midlangr asunder in the dread sea-battle of Horunga Vog, and who, when the fight was lost, and his own two hands smitten off, seized two chests of gold with his bloody stumps, and, springing with them into the sea, cried to the scanty relics of his crew, 'Overboard, now, all Bui's lads!' Yes, I remember all about thee, and how at eight of every morn we were all gathered together with one accord in the long hall, from which, after the litanies had been read, (for so I will call them, being an Episcopalian,) the five classes from the five sets of benches trotted off in long files, one boy after the other, up the five spiral staircases of stone, each class to its destination; and well do I remember how we of the third sat hushed and still, watched by the eye of the dux, until the door opened, and in walked that model of a good Scotchman, the shrewd, intelligent, but warm-hearted and kind dominie, the respectable Carson."

Generally we abominate apostrophes; but this is not so bad. We are glad to observe a tribute, even lightly paid, from an old pupil to the merits of that excellent and thoroughly learned man, Dr Carson, whose memory is still green amongst us, and on that subject we shall say nothing farther. But old Bowie! ye gods! how he would have stared at the magnificent pedigree chalked out for him by the enthusiastic Borrow! Little did the worthy janitor think, when exchanging squares of "lick" or "gib," – condiments for the manufacture of which the excellent man was renowned – for the coppers of the urchins in high-lows, that in future years, after he was borne to his honoured rest in the Canongate churchyard, the "gyte," or rather "cowley," whose jaws he had seen so often aggluminated together by the adhesive force of his saccharine preparations, should proclaim his descent from one of the starkest of the Norse Berserkars! Great is the power of gib – irresistible the reminiscence of lick! We remember no instance of gratitude like to this, except, indeed, Sir Epicure Mammon's gratuitous offer to his cook, of knighthood in return for the preparation of a dish of sow's teats,

"Dressed with a delicate and poignant sauce!"

But enough of old Bowie, the representative of the Jomsborg Vikings!

During his residence in Edinburgh, Master Borrow became acquainted with a young man, who afterwards attained considerable though unenvied notoriety. He appears to have been tolerably hand-in-glove with David Haggart, and to have fought side by side with him in sundry "bickers," which at that time were prevalent on the salubrious margin of the Nor' Loch. We never enjoyed the advantage of an interview with David, and consequently cannot speak to the accuracy of Mr Borrow's portrait of him; but we are not in the least surprised at the almost affectionate terms which our author uses in regard to the grand evader of the Tolbooths; having been assured by several of our legal friends, who knew him well, that he was a person of considerable accomplishment and rather fascinating manners, a little eccentric perhaps in his habits, but decidedly a favourite with the bar. Some of our readers may possibly think that Mr Borrow's comparative estimate of the merits of Tamerlane and Haggart is slightly overwrought; and that his early prepossessions in favour of David may have led him to exalt that personage unduly. The bias, however is pardonable; and, sooth to say, were it not for the Dumfries murder, which was a bad business, we also should be inclined to rank Haggart rather high in the scale of criminals. He is still regarded as the Achilles of the Caledonian cracksmen, and legends of his daring, prowess, and ingenuity, are even yet current in the northern jails. During the literary epidemic which raged in this country some ten years back, occasioning such a demand for tales of robbery and assault, we remember to have received a MS. drama, in which Haggart was honourably mentioned. In that play, a prejudiced and narrow-minded burglar expressed his conviction that

"There never yet was cracksman worth a curse,But he was English bred from top to toe!"

To which injurious assertion Ephraim the resetter, a more diligent student of history than his customer, thus replied —

"All honour to the brave, whate'er their birth!I question not the greatness of the soilThat bred Dick Turpin, and the wondrous boySheppard, whom iron bars could ne'er contain;Yet other lands can boast their heroes too:Keen David Haggart was of Scottish blood,Left-handed Morgan was a Welshman born,And kindred France claims honour for her own,That young Iulus of the road, Duval!"

We hardly know which most to applaud – the total freedom from prejudice, or the poetry of this exquisite passage.

We have not space to insert a dialogue touching the merits of Sir William Wallace held between the two promising youths, Borrow and Haggart, in the airy vicinity of the "kittle nine-steps." Suffice it to say, that the former uttered such heterodox opinions regarding the great deliverer of Scotland, that Haggart threatened to pitch him over; and if he should ever chance to revisit Edinburgh, and drop into the studio of our friend Patric Park, who has just completed his magnificent and classic model of Wallace – a work which would confer honour upon any age or country – we would earnestly caution him, for his own sake, to avoid a repetition of the offence. The scene is then transferred to Ireland, and we have some rough-riding and horse-taming, with a glimpse of a rapparee; all which is exceedingly commonplace. Back again to England goes young Borrow, and at a horse-fair he encounters his old acquaintance Jasper Petulengro, now fairly installed and acknowledged as the reigning Pharaoh, his father and mother having been "bitchadey pawdel." This, in the Rommany or gipsy tongue, corresponds to, the emphatic term of "herring-ponded," by which facetious malefactors are wont to indicate the compulsory voyages of their friends. Mr Borrow is always great upon the subject of the gipsies, who, in fact, constitute nine-tenths of his stock in trade; and, if we are to believe him, such lapses as popular song attributes to a former Countess of Cassilis are by no means unusual at the present day. Here is a sketch of a fascinating horse-stealer.

