The Life of George Borrow. Clement King Shorter
and Danish, in the Monthly Magazine. Clearly Borrow was becoming a formidable linguist, if not a very exact master of words. Still he remained a vagabond, and loved to wander over Mousehold Heath, to the gypsy encampment, and to make friends with the Romany folk; he loved also to haunt the horse fairs for which Norwich was so celebrated; and he was not averse from the companionship of wilder spirits who loved pugilism, if we may trust Lavengro, and if we may assume, as we justly may, that he many times cast youthful, sympathetic eyes on John Thurtell in these years, the to-be murderer of Weare, then actually living with his father in a house on the Ipswich Road, Thurtell, the father, being in no mean position in the city—an alderman, and a sheriff in 1815. Yes, there was plenty to do and to see in Norwich, and Borrow’s memories of it were nearly always kindly.
At the very centre of Borrow’s Norwich life was William Taylor, concerning whom we have already written much. It was a Jew named Mousha, a quack it appears, who pretended to know German and Hebrew, and had but a smattering of either language, who first introduced Borrow to Taylor, and there is a fine dialogue between the two in Lavengro, of which this is the closing fragment:
“Are you happy?” said the young man.
“Why, no! And, between ourselves, it is that which induces me to doubt sometimes the truth of my opinions. My life, upon the whole, I consider a failure; on which account, I would not counsel you, or anyone, to follow my example too closely. It is getting late, and you had better be going, especially as your father, you say, is anxious about you. But, as we may never meet again, I think there are three things which I may safely venture to press upon you. The first is, that the decencies and gentlenesses should never be lost sight of, as the practice of the decencies and gentlenesses is at all times compatible with independence of thought and action. The second thing which I would wish to impress upon you is, that there is always some eye upon us; and that it is impossible to keep anything we do from the world, as it will assuredly be divulged by somebody as soon as it is his interest to do so. The third thing which I would wish to press upon you—”
“Yes,” said the youth, eagerly bending forward.
“Is”—and here the elderly individual laid down his pipe upon the table—“that it will be as well to go on improving yourself in German!”
Taylor it was who, when Borrow determined to try his fortunes in London with those bundles of unsaleable manuscripts, gave him introductions to Sir Richard Phillips and to Thomas Campbell. It was in the agnostic spirit that he had learned from Taylor that he wrote during this period to his one friend in London, Roger Kerrison. Kerrison was grandson of Sir Roger Kerrison, Mayor of Norwich in 1778, as his son Thomas was after him in 1806. Roger was articled, as was Borrow, to the firm of Simpson and Rackham, while his brother Allday was in a drapery store in Norwich, but with mind bent on commercial life in Mexico. George was teaching him Spanish in these years as a preparation for his great adventure. Roger had gone to London to continue his professional experience. He finally became a Norwich solicitor and died in 1882. Allday went to Zacatecas, Mexico, and acquired riches. John Borrow followed him there and met with an early death, as we have seen. Borrow and Roger Kerrison were great friends at this time; but when Lavengro was written they had ceased to be this, and Roger is described merely as an “acquaintance” who had found lodgings for him on his first visit to London. As a matter of fact that trip to London was made easy for Borrow by the opportunity given to him of sharing lodgings with Roger Kerrison at Milman Street, Bedford Row, where Borrow put in an appearance on 1st April, 1824, some two months after the following letter was written:
To Mr. Roger Kerrison, 18 Milman Street, Bedford Row.
Norwich, Jany. 20, 1824.
Dearest Roger,—I did not imagine when we separated in the street, on the day of your departure from Norwich, that we should not have met again: I had intended to have come and seen you off, but happening to dine at W. Barron’s I got into discourse, and the hour slipt past me unawares.
I have been again for the last fortnight laid up with that detestable complaint which destroys my strength, impairs my understanding, and will in all probability send me to the grave, for I am now much worse than when you saw me last. But nil desperandum est, if ever my health mends, and possibly it may by the time my clerkship is expired, I intend to live in London, write plays, poetry, etc., abuse religion and get myself prosecuted, for I would not for an ocean of gold remain any longer than I am forced in this dull and gloomy town.
I have no news to regale you with, for there is none abroad, but I live in the expectation of shortly hearing from you, and being informed of your plans and projects; fear not to be prolix, for the slightest particular cannot fail of being interesting to one who loves you far better than parent or relation, or even than the God whom bigots would teach him to adore, and who subscribes himself, Yours unalterably,
George Borrow.
Borrow might improve his German—not sufficiently, as we shall see in our next chapter—but he would certainly never make a lawyer. Long years afterwards, when, as an old man, he was frequently in Norwich, he not seldom called at that office in Tuck’s Court, where five strange years of his life had been spent. A clerk in Rackham’s office in these later years recalls him waiting for the principal as he in his youth had watched others waiting. [54]
CHAPTER VIII
An Old-Time Publisher
“That’s a strange man!” said I to myself, after I had left the house, “he is evidently very clever; but I cannot say that I like him much with his Oxford Reviews and Dairyman’s Daughters.”—Lavengro.
Borrow lost his father on the 28th February, 1824. He reached London on the 2nd April of the same year, and this was the beginning of his many wanderings. He was armed with introductions from William Taylor, and with some translations in manuscript from Danish and Welsh poetry. The principal introduction was to Sir Richard Phillips, a person of some importance in his day, who has so far received but inadequate treatment in our own. Phillips was active in the cause of reform at a certain period in his life, and would seem to have had many sterling qualities before he was spoiled by success. He was born in the neighbourhood of Leicester, and his father was “in the farming line,” and wanted him to work on the farm, but he determined to seek his fortune in London. After a short absence, during which he clearly proved to himself that he was not at present qualified to capture London, young Phillips returned to the farm. Borrow refers to his patron’s vegetarianism, and on this point we have an amusing story from his own pen! He had been, when previously on the farm, in the habit of attending to a favourite heifer:
During his sojournment in London this animal had been killed; and on the very day of his return to his father’s house, he partook of part of his favourite at dinner, without his being made acquainted with the circumstance of its having been slaughtered during his absence. On learning this, however, he experienced a sudden indisposition; and declared that so great an effect had the idea of his having eaten part of his slaughtered favourite upon him, that he would never again taste animal food; a vow to which he has hitherto firmly adhered.
Farming not being congenial, Phillips hired a small room in Leicester, and opened a school for instruction in the three R’s, a large blue flag on a pole being his “sign” or signal to the inhabitants of Leicester, who seem to have sent their children in considerable numbers to the young schoolmaster. But little money was to be made out of schooling, and a year later Phillips was, by the kindness of friends, started in a small hosiery shop in Leicester. Throwing himself into politics on the side of reform, Phillips now founded the Leicester Herald, to which Dr. Priestley became a contributor. The first number was issued gratis in May, 1792. His Memoir informs us that it was an article in this newspaper that secured for its proprietor and editor eighteen months’ imprisonment in Leicester gaol, but he was really charged with selling Paine’s Rights of Man. The worthy knight had probably grown ashamed of The Rights of Man in the intervening years, and