"'And that tall handsome man on the hill, whom you whispered? I suppose he's one of ye. What is his name?'

'Tawno Chikno,' said Jasper, 'which means the Small One; we call him such because he is the biggest man of all our nation. You say he is handsome; that is not the word, brother; he's the beauty of the world. Women run wild at the sight of Tawno. An earl's daughter, near London – a fine young lady with diamonds round her neck – fell in love with Tawno. I have seen that lass on a heath, as this may be, kneel down to Tawno, clasp his feet, begging to be his wife – or anything else – if she might go with him. But Tawno would have nothing to do with her.'"

A shrewd, sensible, and well-behaved fellow, this Tawno, in so far at least as the ladies are concerned. When a horse was to be picked up on the sly, he does not seem to have been so particular. The gipsies being encamped near the town where the author was then residing, an intimacy is struck up between them; Mr Borrow takes lessons in Rommany from the respectable Jasper, very much to the disgust of his mother-in-law, a certain Mrs Herne, who "comes of the hairy ones," and who ultimately secedes from the kraal, rather than receive the stranger into the tribe. The others entertain no such scruples.

"I went on studying the language, and, at the same time, the manners of these strange people. My rapid progress in the former astonished while it delighted Jasper. 'We'll no longer call you Sap-engro, brother,' said he, 'but rather Lavengro, which in the language of the gorgios meaneth Word-master.' 'Nay, brother,' said Tawno Chikno, with whom I had become very intimate, 'you had better call him Cooro-mengro; I have put on the gloves with him, and find him a pure fist-master; I like him for that, for I am a a Cooro-mengro myself, and was born at Brummagem.'"

There is a deal more of the same talk, tending to the laudation of the author. Our taste may be perverted and unusual, but we really cannot discover any merit whatever in the gipsy dialogues which occur throughout these volumes. Mr Borrow ought to reflect that he has already treated the public to a sufficiency of this jargon. What on earth are we to make of "dukkeripens," "chabos," "poknees," "chiving wafado dloova," "drabbing bawlor," "kekaubies," "drows," and "dinelos?" Possibly these terms may be used in the most refined Rommany circles, and enliven the conversation around the kettle in which the wired hare or pilfered capon is simmering but such exotics can hardly be considered as worth the pains of transplantation. When Mr Borrow, in a moral reflection of his own, observes, "softly, friend; when thou wouldst speak harshly of the dead, remember that thou hast not yet fulfilled thy own dukkeripen!" – he is penning absolute nonsense, and rendering himself supremely ridiculous. Then, as to the scraps of song which are here and there interspersed, we cannot aver that they either stir our bosoms like the call of a trumpet, or excite the tears of pity. However, as we said already, our taste may be in fault; and it is just possible that we may hear the following ditty warbled in many a drawing-room: —

"The Rommany chiAnd the Rommany chal,Shall jaw basaulorTo drab the bawlor,And dook the gryOf the farming rye."The Rommany chiAnd the Rommany chal,Love Luripen,And dukkeripen,And hokkeripen,And every penBut Lachipen,And Tatchipen."

Certainly we never had, on any previous occasion, the dukkeripen to copy such jargon.

However pleasant it may be – and proverbs tell us that it is so – to go a-gipsying, it is manifest that this mode of life, unless professionally adopted, cannot keep the pot boiling. It is one thing to be an amateur, and another to be a thorough-paced practitioner. Mr Borrow, though tempted by his associates to adopt the latter course, and ally himself in marriage with a young fortune-teller of the name of Ursula, had the firmness and good sense to decline the proposal; and, accordingly, we presently find him ostensibly engaged in the study of law under the tutelage of an attorney. Young gentlemen so situated, are, we fear, but too apt to overlook the advantages within their reach, and to cultivate the Belles Lettres secretly when they should be immersed in Blackstone. If they do nothing worse, we may indulge the charitable hope that there is mercy for them in this world and the next. Mr Borrow did like his neighbours; with this difference that, instead of concealing the last new novel in his desk, he began manfully to master the difficulties of the Welsh language, and became an enthusiastic admirer of the poetry of Ab Gwilym. This, at all events, was a step in the right direction. Next, by one of those extraordinary accidents which, somehow or other, never occur except in novels, he became possessed of a copy of the Danish ballad-book – we presume the Kjœmpeviser – and mastered the language by means of a Danish bible. To this he added afterwards a knowledge of German, and German literature; so that, when compelled to go forth and struggle, single-handed with the world, his accomplishments were of a varied, if not a very marketable kind.

We are here treated to a description of a prize-fight, which, if we recollect has been already sketched by Mr Borrow in his "Gipsies in Spain." It is rather too bombastic for our taste, though it is worked up with considerable effect, both as regards action and accessories. It is introduced, we presume, principally on account of an individual who was present, and who took a prominent part in the proceedings of the day – we mean the notorious Thurtell. That Mr Borrow should have added Thurtell to the list of his acquaintances, – for it seems the grim murderer of Weare was wont to bestow upon him a nod of recognition, – after having known Haggart, is certainly remarkable, and testifies, at all events, his superiority to vulgar prejudice. There is a clever scene at the house of a magistrate, where Thurtell introduces a prize-fighter to the notice of the Custos Rotulorum, a portion of which we are tempted to quote: —

"'In what can I oblige you, sir?' said the magistrate.

'Well, sir, the soul of wit is brevity; we want a place for an approaching combat between my friend here and a brave from town. Passing by your broad acres this fine morning, we saw a pightle, which we deemed would suit. Lend us that pightle, and receive our thanks; 'twould be a favour, though not much to grant: we neither ask for Stonehenge nor for Tempe.'

My friend looked somewhat perplexed; after a moment, however, he said, with a firm but gentlemanly air, 'Sir, I am sorry that I cannot comply with your request.'

'Not comply!' said the man, his brow becoming dark as midnight; and with a hoarse and savage tone, 'Not comply! why not?'

'It is impossible, sir; utterly impossible.'

'Why so?'

'I am not compelled to give my reasons to you, sir, nor to any man.'

'Let me beg of you to alter your decision,' said the man in a tone of profound respect.

'Utterly impossible, sir; I am a magistrate.'

'Magistrate! then fare-ye-well, for a green-coated buffer and a Harmanbeck!'"

Lavengro – our fine fellow – it is not a thing to boast of, that you have, occasionally put on the gloves with Jack Thurtell!

Rejecting the profession of the law, our author, after the death of his father, started for London, in the hopes of a literary engagement; his sole credentials being a letter to a publisher from an eccentric German teacher, and two bundles of manuscript – being translations respectively from the Welsh and the Danish. Of course nobody would publish them; and the bookseller to whom he had been recommended would do nothing better for him than give him an order to compile a new series of the Newgate Calendar, at worse than hodman's wages. This portion of the story is very dull, and abounds in silly caricature. The struggles of the aspirant to literary distinction fail to excite in us the slightest degree of commiseration, because they are manifestly unreal; and the episodes of London life, though intended to be startling, are simply stupid. Thus, we have an Armenian merchant, whose acquaintance Mr Borrow makes by apprehending a thief while making free with his pocket-book – a merchant, only less sordid and fond of money than a Jew, whom, nevertheless, the author persuades to employ the whole of his realised fortune in making war upon the Persians! It is to be regretted that Mr Borrow does not favour us with his dukkeripen. Then there is the aforesaid thief, whom Mr Borrow again encounters at Greenwich fair, in the possession of a thimble-rig table, and who makes confidential proposals to him to act the subsidiary part of "bonnet." It was perhaps as well that Tawno Chikno's idea of investing the author with the honorary and fistic title of Cooro-mengro was not adopted, seeing that Mr Borrow abstained from doubling-up the scoundrel at the first hint of the kind. Then there is an applewoman who kept a stall on London Bridge, at which stall the aforesaid Armenian was wont to eat apples, and to which Mr Borrow occasionally repaired – for what purpose, does the reader think? Why – simply to read the history of Moll Flanders, a copy of which enticing work the old woman had in her possession!! This excellent creature, when Mr Borrow first knew her, was a receiver of stolen goods, and, in fact, hinted that, if Lavengro could pick up in the course of his peregrinations any stray handkerchiefs, she would be happy to give the highest available price for the same. There is some awful trash about her conversion having taken place in consequence of this copy of Moll being filched from her stall; but we have neither stomach nor patience to dwell upon this maudlin episode. The extract or essence of the whole, in so far as we can understand it, appears to be this – that by the perusal of Moll Flanders, Mr Borrow acquires a knowledge of the artistical skill of Defoe, and avails himself of that knowledge by writing an entire work of fiction within a week! We have never happened to fall in with this book, which is funnily entitled "The Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell," and therefore we cannot say whether or not it was limited to a single volume. In charity, we shall assume the smallest bulk; and if it be indeed true that Mr Borrow accomplished this task within the above time, feeding, moreover, all the while on nothing stronger than bread and water, we are ready, for the honour of our country, to back him for a heavy sum, not only against Fenimore Cooper, but even against the redoubted and hitherto unvanquished Dumas. We shall merely stipulate that the respective authors shall be securely and properly locked up, so that all communication from without may be effectually prevented. Cooper shall have as many sherry-cobblers, and Dumas as many bottles of Pomard or Chambertin, as they please. Lavengro shall be supplied with ale by the pitcherful; and we have no fears of the result. Only – let him establish his antecedents; and the challenge may be given, and the contest fixed, in time for the approaching "Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations."