[Shortly after the publication of the first three volumes of
the present work, the author received various letters from
individuals, in which he was requested to state what might be the
drift and tendency of Lavengro. The author cannot
help thinking it somewhat extraordinary, that, after a preface in
which he was particularly careful to tell the public what the
book was, and the object with which it was written, any fresh
information with respect to it should be required of him.
As, however, all the letters which he has received have been
written in a friendly spirit, he will now endeavour to be a
little more explicit than on a former occasion.]
Lavengro is the history up to a certain period of one
of rather a peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior
shy and cold, under which lurk much curiosity, especially with
regard to what is wild and extraordinary, a considerable quantity
of energy and industry, and an unconquerable love of
independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and feelings,
dwells with minuteness on the ways, words and characters of his
father, mother and brother, lingers on the occasional
resting-places of his wandering half-military childhood,
describes the gradual hardening of his bodily frame by robust
exercises, his successive struggles, after his family and himself
have settled down in a small local capital, to obtain knowledge
of every kind, but more particularly philological lore; his
visits to the tent of the Romany chal, and the parlour of the
Anglo-German philosopher; the effect produced upon his character
by his flinging himself into contact with people all widely
differing from each other, but all extraordinary; his reluctance
to settle down to the ordinary pursuits of life; his struggles
after moral truth; his glimpses of God and the obscuration of the
Divine Being, to his mind’s eye; and his being cast upon
the world of London by the death of his father, at the age of
nineteen. In the world within a world, the world of London,
it shows him playing his part for some time as he best can, in the
capacity of a writer for reviews and magazines, and describes
what he saw and underwent whilst labouring in that capacity; it
represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son
of a brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author,
he is likewise a scholar. It shows him doing no
dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally associates
with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity
of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of
London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his
acquaintance with the man of the table; for the book is no raker
up of the uncleanness of London, and if it gives what at first
sight appears refuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of some
kind, generally a philological one, is contained amongst it; it
shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence,
scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody,
and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly
miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book,
within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written his
Rasselas, and Beckford his Vathek, and tells how,
leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.
In the country it shows him leading a life of roving
adventure, becoming tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler;
associating with various kinds of people, chiefly of the lower
classes, whose ways and habits are described; but, though leading
this erratic life, we gather from the book that his habits are
neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to a certain
extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange characters,
or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of
the fifth volume, which terminates the first part of the history,
it hints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand
philological expedition.
Those who read this book with attention—and the author
begs to observe that it would be of little utility to read it
hurriedly—may derive much information with respect to
matters of philology and literature; it will be found treating of
most of the principal languages from Ireland to China, and of the
literature which they contain; and it is particularly minute with
regard to the ways, manners and speech of the English section of
the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people to
be found in the whole world—the children of Roma. But
it contains matters of much more importance than anything in
connection with philology, and the literature and manners of
nations. Perhaps no work was ever offered to the public in
which the kindness and providence of God have been set forth by
more striking examples, or the machinations of priestcraft been more
truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which result to a
nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for what
is novel and fashionable, than the present.
With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they
not exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her
son? These are beings in many points bad, but with warm
affections, who, after an agonising separation, are restored to
each other, but not until the hearts of both are changed and
purified by the influence of affliction. Are they not
exemplified in the case of the rich gentleman, who touches
objects in order to avert the evil chance? This being has
great gifts and many amiable qualities, but does not everybody
see that his besetting sin is selfishness? He fixes his
mind on certain objects, and takes inordinate interest in them,
because they are his own, and those very objects, through the
providence of God, which is kindness in disguise, become snakes
and scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he at
last becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much
admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection;
the book, consequently becomes a viper to him, and at last he
flings it aside and begins another; the book, however, is not
flung aside by the world, who are benefited by it, deriving
pleasure and knowledge from it: so the man who merely wrote to
gratify self, has already done good to others, and got himself an
honourable name. But God will not allow that man to put
that book under his head and use it as a pillow: the book has
become a viper to him, he has banished it, and is about another,
which he finishes and gives to the world; it is a better book
than the first, and every one is delighted with it; but it proves
to the writer a scorpion, because he loves it with inordinate
affection; but it was good for the world that he produced this
book, which stung him as a scorpion. Yes; and good for
himself, for the labour of writing it amused him, and perhaps
prevented him from dying of apoplexy; but the book is banished,
and another is begun, and herein, again, is the providence of God
manifested; the man has the power of producing still, and God
determines that he shall give to the world what remains in his
brain, which he would not do, had he been satisfied with the
second work; he would have gone to sleep upon that as he would
upon the first, for the man is selfish and lazy. In his
account of what he suffered during the composition of this work,
his besetting sin of selfishness is manifest enough; the work on
which he is engaged occupies his every thought, it is his idol,
his deity, it shall be all his own, he won’t borrow a thought from
any one else, and he is so afraid lest, when he publishes it,
that it should be thought that he had borrowed from any one, that
he is continually touching objects, his nervous system, owing to
his extreme selfishness, having become partly deranged. He
is left touching, in order to banish the evil chance from his
book, his deity. No more of his history is given; but does
the reader think that God will permit that man to go to sleep on
his third book, however extraordinary it may be? Assuredly
not. God will not allow that man to rest till he has cured
him to a certain extent of his selfishness, which has, however,
hitherto been very useful to the world.
Then, again, in the tale of Peter Williams, is not the hand of
Providence to be seen? This person commits a sin in his
childhood, utters words of blasphemy, the remembrance of which,
in after life, preying upon his imagination, unfits him for quiet
pursuits, to which he seems to have been naturally inclined; but
for the remembrance of that sin, he would have been Peter
Williams the quiet, respectable Welsh farmer, somewhat fond of
reading the ancient literature of his country in winter evenings,
after his work was done. God, however, was aware that there
was something in Peter Williams to entitle him to assume a higher
calling; he therefore permits this sin, which, though a childish
affair, was yet a sin, and committed deliberately, to prey upon
his mind till he becomes at last an instrument in the hand of
God, a humble Paul, the great preacher, Peter Williams, who,
though he considers himself a reprobate and a castaway, instead
of having recourse to drinking in mad desperation, as many do who
consider themselves reprobates, goes about Wales and England
preaching the word of God, dilating on his power and majesty, and
visiting the sick and afflicted, until God sees fit to restore to
him his peace of mind; which he does not do, however, until that
mind is in a proper condition to receive peace, till it has been
purified by the pain of the one idea which has so long been
permitted to riot in his brain; which pain, however, an angel, in
the shape of a gentle, faithful wife, had occasionally
alleviated; for God is merciful even in the blows which He
bestoweth, and will not permit any one to be tempted beyond the
measure which he can support. And here it will be as well
for the reader to ponder upon the means by which the Welsh
preacher is relieved from his mental misery: he is not relieved
by a text from the Bible, by the words of consolation and wisdom
addressed to him by his angel-minded wife, nor by the preaching
of one yet more eloquent than himself; but by a quotation made by
Lavengro from the life of Mary Flanders, cut-purse and prostitute,
which life Lavengro had been in the habit of reading at the stall
of his old friend the apple-woman, on London Bridge, who had
herself been very much addicted to the perusal of it, though
without any profit whatever. Should the reader be
dissatisfied with the manner in which Peter Williams is made to
find relief, the author would wish to answer, that the Almighty
frequently accomplishes his purposes by means which appear very
singular to the eyes of men, and at the same time to observe that
the manner in which that relief is obtained, is calculated to
read a lesson to the proud, fanciful and squeamish, who are ever
in a fidget lest they should be thought to mix with low society
or to bestow a moment’s attention on publications which are
not what is called of a perfectly unobjectionable
character. Had not Lavengro formed the acquaintance of the
old apple-woman on London Bridge, he would not have had an
opportunity of reading the life of Mary Flanders; and,
consequently, of storing in a memory, which never forgets
anything, a passage which contained a balm for the agonised mind
of poor Peter Williams. The best medicines are not always
found in the finest shops. Suppose, for example, if,
instead of going to London Bridge to read, he had gone to
Albemarle Street, and had received from the proprietors of the
literary establishment in that very fashionable street,
permission to read the publications on the tables of the saloons
there, does the reader think he would have met any balm in those
publications for the case of Peter Williams? does the reader
suppose that he would have found Mary Flanders there? He
would certainly have found that highly unobjectionable
publication Rasselas, and the Spectator, or
Lives of Royal and Illustrious Personages, but, of a
surety, no Mary Flanders; so when Lavengro met with Peter
Williams, he would have been unprovided with a balm to cure his
ulcerated mind, and have parted from him in a way not quite so
satisfactory as the manner in which he took his leave of him; for
it is certain that he might have read Rasselas, and all
the other unexceptionable works to be found in the library of
Albemarle Street, over and over again, before he would have found
any cure in them for the case of Peter Williams. Therefore
the author requests the reader to drop any squeamish nonsense he
may wish to utter about Mary Flanders, and the manner in which
Peter Williams was cured.
And now with respect to the old man who knew Chinese, but
could not tell what was o’clock. This individual was
a man whose natural powers would have been utterly buried and
lost beneath a mountain of sloth and laziness had not God
determined otherwise. He had in his early years chalked out
for himself a plan of life in which he had his own ease and
self-indulgence solely in view; he had no particular bad passions
to gratify, he only wished to lead an easy, quiet life, just as
if the business of this mighty world could be carried on by
innocent people fond of ease and quiet, or that Providence would
permit innocent, quiet drones to occupy any portion of the earth
and to cumber it. God had at any rate decreed that this man
should not cumber it as a drone. He brings a certain
affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terrible
whirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time,
produces madness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period,
until one morning his attention is arrested, and his curiosity is
aroused, by certain Chinese letters on a teapot; his curiosity
increases more and more, and, of course, in proportion as his
curiosity is increased with respect to the Chinese marks, the
misery in his brain, produced by his mental affliction,
decreases. He sets about learning Chinese, and after the
lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a
certain state of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge
of Chinese to be able to translate with ease the inscriptions to
be found on its singular crockery. Yes, the laziest of
human beings, through the providence of God, a being, too, of
rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part of a language
so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion, none
but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to
acquire it. But God did not intend that man should merely
acquire Chinese. He intended that he should be of use to
his species, and by the instrumentality of the first Chinese
inscription which he translates, the one which first arrested his
curiosity, he is taught the duties of hospitality; yes, by means
of an inscription in the language of a people, who have scarcely
an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the slothful man to
play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving
distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro
himself. But a striking indication of the man’s
surprising sloth is still apparent in what he omits to do; he has
learnt Chinese, the most difficult of languages, and he practises
acts of hospitality, because he believes himself enjoined to do
so by the Chinese inscription, but he cannot tell the hour of the
day by the clock within his house; he can get on, he thinks, very
well without being able to do so; therefore, from this one
omission, it is easy to come to a conclusion as to what a
sluggard’s part the man would have played in life, but for
the dispensation of Providence; nothing but extreme agony could
have induced such a man to do anything useful. He still
continues, with all he has acquired, with all his usefulness, and
with all his innocence of character, without any proper sense of
religion, though he has attained a rather advanced age. If
it be observed, that this want of religion is a great defect in
the story, the author begs leave to observe that he cannot help
it. Lavengro relates the lives of people so far as they
were placed before him, but no further. It was certainly a
great defect in so good a man to be without religion; it was
likewise a great defect in so learned a man not to be able to
tell what was o’clock. It is probable that God, in
His loving kindness, will not permit that man to go out of the
world without religion; who knows but some powerful minister of
the Church, full of zeal for the glory of God, will illume that
man’s dark mind; perhaps some clergyman will come to the
parish who will visit him and teach him his duty to his
God. Yes, it is very probable that such a man, before he
dies, will have been made to love his God; whether he will ever
learn to know what’s o’clock, is another
matter. It is probable that he will go out of the world
without knowing what’s o’clock. It is not so
necessary to be able to tell the time of day by the clock as to
know one’s God through His inspired word; a man cannot get
to heaven without religion, but a man can get there very
comfortably without knowing what’s o’clock.
But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested
in the case of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is
enabled to make his way in the world up to a certain period,
without falling a prey either to vice or poverty. In his
history, there is a wonderful illustration of part of the text,
quoted by his mother: “I have been young, but now am old,
yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging
bread”. He is the son of good and honourable parents,
but at the critical period of life, that of entering into the
world, he finds himself without any earthly friend to help him,
yet he manages to make his way; he does not become a Captain in
the Life Guards, it is true, nor does he get into Parliament, nor
does the last volume conclude in the most satisfactory and
unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as
that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great
country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very
moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle;
he is hack author, gypsy, tinker and postillion, yet, upon the
whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most
earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and when the reader
loses sight of him, he has money in his pocket honestly
acquired, to enable him to commence a journey quite as laudable
as those which the younger sons of earls generally
undertake. Surely all this is a manifestation of the
kindness and providence of God; and yet he is not a religious
person; up to the time when the reader loses sight of him, he is
decidedly not a religious person; he has glimpses, it is true, of
that God who does not forsake him, but he prays very seldom, is
not fond of going to church; and, though he admires Tate and
Brady’s version of the Psalms, his admiration is rather
caused by the beautiful poetry which that version contains than
the religion; yet his tale is not finished—like the tale of
the gentleman who touched objects, and that of the old man who
knew Chinese without knowing what was o’clock; perhaps,
like them, he is destined to become religious, and to have,
instead of occasional glimpses frequent and distinct views of his
God; yet, though he may become religious, it is hardly to be
expected that he will become a very precise and straightlaced
person; it is probable that he will retain, with his scholarship,
something of his gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer and
tongs, and perhaps some inclination to put on certain gloves, not
white kid, with any friend who may be inclined for a little old
English diversion, and a readiness to take a glass of ale, with
plenty of malt in it, and as little hop as may well be—ale
at least two years old—with the aforesaid friend, when the
diversion is over; for, as it is the belief of the writer that a
person may get to heaven very comfortably without knowing
what’s o’clock, so it is his belief that he will not
be refused admission there, because to the last he has been fond
of healthy and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to
partake of any of the good things which it pleases the Almighty
to put within the reach of his children during their sojourn upon
earth.
The writer will now say a few words
about priestcraft, and the machinations of Rome, and will
afterwards say something about himself, and his motives for
writing against them.
With respect to Rome, and her machinations, much valuable
information can be obtained from particular parts of
Lavengro, and its sequel. Shortly before the time
when the hero of the book is launched into the world, the Popish
agitation in England had commenced. The Popish propaganda
had determined to make a grand attempt on England; Popish priests
were scattered over the land, doing the best they could to make
converts to the old superstition. With the plans of Rome,
and her hopes, and the reasons on which those hopes are grounded,
the hero of the book becomes acquainted, during an expedition
which he makes into the country, from certain conversations which
he holds with a priest in a dingle, in which the hero had taken
up his residence; he likewise learns from the same person much of
the secret history of the Roman See, and many matters connected
with the origin and progress of the Popish superstition.
The individual with whom he holds these conversations is a
learned, intelligent, but highly-unprincipled person, of a
character however very common amongst the priests of Rome, who in
general are people void of all religion, and who, notwithstanding
they are tied to Rome by a band which they have neither the power
nor wish to break, turn her and her practices, over their cups
with their confidential associates, to a ridicule only exceeded
by that to which they turn those who become the dupes of their
mistress and themselves.
It is now necessary that the writer should say something with
respect to himself, and his motives for waging war against
Rome. First of all, with respect to himself, he wishes to
state, that to the very last moment of his life, he will do and
say all that in his power may be to hold up to contempt and
execration the priestcraft and practices of Rome; there is,
perhaps, no person better acquainted than himself, not even among
the choicest spirits of the priesthood, with the origin and
history of Popery. From what he saw and heard of Popery in
England, at a very early period of his life, his curiosity was
aroused, and he spared himself no trouble, either by travel or
study, to make himself well acquainted with it in all its phases,
the result being a hatred of it, which he hopes and trusts he
shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the
body. Popery is the great lie of the world; a source from
which more misery and social degradation have flowed upon the
human race, than from all the other sources from which those
evils come. It is the oldest of all superstitions; and
though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity, it existed
and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two thousand
years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea; in a
word, it is Buddhism; and let those who may be disposed to doubt
this assertion, compare the Popery of Rome, and the superstitious
practices of its followers, with the doings of the priests who
surround the grand Lama; and the mouthings, bellowing, turnings
round, and, above all, the penances of the followers of Buddh
with those of Roman devotees. But he is not going to dwell
here on this point; it is dwelt upon at tolerable length in the
text, and has likewise been handled with extraordinary power by
the pen of the gifted but irreligious Volney; moreover, the
élite of the Roman priesthood are perfectly well
aware that their system is nothing but Buddhism under a slight
disguise, and the European world in general has entertained for
some time past an inkling of the fact.
And now a few words with respect to the motives of the writer
for expressing a hatred for Rome.
This expressed abhorrence of the author for Rome might be
entitled to little regard, provided it were possible to attribute
it to any self-interested motive. There have been professed
enemies of Rome, or of this or that system; but their professed
enmity may frequently be traced to some cause which does them
little credit; but the writer of these lines has no motive, and
can have no motive, for his enmity to Rome, save the abhorrence
of an honest heart for what is false, base and cruel. A
certain clergyman wrote with much heat against the Papists in the
time of — [311a] who was known to
favour the Papists, but was not expected to continue long in
office, and whose supposed successor, [311b] the person, indeed, who did succeed
him, was thought to be hostile to the Papists. This divine,
who obtained a rich benefice from the successor of — [311c] who during —’s [311d] time had always opposed him in
everything he proposed to do, and who, of course, during that
time affected to be very inimical to Popery—this divine
might well be suspected of having a motive equally creditable for
writing against the Papists, as that which induced him to write
for them, as soon as his patron, who eventually did something
more for him, [312a] had espoused their cause; but what
motive, save an honest one, can the present writer have, for
expressing an abhorrence of Popery? He is no clergyman, and
consequently can expect neither benefices nor bishoprics,
supposing it were the fashion of the present, or likely to be the
fashion of any future administration to reward clergymen with
benefices or bishoprics, who, in the defence of the religion of
their country write, or shall write, against Popery, and not to
reward those who write, or shall write, in favour of it, and all
its nonsense and abominations.
“But if not a clergyman, he is the servant of a certain
society which has the overthrow of Popery in view, and
therefore,” etc. This assertion, which has been
frequently made, is incorrect, even as those who have made it
probably knew it to be. He is the servant of no society
whatever. He eats his own bread, [312b] and is one of the very few men in
England who are independent in every sense of the word.
It is true he went to Spain with the colours of that society
on his hat—oh! the blood glows in his veins! oh! the marrow
awakes in his old bones when he thinks of what he accomplished in
Spain in the cause of religion and civilisation with the colours
of that society in his hat, and its weapon in his hand, even the
sword of the word of God; how with that weapon he hewed left and
right, making the priests fly before him, and run away squeaking:
“Vaya! qué demonio es
este!” Ay, and when he thinks of the plenty of
Bible swords which he left behind him, destined to prove, and
which have already proved, pretty calthrops in the heels of
Popery. “Halloo! Batuschca,” he exclaimed
the other night on reading an article in a newspaper; [312c] “what do you think of the
present doings in Spain? Your old friend the zingaro, the
gitano who rode about Spain, to say nothing of Galicia, with the
Greek Buchini behind him as his squire, had a hand in bringing
them about; there are many brave Spaniards connected with the
present movement [312d] who took Bibles
from his hands, and read them and profited by them, learning from
the inspired page the duties of one man towards another,
and the real value of a priesthood and their head, who set at
nought the Word of God, and think only of their own temporal
interests; ay, and who learned Gitano—their own
Gitano—from the lips of the London Caloró, and also
songs in the said Gitano, very fit to dumbfounder your
semi-Buddhist priests when they attempt to bewilder
people’s minds with their school-logic and
pseudo-ecclesiastical nonsense, songs such as—
“‘Un
Erajai
Sinaba chibando un sermon—’.” [313]
But with that society he has long since ceased to have any
connection; he bade it adieu with feelings of love and admiration
more than fourteen years ago, so in continuing to assault Popery,
no hopes of interest founded on that society can sway his
mind—interest! who, with worldly interest in view, would
ever have anything to do with that society? It is poor and
supported, like its founder Christ, by poor people; and so far
from having political influence, it is in such disfavour, and has
ever been, with the dastardly great, to whom the government of
England has for many years past been confided, that the having
borne its colours only for a month would be sufficient to exclude
any man, whatever his talents, his learning, or his courage may
be, from the slightest chance of being permitted to serve his
country either for fee, or without. A fellow who unites in
himself the bankrupt trader, the broken author, or rather
book-maker, and the laughed-down single speech spouter of the
House of Commons, may look forward, always supposing that at one
time he has been a foaming radical, to the government of an
important colony. Ay, an ancient fox who has lost his tail
may, provided he has a score of radical friends,
who will swear that he can bark Chinese, though Chinese is not
barked but sung, be forced upon a Chinese colony, though it is
well known that to have lost one’s tail, is considered by
the Chinese in general as an irreparable infamy, whilst to have
been once connected with a certain society, to which, to its
honour be it said, all the radical party are vehemently hostile,
would be quite sufficient to keep any one not only from a
government, but something much less, even though he could
translate the rhymed Sessions of Hariri, and were versed,
still retaining his tail, in the two languages in which
Kien-Loung wrote his Eulogium on Moukden, that piece which,
translated by Amyot, the learned Jesuit, won the applause of the
celebrated Voltaire.
No! were the author influenced by hopes of fee or reward, he
would, instead of writing against Popery, write for it; all the
trumpery titled—he will not call them great
again—would then be for him, and their masters the
radicals, with their hosts of newspapers, would be for him, more
especially if he would commence maligning the society whose
colours he had once on his hat—a society which, as the
priest says in the text, is one of the very few Protestant
institutions for which the Popish Church entertains any fear, and
consequently respect, as it respects nothing which it does not
fear. The writer said that certain “rulers”
would never forgive him for having been connected with that
society; he went perhaps too far in saying
“never”. It is probable that they would take
him into favour on one condition, which is, that he should turn
his pen and his voice against that society; such a mark “of
a better way of thinking,” would perhaps induce them to
give him a government, nearly as good as that which they gave to
a certain ancient radical fox at the intercession of his radical
friends (who were bound to keep him from the pauper’s
kennel), after he had promised to foam, bark and snarl at
corruption no more; he might even entertain hopes of succeeding,
nay, of superseding, the ancient creature in his government; but
even were he as badly off as he is well off, he would do no such
thing. He would rather exist on crusts and water; he has
often done so, and been happy; nay, he would rather starve than
be a rogue—for even the feeling of starvation is happiness
compared with what he feels who knows himself to be a rogue,
provided he has any feeling at all. What is the use of a
mitre or knighthood to a man who has betrayed his
principles? What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of
a pair of scarlet breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail?
Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the fox who has lost his
tail; and with reason, for his very mate loathes him and
more especially if, like himself, she has lost her brush.
Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who
has parted with his principles, or those which he
professed—for what? We’ll suppose a
government. What’s the use of a government, if, the
next day after you have received it, you are obliged for very
shame to scurry off to it with the hoot of every honest man
sounding in your ears?
“Lightly liar leaped and away
ran.”
—Piers
Plowman.
But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against
Popery; and thorough-going bigotry, indeed, will make a person
say or do anything. But the writer is a very pretty bigot
truly! Where will the public find traces of bigotry in
anything he has written? He has written against Rome with
all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all
his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and
write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against
her, and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for
any one but a bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise;
her doctrines, actions and machinations being what they are.
Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued,
in the wrong Church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church
of England; a Church which, had it been a bigoted Church, and not
long suffering almost to a fault, might with its opportunities,
as the priest says in the text, have stood in a very different
position from that which it occupies at present. No! let
those who are in search of bigotry, seek for it in a Church very
different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never
encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst
the members of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst
those who have renegaded to it. There is nothing, however
false and horrible, which a pervert to Rome will not say for his
Church, and which his priests will not encourage him in saying;
and there is nothing, however horrible—the more horrible
indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he would be
to do it—which he will not do for it and which his priests
will not encourage him in doing.
Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice
all the ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their
newly-adopted religion, there is a curious illustration in the
work of Luigi Pulci. This man, who was born in Florence in
the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in the Bible, composed a
poem, called the Morgante Maggiore, which he recited at
the table of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the great patron of Italian
genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which
the legends of knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are
turned to unbounded ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a
converted giant, called Morgante; though his adventures do not
occupy the twentieth part of the poem, the principal personages
being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin Rinaldo of
Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants,
and in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with
his brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a
certain convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the
giants being in the habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge
rocks, on the convent. Orlando, however, who is banished
from the court of Charlemagne, arriving at the convent,
undertakes to destroy them, and, accordingly, kills Passamonte
and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind had been
previously softened by a vision, in which the “Blessed
Virgin” figures. No sooner is he converted than, as a
sign of his penitence, what does he do, but hastens and cuts off
the hands of his two brothers, saying—
“Io vo’ tagliar le mani à tutti
quanti
E porterolle à que’ monaci santi”. [316a]
And he does cut off the hands of his brethren, and carries
them to the abbot, who blesses him for so doing. Pulci here
is holding up to ridicule and execration the horrid butchery or
betrayal of friends by popish converts, and the encouragement
they receive from the priest. No sooner is a person
converted to Popery, than his principal thought is how he can
bring the hands and feet of his brethren, however harmless they
may be, and different from the giants, to the “holy
priests,” who, if he manages to do so, never fail to praise
him, saying to the miserable wretch, as the abbot said to
Morgante:—
“Tu sarai or perfetto e veto amico
A Cristo, quauto tu gli eri nemico”. [316b]
Can the English public deny the justice of Pulci’s
illustration, after something which it has lately
witnessed? Has it not seen equivalents for the hands and
feet of brothers carried by popish perverts to the “holy
priests,” and has it not seen the manner in which the
offering has been received? Let those who are in quest of
Bigotry seek for it among the perverts to Rome, and not amongst
those who, born in the pale of the Church of England, have always
continued in it.
With respect to the third point,
various lessons which the book reads to the nation at large, and
which it would be well for the nation to ponder and profit
by.
There are many species of nonsense to which the nation is much
addicted, and of which the perusal of Lavengro ought to
give them a wholesome shame. First of all, with respect to
the foreign nonsense so prevalent now in England. The hero
is a scholar; but, though possessed of a great many tongues, he
affects to be neither Frenchman, nor German, nor this or that
foreigner; he is one who loves his country, and the language and
literature of his country, and speaks up for each and all when
there is occasion to do so. Now what is the case with nine
out of ten amongst those of the English who study foreign
languages? No sooner have they picked up a smattering of
this or that speech than they begin to abuse their own country,
and everything connected with it, more especially its
language. This is particularly the case with those who call
themselves German students. It is said, and the writer
believes with truth, that when a woman falls in love with a
particularly ugly fellow, she squeezes him with ten times more
zest than she would a handsome one, if captivated by him.
So it is with these German students; no sooner have they taken
German in hand than there is nothing like German. Oh, the
dear, delightful German! How proud I am that it is now my
own, and that its divine literature is within my reach! And
all this whilst mumbling the most uncouth speech, and crunching
the most crabbed literature in Europe. The writer is not an
exclusive admirer of everything English; he does not advise his
country people never to go abroad, never to study foreign
languages, and he does not wish to persuade them that there is
nothing beautiful or valuable in foreign literature; he only
wishes that they would not make themselves fools with respect to
foreign people, foreign languages or reading; that if they chance
to have been in Spain, and have picked up a little Spanish, they
would not affect the airs of Spaniards; that if males they would
not make Tom-fools of themselves by sticking cigars into their
mouths, dressing themselves in zamarras, and saying,
carajo! [318] and if females that they would not
make zanies of themselves by sticking cigars into their mouths,
flinging mantillas over their heads, and by saying carai,
and perhaps carajo too; or if they have been in France or
Italy, and have picked up a little French or Italian, they would
not affect to be French or Italians; and particularly, after
having been a month or two in Germany, or picked up a little
German in England, they would not make themselves foolish about
everything German, as the Anglo-German in the book does—a
real character, the founder of the Anglo-German school in
England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote
encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. Of all
infatuations connected with what is foreign, the infatuation
about everything that is German, to a certain extent prevalent in
England, is assuredly the most ridiculous. One can find
something like a palliation for people making themselves somewhat
foolish about particular languages, literatures and people.
The Spanish certainly is a noble language, and there is something
wild and captivating in the Spanish character, and its literature
contains the grand book of the world. French is a manly
language. The French are the great martial people in the
world; and French literature is admirable in many respects.
Italian is a sweet language, and of beautiful
simplicity—its literature perhaps the first in the
world. The Italians!—wonderful men have sprung up in
Italy. Italy is not merely famous for painters, poets,
musicians, singers and linguists—the greatest linguist the
world ever saw, the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, was an Italian; but
it is celebrated for men—men emphatically speaking:
Columbus was an Italian, Alexander Farnese was an Italian, so was
the mightiest of the mighty, Napoleon Bonaparte; but the German
language, German literature, and the Germans! The writer
has already stated his opinion with respect to German; he does
not speak from ignorance or prejudice; he has heard German
spoken, and many other languages. German literature!
He does not speak from ignorance, he has read that and many a
literature, and he repeats—however, he acknowledges that
there is one fine poem in the German language, that poem is the
Oberon; a poem, by-the-bye, ignored by the Germans—a
speaking fact—and of course, by the Anglo-Germanists.
The Germans! he has been amongst them, and amongst many other
nations, and confesses that his opinion of the Germans, as men,
is a very low one. Germany, it is true, has produced one very great
man, the monk who fought the Pope, and nearly knocked him down;
but this man his country-men—a telling fact—affect to
despise, and, of course, the Anglo-Germanists: the father of
Anglo-Germanism was very fond of inveighing against Luther.
The madness, or rather foolery, of the English for foreign
customs, dresses and languages, is not an affair of to-day, or
yesterday—it is of very ancient date, and was very properly
exposed nearly three centuries ago by one Andrew Borde, who under
the picture of a “Naked man, with a pair of shears in one
hand, and a roll of cloth in the other,” inserted the
following lines along with others:—[319]
I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what garment I shall weare;
For now I will weare this, and now I will weare that,
Now I will weare, I cannot tell what.
All new fashions be pleasant to mee,
I will have them, whether I thrive or thee;
What do I care if all the world me fail?
I will have a garment [shall] reach to my taile;
Then am I a minion, for I weare the new guise.
The next yeare after I hope to be wise,
Not only in wearing my gorgeous array,
For I will go to learning a whole summer’s day,
I will learn Latine, Hebrew, Greek, and French,
And I will learn Dutch, sitting on my bench.
I had no peere if to myself I were true,
Because I am not so, divers times do I rue.
Yet I lacke nothing, I have all things at will
If I were wise and would hold myself still,
And meddle with no matters but to me pertaining,
But ever to be true to God and my King.
But I have such matters rowling in my pate,
That I will and do — — I cannot tell
what, etc.
What is gentility? People in different stations in
England entertain different ideas of what is genteel, [320] but it must be something gorgeous,
glittering or tawdry, to be considered genteel by any of
them. The beau-ideal of the English aristocracy, of course
with some exceptions, is some young fellow with an imperial
title, a military personage of course, for what is military is so
particularly genteel, with flaming epaulets, a cocked hat and
plume, a prancing charger, and a band of fellows called generals
and colonels, with flaming epaulets, cocked hats and plumes, and
prancing chargers vapouring behind him. It was but lately
that the daughter of an English marquis was heard to say, that
the sole remaining wish of her heart—she had known
misfortunes, and was not far from fifty—was to be
introduced to—whom? The Emperor of Austria! The
sole remaining wish of the heart of one who ought to have been
thinking of the grave and judgment, was to be introduced to the
miscreant who had caused the blood of noble Hungarian females to
be whipped out of their shoulders, for no other crime than
devotion to their country, and its tall and heroic sons.
The middle classes—of course there are some
exceptions—admire the aristocracy, and consider them pinks,
the aristocracy who admire the Emperor of Austria, and
adored the Emperor of Russia, till he became old, ugly and
unfortunate, when their adoration instantly terminated; for what
is more ungenteel than age, ugliness and misfortune! The
beau-ideal with those of the lower classes, with peasants and
mechanics, is some flourishing railroad contractor: look, for
example, how they worship Mr. Flamson. This person makes
his grand début in the year ’thirty-nine, at a
public meeting in the principal room of a country inn. He
has come into the neighbourhood with the character of a man worth
a million pounds, who is to make everybody’s fortune; at
this time, however, he is not worth a shilling of his own, though
he flashes about dexterously three or four thousand pounds, part
of which sum he has obtained by specious pretences, and part from
certain individuals who are his confederates. But in the
year ’forty-nine, he is really in possession of the fortune
which he and his agents pretended he was worth ten years
before—he is worth a million pounds. By what means
has he come by them? By railroad contracts, for which he
takes care to be paid in hard cash before he attempts to perform
them, and to carry out which he makes use of the sweat and blood
of wretches who, since their organisation, have introduced crimes
and language into England to which it was previously almost a
stranger—by purchasing, with paper, shares by hundreds in
the schemes to execute which he contracts, and which are of his
own devising; which shares he sells as soon as they are at a high
premium, to which they are speedily forced by means of
paragraphs, inserted by himself and agents, in newspapers devoted
to his interest, utterly reckless of the terrible depreciation to
which they are almost instantly subjected. But he is worth
a million pounds, there can be no doubt of the fact—he has
not made people’s fortunes, at least those whose fortunes
it was said he would make; he has made them away; but his own he
has made, emphatically made it; he is worth a million
pounds. Hurrah for the millionnaire! The clown who
views the pandemonium of red brick which he has built on the
estate which he has purchased in the neighbourhood of the place
of his grand début in which every species of architecture,
Greek, Indian and Chinese, is employed in caricature—who
hears of the grand entertainment he gives at Christmas in the
principal dining-room, the hundred wax-candles, the waggon-load
of plate, and the oceans of wine which form parts of it, and
above all the two ostrich poults, one at the head, and the other
at the foot of the table, exclaims: “Well! if he
a’n’t bang up, I don’t know who be; why he
beats my lord hollow!” The mechanic of the borough town,
who sees him dashing through the streets in an open landau, drawn
by four milk-white horses, amidst its attendant out-riders; his
wife, a monster of a woman, by his side, stout as the wife of
Tamerlane, who weighed twenty stone, and bedizened out like her
whose person shone with the jewels of plundered Persia, stares
with silent wonder, and at last exclaims: “That’s the
man for my vote!” You tell the clown that the man of
the mansion has contributed enormously to corrupt the rural
innocence of England; you point to an incipient branch railroad,
from around which the accents of Gomorrah are sounding, and beg
him to listen for a moment, and then close his ears. Hodge
scratches his head and says: “Well, I have nothing to say
to that; all I known is that he is bang up, and I wish I were
he”; perhaps he will add—a Hodge has been known to
add—“He has been kind enough to put my son on that
very railroad; ’tis true the company is somewhat queer, and
the work rather killing, but he gets there half a crown a day,
whereas from the farmers he would only get
eighteenpence.” You remind the mechanic that the man
in the landau has been the ruin of thousands, and you mention
people whom he himself knows, people in various grades of life,
widows and orphans amongst them, whose little all he has
dissipated, and whom he has reduced to beggary by inducing them
to become sharers in his delusive schemes. But the mechanic
says: “Well, the more fools they to let themselves be
robbed. But I don’t call that kind of thing robbery,
I merely call it out-witting; and everybody in this free country
has a right to outwit others if he can. What a turn-out he
has!” One was once heard to add: “I never saw a
more genteel-looking man in all my life except one, and that was
a gentleman’s walley, who was much like him. It is
true he is rather undersized, but then, madam, you know, makes up
for all.”
In the last chapter have been
exhibited specimens of gentility, so considered by different
classes; by one class, power, youth and epaulets are considered
the ne plus ultra of gentility; by another class, pride,
stateliness and title; by another, wealth and flaming
tawdriness. But what constitutes a gentleman? It is
easy to say at once what constitutes a gentleman, and there are
no distinctions in what is gentlemanly, [323] as there are in what is genteel.
The characteristics of a gentleman are high feeling—a
determination never to take a cowardly advantage of
another—a liberal education—absence of narrow
views—generosity and courage, propriety of behaviour.
Now a person may be genteel according to one or another of the
three standards described above, and not possess one of the
characteristics of a gentleman. Is the emperor a gentleman,
with spatters of blood on his clothes, scourged from the backs of
noble Hungarian women? Are the aristocracy gentlefolks, who
admire him? Is Mr. Flamson a gentleman, although he has a
million pounds? No! cowardly miscreants, admirers of
cowardly miscreants, and people who make a million pounds by
means compared with which those employed to make fortunes by the
getters up of the South Sea Bubble might be called honest
dealing, are decidedly not gentlefolks. Now as it is
clearly demonstrable that a person may be perfectly genteel
according to some standard or other, and yet be no gentleman, so
is it demonstrable that a person may have no pretensions to
gentility, and yet be a gentleman. For example, there is
Lavengro! Would the admirers of the emperor, or the
admirers of those who admire the emperor, or the admirers of Mr.
Flamson, call him genteel? and gentility with them is
everything! Assuredly they would not; and assuredly they
would consider him respectively as a being to be shunned,
despised, or hooted. Genteel! Why at one time he is a
hack author—writes reviewals for eighteenpence a
page—edits a Newgate chronicle. At another he wanders
the country with a face grimy from occasionally mending kettles;
and there is no evidence that his clothes are not seedy and torn,
and his shoes down at the heel; but by what process of reasoning
will they prove that he is no gentleman? Is he not
learned? Has he not generosity and courage? Whilst a
hack author, does he pawn the books entrusted to him to
review? Does he break his word to his publisher? Does
he write begging letters? Does he get clothes or lodgings
without paying for them? Again, whilst a wanderer, does he
insult helpless women on the road with loose proposals or ribald
discourse? Does he take what is not his own from the
hedges? Does he play on the fiddle, or make faces in
public-houses, in order to obtain pence or beer? or does he call
for liquor, swallow it, and then say to a widowed landlady,
“Mistress, I have no brass?” In a word, what
vice and crime does he perpetrate—what low acts does he
commit? Therefore, with his endowments, who will venture to
say that he is no gentleman?—unless it be an admirer of Mr.
Flamson—a clown—who will, perhaps, shout: “I
say he is no gentleman; for who can be a gentleman who keeps no
gig?”
The indifference exhibited by Lavengro for what is merely
genteel, compared with his solicitude never to infringe the
strict laws of honour, should read a salutary lesson. The
generality of his countrymen are far more careful not to
transgress the customs of what they call gentility, than to
violate the laws of honour or morality. They will shrink
from carrying their own carpet-bag, and from speaking to a person
in seedy raiment, whilst to matters of much higher importance
they are shamelessly indifferent. Not so Lavengro; he will
do anything that he deems convenient, or which strikes his fancy,
provided it does not outrage decency, or is unallied to
profligacy; is not ashamed to speak to a beggar in rags, and will
associate with anybody, provided he can gratify a laudable
curiosity. He has no abstract love for what is low, or what
the world calls low. He sees that many things which the
world looks down upon are valuable, so he prizes much which the
world contemns; he sees that many things which the world admires
are contemptible, so he despises much which the world does not;
but when the world prizes what is really excellent, he does not
contemn it, because the world regards it. If he learns
Irish, which all the world scoffs at, he likewise learns Italian,
which all the world melts at. If he learns Gypsy, the
language of the tattered tent, he likewise learns Greek, the
language of the college hall. If he learns smithery, he
also learns—ah! what does he learn to set against
smithery?—the law? No; he does not learn the law,
which, by the way, is not very genteel. Swimming?
Yes, he learns to swim. Swimming, however, is not genteel;
and the world—at least the genteel part of it—acts
very wisely in setting its face against it; for to swim you must
be naked, and how would many a genteel person look without his
clothes? Come, he learns horsemanship; a very genteel
accomplishment, which every genteel person would gladly possess,
though not all genteel people do.
Again as to associates: if he holds communion when a boy with
Murtagh, the scarecrow of an Irish academy, he associates in
after life with Francis Ardry, a rich and talented young Irish
gentleman about town. If he accepts an invitation from Mr.
Petulengro to his tent, he has no objection to go home with a
rich genius to dinner; who then will say that he prizes a thing
or a person because they are ungenteel? That he is not
ready to take up with everything that is ungenteel he gives a
proof, when he refuses, though on the brink of starvation, to
become bonnet to the thimble-man, an office, which, though
profitable, is positively ungenteel. Ah! but some
sticker-up for gentility will exclaim: “The hero did not
refuse this office from an insurmountable dislike to its
ungentility, but merely from a feeling of principle”.
Well! the writer is not fond of argument, and he will admit that
such was the case; he admits that it was a love of principle,
rather than an over-regard for gentility, which prevented the
hero from accepting, when on the brink of starvation, an
ungenteel though lucrative office, an office which, the writer
begs leave to observe, many a person with a great regard for
gentility, and no particular regard for principle, would in a
similar strait have accepted; for when did a mere love for
gentility keep a person from being a dirty scoundrel, when the
alternatives apparently were “either be a dirty scoundrel
or starve?” One thing, however, is certain, which is,
that Lavengro did not accept the office, which if a love for what
is low had been his ruling passion he certainly would have done;
consequently, he refuses to do one thing which no genteel person
would willingly do, even as he does many things which every
genteel person would gladly do, for example, speaks Italian,
rides on horseback, associates with a fashionable young man,
dines with a rich genius, et cetera. Yet—and it
cannot be minced—he and gentility with regard to many
things are at strange divergency; he shrinks from many things at which
gentility placidly hums a tune, or approvingly simpers, and does
some things at which gentility positively shrinks. He will
not run into debt for clothes or lodgings, which he might do
without any scandal to gentility; he will not receive money from
Francis Ardry, and go to Brighton with the sister of Annette Le
Noir, though there is nothing ungenteel in borrowing money from a
friend, even when you never intend to repay him, and something
poignantly genteel in going to a watering-place with a gay young
Frenchwoman; but he has no objection, after raising twenty pounds
by the sale of that extraordinary work Joseph Sell, to set
off into the country, mend kettles under hedge-rows, and make
pony and donkey shoes in a dingle. Here, perhaps, some
plain, well-meaning person will cry—and with much apparent
justice—how can the writer justify him in this act?
What motive, save a love for what is low, could induce him to do
such things? Would the writer have everybody who is in need
of recreation go into the country, mend kettles under hedges, and
make pony shoes in dingles? To such an observation the
writer would answer, that Lavengro had an excellent motive in
doing what he did, but that the writer is not so unreasonable as
to wish everybody to do the same. It is not everybody who
can mend kettles. It is not everybody who is in similar
circumstances to those in which Lavengro was. Lavengro
flies from London and hack authorship, and takes to the roads
from fear of consumption; it is expensive to put up at inns, and
even at public-houses, and Lavengro has not much money; so he
buys a tinker’s cart and apparatus, and sets up as tinker,
and subsequently as blacksmith; a person living in a tent, or in
anything else, must do something or go mad; Lavengro had a mind,
as he himself well knew, with some slight tendency to madness,
and had he not employed himself, he must have gone wild; so to
employ himself he drew upon one of his resources, the only one
available at the time. Authorship had nearly killed him, he
was sick of reading, and had besides no books; but he possessed
the rudiments of an art akin to tinkering; he knew something of
smithery, having served a kind of apprenticeship in Ireland to a
fairy smith; so he draws upon his smithery to enable him to
acquire tinkering, and through the help which it affords him,
owing to its connection with tinkering, he speedily acquires that
craft, even as he had speedily acquired Welsh, owing to its
connection with Irish, which language he possessed; and with
tinkering he amuses himself until he lays it aside to resume
smithery. A man who has any innocent resource, has quite as
much right to draw upon it in need, as he has upon a banker in
whose hands he has placed a sum; Lavengro turns to advantage,
under particular circumstances, a certain resource which he has,
but people who are not so forlorn as Lavengro, and have not
served the same apprenticeship which he had, are not advised to
follow his example. Surely he was better employed in plying
the trades of tinker and smith than in having recourse to vice,
in running after milk-maids, for example. Running after
milk-maids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but let
any one ask some respectable casuist (The Bishop of London for
example), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in
the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in
running after all the milk-maids in Cheshire, though tinkering is
in general considered a very ungenteel employment, and smithery
little better, notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote
in Norse about eight hundred years ago, reckons the latter among
nine noble arts which he possessed, naming it along with playing
at chess, on the harp, and ravelling runes, or as the original
has it, “treading runes”—that is, compressing
them into a small compass by mingling one letter with another,
even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters, more
especially those who write talismans.
Nine arts have I, all noble;
I play at chess so free,
At ravelling runes I’m ready,
At books and smithery;
I’m skill’d o’er ice at skimming
On skates, I shoot and row,
And few at harping match me,
Or minstrelsy, I trow.
But though Lavengro takes up smithery, which, though the
Orcadian ranks it with chess-playing and harping, is certainly
somewhat of a grimy art, there can be no doubt that, had he been
wealthy and not so forlorn as he was, he would have turned to
many things, honourable, of course, in preference. He has
no objection to ride a fine horse when he has the opportunity: he
has his day-dream of making a fortune of two hundred thousand
pounds by becoming a merchant and doing business after the
Armenian fashion; and there can be no doubt that he would have
been glad to wear fine clothes, provided he had had sufficient
funds to authorise him in wearing them. For the sake of
wandering the country and plying the hammer and tongs, he would
not have refused a commission in the service of that illustrious
monarch George the Fourth, provided he had thought that he
could live on his pay, and not be forced to run in debt to
tradesmen, without any hope of paying them, for clothes and
luxuries, as many highly genteel officers in that honourable
service were in the habit of doing. For the sake of
tinkering, he would certainly not have refused a secretaryship of
an embassy to Persia, in which he might have turned his
acquaintance with Persian, Arabic, and the Lord only knows what
other languages, to account. He took to tinkering and
smithery, because no better employments were at his
command. No war is waged in the book against rank, wealth,
fine clothes or dignified employments; it is shown, however, that
a person may be a gentleman and a scholar without them.
Rank, wealth, fine clothes and dignified employments, are no
doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do
not make a gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the
gentleman and scholar, but they make neither; and is it not
better to be a gentleman without them than not a gentleman with
them? Is not Lavengro, when he leaves London on foot with
twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more respect than Mr.
Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not
even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to
Lavengro for his horse, entitled to more than the scoundrel lord,
who attempts to cheat him of one-fourth of its value.
Millions, however, seem to think otherwise, by their servile
adoration of people whom without rank, wealth and fine clothes
they would consider infamous, but whom possessed of rank, wealth
and glittering habiliments they seem to admire all the more for
their profligacy and crimes. Does not a blood-spot, or a
lust-spot, on the clothes of a blooming emperor, give a kind of
zest to the genteel young god? Do not the pride,
superciliousness and selfishness of a certain aristocracy make it
all the more regarded by its worshippers? and do not the clownish
and gutter-blood admirers of Mr. Flamson like him all the more
because they are conscious that he is a knave? If such is
the case—and alas! is it not the case?—they cannot be
too frequently told that fine clothes, wealth and titles adorn a
person in proportion as he adorns them; that if worn by the
magnanimous and good they are ornaments indeed, but if by the
vile and profligate they are merely san benitos, and only
serve to make their infamy doubly apparent; and that a person in
seedy raiment and tattered hat, possessed of courage, kindness
and virtue, is entitled to more respect from those to whom his
virtues are manifested than any cruel profligate emperor, selfish
aristocrat, or knavish millionnaire in the world.
The
writer has no intention of saying that all in England are
affected with the absurd mania for gentility; nor is such a
statement made in the book; it is shown therein that individuals
of various classes can prize a gentleman, notwithstanding seedy
raiment, dusty shoes or tattered hat—for example, the young
Irishman, the rich genius, the postillion, and his
employer. Again, when the life of the hero is given to the
world, amidst the howl about its lowness and vulgarity, raised by
the servile crew whom its independence of sentiment has stung,
more than one powerful voice has been heard testifying
approbation of its learning and the purity of its morality.
That there is some salt in England, minds not swayed by mere
externals, he is fully convinced; if he were not, he would spare
himself the trouble of writing; but to the fact that the
generality of his countrymen are basely grovelling before the
shrine of what they are pleased to call gentility, he cannot shut
his eyes.
Oh! what a clever person that Cockney was, who, travelling in
the Aberdeen railroad carriage, after edifying the company with
his remarks on various subjects, gave it as his opinion that
Lieutenant P— would, in future, be shunned by all
respectable society! And what a simple person that elderly
gentleman was, who, abruptly starting, asked in rather an
authoritative voice, “And why should Lieutenant P— be
shunned by respectable society?” and who, after entering
into what was said to be a masterly analysis of the entire
evidence of the case, concluded by stating, “that having
been accustomed to all kinds of evidence all his life, he had
never known a case in which the accused had obtained a more
complete and triumphant justification than Lieutenant P—
had done in the late trial”.
Now the Cockney, who is said to have been a very foppish
Cockney, was perfectly right in what he said, and therein
manifested a knowledge of the English mind and character, and
likewise of the modern English language, to which his catechist,
who, it seems, was a distinguished member of the Scottish bar,
could lay no pretensions. The Cockney knew what the Lord of
Session knew not, that the British public is gentility crazy, and
he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are
synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable
that is “looked at,” who is the victim of oppression;
he may be pitied for a time, but when did not pity terminate in
contempt? A poor harmless young officer—but why enter
into the details of the infamous case? they are but too well
known, and if ever cruelty, pride and cowardice, and things much
worse than even cruelty, cowardice and pride were brought to
light, and, at the same time, countenanced, they were in that
case. What availed the triumphant justification of the poor
victim? There was at first a roar of indignation against
his oppressors, but how long did it last? He had been
turned out of the service, they remained in it with their red
coats and epaulets; he was merely the son of a man who had
rendered good service to his country; they were, for the most
part, highly connected—they were in the extremest degree
genteel, he quite the reverse; so the nation wavered, considered,
thought the genteel side was the safest after all, and then with
the cry of “Oh! there is nothing like gentility,”
ratted bodily. Newspaper and public turned against the
victim, scouted him, apologised for the—what should they be
called?—who were not only admitted into the most
respectable society, but courted to come, the spots not merely of
wine on their military clothes, giving them a kind of
poignancy. But there is a God in heaven; the British
glories are tarnished—Providence has never smiled on
British arms since that case—oh! Balaklava! thy name
interpreted is net of fishes, and well dost thou deserve that
name. How many a scarlet golden fish has of late perished
in the mud amidst thee, cursing the genteel service, and the
genteel leader which brought him to such a doom.
Whether the rage for gentility is most prevalent amongst the
upper, middle or lower classes it is difficult to say; the priest
in the text seems to think that it is exhibited in the most
decided manner in the middle class; it is the writer’s
opinion, however, that in no class is it more strongly developed
than in the lower: what they call being well-born goes a great
way amongst them, but the possession of money much farther,
whence Mr. Flamson’s influence over them. Their rage
against, and scorn for, any person who by his courage and talents
has advanced himself in life, and still remains poor, are
indescribable; “he is no better than ourselves,” they
say, “why should he be above us?”—for they have
no conception that anybody has a right to ascendency over
themselves except by birth or money. This feeling amongst
the vulgar has been, to a certain extent, the bane of the two
services, naval and military. The writer does not make this
assertion rashly; he observed this feeling at work in the army
when a child, and he has good reason for believing that it was as
strongly at work in the navy at the same time, and is still as
prevalent in both. Why are not brave men raised from the
ranks? is frequently the cry, why are not brave sailors promoted?
the Lord help brave soldiers and sailors who are promoted; they
have less to undergo from the high airs of their brother officers,
and those are hard enough to endure, than from the insolence of
the men. Soldiers and sailors promoted to command are said
to be in general tyrants; in nine cases out of ten, when they are
tyrants, they have been obliged to have recourse to extreme
severity in order to protect themselves from the insolence and
mutinous spirit of the men,—“He is no better than
ourselves: shoot him, bayonet him, or fling him overboard!”
they say of some obnoxious individual raised above them by his
merit. Soldiers and sailors in general, will bear any
amount of tyranny from a lordly sot, or the son of a man who has
“plenty of brass”—their own term—but will
mutiny against the just orders of a skilful and brave officer who
“is no better than themselves”. There was the
affair of the Bounty, for example: Bligh was one of the
best seamen that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men;
proofs of his seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful
weather, a deeply laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over
an almost unknown ocean—of his bravery, at the fight of
Copenhagen, one of the most desperate ever fought, of which after
Nelson he was the hero: he was, moreover, not an unkind man; but
the crew of the Bounty, mutinied against him, and set him
half naked in an open boat, with certain of his men who remained
faithful to him, and ran away with the ship. Their
principal motive for doing so was an idea, whether true or
groundless the writer cannot say, that Bligh was “no better
than themselves”; he was certainly neither a lord’s
illegitimate, nor possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The
writer knows what he is writing about, having been acquainted in
his early years with an individual who was turned adrift with
Bligh, and who died about the year ’22, a lieutenant in the
navy, in a provincial town in which the writer was brought
up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two scoundrels,
Christian and Young, who had great influence with the crew,
because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving
the Bounty, had considerable difficulty in managing the
men who had shared his fate, because they considered themselves
“as good men as he,” notwithstanding, that to his
conduct and seamanship they had alone to look, under Heaven, for
salvation from the ghastly perils that surrounded them.
Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling.
Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one
of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself
“as good a man as he”; Bligh, seizing a cutlass,
called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the
man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of
concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself as good a
man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth part
as good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and
of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and
seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with
thousands of his class; Bligh was not genteel by birth or money,
therefore Bligh was no better than himself. Had Bligh,
before he sailed, got a twenty-thousand pound prize in the
lottery, he would have experienced no insolence from this fellow,
for there would have been no mutiny in the Bounty.
“He is our betters,” the crew would have said,
“and it is our duty to obey him.”
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in
nothing more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies
and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable
communities. All the better, some one will say. Alas!
alas! It is making the wealthy Jews forsake the synagogue
for the opera-house, or the gentility chapel, in which a disciple
of Mr. Platitude, in a white surplice, preaches a sermon at
noon-day from a desk, on each side of which is a flaming
taper. It is making them abandon their ancient literature,
their Mischna, their Gemara, their Zohar,
for gentility novels, The Young Duke, the most
unexceptionably genteel book ever written, being the principal
favourite. It makes the young Jew ashamed of the young
Jewess, it makes her ashamed of the young Jew. The young
Jew marries an opera dancer, or if the dancer will not have him,
as is frequently the case, the cast-off Miss of the honourable
Spencer So-and-so. It makes the young Jewess accept the
honourable offer of a cashiered lieutenant of the Bengal Native
Infantry; or, if such a person does not come forward, the
dishonourable offer of a cornet of a regiment of crack
hussars. It makes poor Jews, male and female, forsake the
synagogue for the sixpenny theatre or penny hop; the Jew to take
up with an Irish female of loose character, and the Jewess with a
musician of the Guards, or the Tipperary servant of Captain
Mulligan. With respect to the gypsies, it is making the
women what they never were before—harlots; and the men what
they never were before—careless fathers and husbands.
It has made the daughter of Ursula, the chaste, take up with the
base drummer of a wild-beast show. It makes Gorgiko Brown,
the gypsy man, leave his tent and his old wife, of an evening,
and thrust himself into society which could well dispense with
him. “Brother,” said Mr. Petulengro the other
day to the Romany Rye, after telling him many things connected
with the decadence of gypsyism, “there is one Gorgiko
Brown, who, with a face as black as a tea-kettle, wishes to be
mistaken for a Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a
third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum and water, and
attempts to enter into conversation with the company about
politics and business; the company flout him or give him the cold
shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks
him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants
to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and
kicks him out, provided he refuses to move.” With
respect to the Quakers, it makes the young people like the young
Jews, crazy after gentility diversions, worship, marriages or
connections, and makes old Pease do what it makes Gorgiko Brown
do, thrust himself into society which could well dispense with
him, and out of which he is not kicked, because unlike the gypsy
he is not poor. The writer would say much more on these
points, but want of room prevents him; he must therefore request
the reader to have patience until he can lay before the world a
pamphlet, which he has been long meditating, to be entitled
“Remarks on the strikingly similar Effects which a Love for
Gentility has produced, and is producing, amongst Jews, Gypsies
and Quakers”.
The priest in the book has much to say on the subject of this
gentility-nonsense; no person can possibly despise it more
thoroughly than that very remarkable individual seems to do, yet
he hails its prevalence with pleasure, knowing the benefits which
will result from it to the Church of which he is the sneering
slave. “The English are mad after gentility,”
says he; “well, all the better for us; their religion for a
long time past has been a plain and simple one, and consequently
by no means genteel; they’ll quit it for ours, which is the
perfection of what they admire; with which Templars, Hospitalers,
mitred abbots, Gothic abbeys, long-drawn aisles, golden censers,
incense, et cetera, are connected; nothing, or next to nothing,
of Christ, it is true, but weighed in the balance against
gentility, where will Christianity be? why, kicking against the
beam—ho! ho!” And in connection with the
gentility-nonsense, he expatiates largely, and with much
contempt, on a species of literature by which the interests of
his Church in England have been very much advanced—all
genuine priests have a thorough contempt for everything which
tends to advance the interests of their Church—this
literature is made up of pseudo Jacobitism, Charlie o’er
the waterism, or nonsense about Charlie o’er the
water. And the writer will now take the liberty of saying a
few words about it on his own account.
Of the literature just alluded to
Scott was the inventor. It is founded on the fortunes and
misfortunes of the Stuart family, of which Scott was the zealous
defender and apologist, doing all that in his power lay to
represent the members of it as noble, chivalrous, high-minded,
unfortunate princes; though, perhaps, of all the royal families
that ever existed upon earth, this family was the worst. It
was unfortunate enough, it is true; but it owed its misfortunes
entirely to its crimes, viciousness, bad faith, and
cowardice. Nothing will be said of it here until it made
its appearance in England to occupy the English throne.
The first of the family which we have to do with, James, was a
dirty, cowardly miscreant, of whom the less said the
better. His son, Charles the First, was a
tyrant—exceedingly cruel and revengeful, but weak and
dastardly; he caused a poor fellow to be hanged in London, who
was not his subject, because he had heard that the unfortunate
creature had once bit his own glove at Cadiz, in Spain, at the
mention of his name; and he permitted his own bull-dog,
Strafford, to be executed by his own enemies, though the only
crime of Strafford was, that he had barked furiously at those
enemies, and had worried two or three of them, when Charles
shouted, “Fetch ’em”. He was a bitter,
but yet a despicable enemy, and the coldest and most worthless of
friends; for though he always hoped to be able, some time or
other, to hang his enemies, he was always ready to curry favour
with them, more especially if he could do so at the expense of
his friends. He was the haughtiest, yet meanest of
mankind. He once caned a young nobleman for appearing
before him in the drawing-room not dressed exactly according to
the court etiquette; yet he condescended to flatter and
compliment him who, from principle, was his bitterest enemy,
namely Harrison, when the republican colonel was conducting him
as a prisoner to London. His bad faith was notorious; it
was from abhorrence of the first public instance which he gave of
his bad faith, his breaking his word to the Infanta of Spain,
that the poor Hiberno-Spaniard bit his glove at Cadiz; and it was
his notorious bad faith which eventually cost him his
head; for the Republicans would gladly have spared him, provided
they could put the slightest confidence in any promise, however
solemn, which he might have made to them. Of them, it would
be difficult to say whether they most hated or despised
him. Religion he had none. One day he favoured
Popery; the next, on hearing certain clamours of the people, he
sent his wife’s domestics back packing to France, because
they were Papists. Papists, however, should make him a
saint, for he was certainly the cause of the taking of
Rochelle.
His son, Charles the Second, though he passed his youth in the
school of adversity, learned no other lesson from it than the
following one—take care of yourself, and never do an
action, either good or bad, which is likely to bring you into any
great difficulty; and this maxim he acted up to as soon as he
came to the throne. He was a Papist, but took especial care
not to acknowledge his religion, at which he frequently scoffed,
till just before his last gasp, when he knew that he could lose
nothing, and hoped to gain everything by it. He was always
in want of money, but took care not to tax the country beyond all
endurable bounds; preferring to such a bold and dangerous course,
to become the secret pensioner of Louis, to whom, in return for
his gold, he sacrificed the honour and interests of
Britain. He was too lazy and sensual to delight in playing
the part of a tyrant himself; but he never checked tyranny in
others save in one instance. He permitted beastly butchers
to commit unmentionable horrors on the feeble, unarmed and
disunited Covenanters of Scotland, but checked them when they
would fain have endeavoured to play the same game on the numerous
united, dogged and warlike Independents of England. To show
his filial piety, he bade the hangman dishonour the corpses of
some of his father’s judges, before whom, when alive, he
ran like a screaming hare; but permitted those who had lost their
all in supporting his father’s cause, to pine in misery and
want. He would give to a painted harlot a thousand pounds
for a loathsome embrace, and to a player or buffoon a hundred for
a trumpery pun, but would refuse a penny to the widow or orphan
of an old Royalist soldier. He was the personification of
selfishness; and as he loved and cared for no one, so did no one
love or care for him. So little had he gained the respect
or affection of those who surrounded him, that after his body had
undergone an after-death examination, parts of it were thrown
down the sinks of the palace, to become eventually the prey of
the swine and ducks of Westminster.
His brother, who succeeded him James the Second, was a Papist, but
sufficiently honest to acknowledge his Popery, but upon the
whole, he was a poor creature; though a tyrant, he was cowardly;
had he not been a coward he would never have lost his
throne. There were plenty of lovers of tyranny in England
who would have stood by him, provided he would have stood by
them, and would, though not Papists, have encouraged him in his
attempt to bring back England beneath the sway of Rome, and
perhaps would eventually have become Papists themselves; but the
nation raising a cry against him, and his son-in-law, the Prince
of Orange, invading the country, he forsook his friends, of whom
he had a host, but for whom he cared little—left his
throne, for which he cared a great deal—and Popery in
England, for which he cared yet more, to their fate, and escaped
to France, from whence, after taking a little heart, he repaired
to Ireland, where he was speedily joined by a gallant army of
Papists whom he basely abandoned at the Boyne, running away in a
most lamentable condition, at the time when by showing a little
courage he might have enabled them to conquer. This worthy,
in his last will, bequeathed his heart to England, his right arm
to Scotland, and his bowels to Ireland. What the English
and Scotch said to their respective bequests is not known, but it
is certain that an old Irish priest, supposed to have been a
great grand-uncle of the present Reverend Father Murtagh, on
hearing of the bequest to Ireland, fell into a great passion, and
having been brought up at “Paris and Salamanca,”
expressed his indignation in the following strain:
“Malditas sean tus tripas! teniamos bastante del
olor de tus tripas al tiempo de tu huida de la batalla del
Boyne!”
His son, generally called the Old Pretender, though born in
England, was carried in his infancy to France, where he was
brought up in the strictest principles of Popery, which
principles, however, did not prevent him becoming (when did they
ever prevent any one?) a worthless and profligate scoundrel;
there are some doubts as to the reality of his being a son of
James, which doubts are probably unfounded, the grand proof of
his legitimacy being the thorough baseness of his
character. It was said of his father that he could speak
well, and it may be said of him that he could write well, the
only thing he could do which was worth doing, always supposing
that there is any merit in being able to write. He was of a
mean appearance, and, like his father, pusillanimous to a
degree. The meaness of his appearance disgusted, and his
pusillanimity discouraged, the Scotch when he made his appearance
amongst them in the year 1715, some time after the standard of
rebellion had been hoisted by Mar. He only stayed
a short time in Scotland, and then, seized with panic, retreated
to France, leaving his friends to shift for themselves as they
best could. He died a pensioner of the Pope.
The son of this man, Charles Edward, of whom so much in latter
years has been said and written, was a worthless, ignorant youth,
and a profligate and illiterate old man. When young, the
best that can be said of him is, that he had occasionally springs
of courage, invariably at the wrong time and place, which merely
served to lead his friends into inextricable difficulties.
When old, he was loathsome and contemptible to both friend and
foe. His wife loathed him, and for the most terrible of
reasons; she did not pollute his couch, for to do that was
impossible—he had made it so vile; but she betrayed it,
inviting to it not only Alfieri the Filthy, but the coarsest
grooms. Doctor King, the warmest and almost last adherent
of his family, said that there was not a vice or crime of which
he was not guilty; as for his foes, they scorned to harm him even
when in their power. In the year 1745 he came down from the
Highlands of Scotland, which had long been a focus of
rebellion. He was attended by certain clans of the
Highlands, desperadoes used to free-bootery from their infancy,
and, consequently, to the use of arms, and possessed of a certain
species of discipline; with these he defeated at Prestonpans a
body of men called soldiers, but who were in reality peasants and
artisans, levied about a month before, without discipline or
confidence in each other, and who were miserably massacred by the
Highland army; he subsequently invaded England, nearly destitute
of regular soldiers, and penetrated as far as Derby, from which
place he retreated on learning that regular forces which had been
hastily recalled from Flanders were coming against him, with the
Duke of Cumberland at their head; he was pursued, and his rear
guard overtaken and defeated by the dragoons of the duke at
Clifton, from which place the rebels retreated in great confusion
across the Eden into Scotland, where they commenced dancing
Highland reels and strathspeys on the bank of the river, for joy
at their escape, whilst a number of wretched girls, paramours of
some of them, were perishing in the waters of the swollen river
in an attempt to follow them; they themselves passed over by
eighties and by hundreds, arm in arm, for mutual safety, without
the loss of a man, but they left the poor paramours to shift for
themselves, nor did any of these canny people after passing the
stream dash back to rescue a single female life—no, they
were too well employed upon the bank in dancing strathspeys to
the tune of “Charlie o’er the water”. It
was, indeed, Charlie o’er the water, and canny Highlanders
o’er the water, but where were the poor prostitutes
meantime? In the water.
The Jacobite farce, or tragedy, was speedily brought to a
close by the battle of Culloden; there did Charlie wish himself
back again o’er the water, exhibiting the most unmistakable
signs of pusillanimity; there were the clans cut to pieces, at
least those who could be brought to the charge, and there fell
Giles Mac Bean, or as he was called in Gaelic, Giliosa Mac
Beathan, a kind of giant, six feet four inches and a quarter
high, “than whom,” as his wife said in a
coronach she made upon him, “no man who stood at
Cuiloitr was taller”—Giles Mac Bean the Major of the
clan Cattan—a great drinker—a great fisher—a
great shooter, and the champion of the Highland host.
The last of the Stuarts was a cardinal.
Such were the Stuarts, such their miserable history.
They were dead and buried in every sense of the word until Scott
resuscitated them—how? by the power of fine writing, and by
calling to his aid that strange divinity, gentility. He
wrote splendid novels about the Stuarts, in which he represents
them as unlike what they really were, as the graceful and
beautiful papillon is unlike the hideous and filthy worm.
In a word, he made them genteel, and that was enough to give them
paramount sway over the minds of the British people. The
public became Stuart-mad, and everybody, especially the women,
said, “What a pity it was that we hadn’t a Stuart to
govern”. All parties, Whig, Tory or Radical, became
Jacobite at heart, and admirers of absolute power. The
Whigs talked about the liberty of the subject, and the Radicals
about the rights of man still, but neither party cared a straw
for what it talked about, and mentally swore that, as soon as by
means of such stuff they could get places, and fill their
pockets, they would be as Jacobite as the Jacobs
themselves. As for the Tories, no great change in them was
necessary; everything favouring absolutism and slavery being
congenial to them. So the whole nation, that is, the
reading part of the nation, with some exceptions, for thank God
there has always been some salt in England, went over the water
to Charlie. But going over to Charlie was not enough, they
must, or at least a considerable part of them, go over to Rome
too, or have a hankering to do so. As the priest
sarcastically observes in the text, “As all the Jacobs were
Papists, so the good folks who through Scott’s novels
admire the Jacobs must be Papists too”. An idea got
about that the religion of such genteel people as the Stuarts
must be the climax of gentility, and that idea was quite
sufficient. Only let a thing, whether temporal or spiritual, be
considered genteel in England, and if it be not followed it is
strange indeed; so Scott’s writings not only made the
greater part of the nation Jacobite, but Popish.
Here some people will exclaim—whose opinions remain
sound and uncontaminated—what you say is perhaps true with
respect to the Jacobite nonsense at present so prevalent being
derived from Scott’s novels, but the Popish nonsense, which
people of the genteeler classes are so fond of, is derived from
Oxford. We sent our sons to Oxford nice honest lads,
educated in the principles of the Church of England, and at the
end of the first term they came home puppies, talking Popish
nonsense, which they had learned from the pedants to whose care
we had entrusted them; ay, not only Popery but Jacobitism, which
they hardly carried with them from home, for we never heard them
talking Jacobitism before they had been at Oxford; but now their
conversation is a farrago of Popish and Jacobite
stuff—“Complines and Claverse”. Now, what
these honest folks say is, to a certain extent, founded on fact;
the Popery which has overflowed the land during the last fourteen
or fifteen years, has come immediately from Oxford, and likewise
some of the Jacobitism, Popish and Jacobite nonsense, and little
or nothing else, having been taught at Oxford for about that
number of years. But whence did the pedants get the Popish
nonsense with which they have corrupted youth? Why, from
the same quarter from which they got the Jacobite nonsense with
which they have inoculated those lads who were not inoculated
with it before—Scott’s novels. Jacobitism and
Laudism, a kind of half Popery, had at one time been very
prevalent at Oxford, but both had been long consigned to oblivion
there, and people at Oxford cared as little about Laud as they
did about the Pretender. Both were dead and buried there,
as everywhere else, till Scott called them out of their graves
when the pedants of Oxford hailed both—ay, and the Pope,
too, as soon as Scott had made the old fellow fascinating,
through particular novels, more especially the Monastery
and Abbot. Then the quiet, respectable, honourable
Church of England would no longer do for the pedants of Oxford;
they must belong to a more genteel Church—they were ashamed
at first to be downright Romans—so they would be
Lauds. The pale-looking, but exceedingly genteel non-juring
clergyman in Waverley was a Laud; but they soon became
tired of being Lauds, for Laud’s Church, gew-gawish and
idolatrous as it was, was not sufficiently tinselly and
idolatrous for them, so they must be Popes, but in a sneaking
way, still calling themselves Church of England men, in order to
batten
on the bounty of the Church which they were betraying, and
likewise have opportunities of corrupting such lads as might
still resort to Oxford with principles uncontaminated.
So the respectable people, whose opinions are still sound,
are, to a certain extent, right when they say that the tide of
Popery, which has flowed over the land, has come from
Oxford. It did come immediately from Oxford, but how did it
get to Oxford? Why, from Scott’s novels. Oh!
that sermon which was the first manifestation of Oxford feeling,
preached at Oxford some time in the year ’38 by a divine of
a weak and confused intellect, in which Popery was mixed up with
Jacobitism! The present writer remembers perfectly well, on
reading some extracts from it at the time in a newspaper, on the
top of a coach, exclaiming—“Why, the simpleton has
been pilfering from Walter Scott’s novels!”
O Oxford pedants! Oxford pedants! ye whose politics and
religion are both derived from Scott’s novels! what a pity
it is that some lad of honest parents, whose mind ye are
endeavouring to stultify with your nonsense about
“Complines and Claverse,” has not the spirit to start
up and cry, “Confound your gibberish! I’ll have
none of it. Hurrah for the Church, and the principles of
my father!”
Now what could have induced Scott
to write novels tending to make people Papists and Jacobites, and
in love with arbitrary power? Did he think that
Christianity was a gaudy mummery? He did not, he could not,
for he had read the Bible; yet was he fond of gaudy mummeries,
fond of talking about them. Did he believe that the Stuarts
were a good family, and fit to govern a country like
Britain? He knew that they were a vicious, worthless crew,
and that Britain was a degraded country as long as they swayed
the sceptre; but for those facts he cared nothing, they governed
in a way which he liked, for he had an abstract love of
despotism, and an abhorrence of everything savouring of freedom
and the rights of man in general. His favourite political
picture was a joking, profligate, careless king, nominally
absolute—the heads of great houses paying court to, but in
reality governing, that king, whilst revelling with him on the
plunder of a nation, and a set of crouching, grovelling vassals
(the literal meaning of vassal is a wretch), who, after allowing
themselves to be horsewhipped, would take a bone if flung to
them, and be grateful; so that in love with mummery, though he
knew what Christianity was, no wonder he admired such a Church as
that of Rome, and that which Laud set up; and by nature formed to
be the holder of the candle to ancient worm-eaten and profligate
families, no wonder that all his sympathies were with the Stuarts
and their dissipated insolent party, and all his hatred directed
against those who endeavoured to check them in their proceedings,
and to raise the generality of mankind something above a state of
vassalage, that is, wretchedness. Those who were born
great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain
great, however worthless their characters. Those who were
born low, were always to remain so, however great their talents;
though, if that rule were carried out, where would he have been
himself?
In the book which he called the History of Napoleon
Bonaparte, in which he plays the sycophant to all the
legitimate crowned heads in Europe, whatever their crimes, vices
or miserable imbecilities, he, in his abhorrence of everything
low which by its own vigour makes itself illustrious, calls Murat
of the sabre the son of a pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise
pastry-cook. It is a pity that people who give themselves
hoity-toity airs—and the Scotch in general are wonderfully
addicted to giving themselves hoity-toity airs, and checking
people better than themselves with their birth [342] and their country—it is a great
pity that such people do not look at home—son of a
pastry-cook, of a Marseilleise pastry-cook! Well, and what
was Scott himself? Why, son of a pettifogger, of an
Edinburgh pettifogger. “Oh, but Scott was descended
from the old cow-stealers of Buccleuch, and
therefore—” descended from old cow-stealers, was
he? Well, had he had nothing to boast of beyond such a
pedigree, he would have lived and died the son of a pettifogger,
and been forgotten, and deservedly so; but he possessed talents,
and by his talents rose like Murat, and like him will be
remembered for his talents alone, and deservedly so.
“Yes, but Murat was still the son of a pastry-cook, and
though he was certainly good at the sabre, and cut his way to a
throne, still—” Lord! what fools there are in
the world; but as no one can be thought anything of in this world
without a pedigree, the writer will now give a pedigree for
Murat, of a very different character from the cow-stealing one of
Scott, but such a one as the proudest he might not disdain to
claim. Scott was descended from the old cow-stealers of
Buccleuch—was he? Good! and Murat was descended from
the old Moors of Spain, from the Abencerages (sons of the saddle)
of Granada. The name Murat is Arabic, and is the same as
Murad (Le Désiré, or the wished-for
one). Scott in his genteel Life of Bonaparte, says
that “when Murat was in Egypt, the similarity between the
name of the celebrated Mameluke Mourad and that of
Bonaparte’s Meilleur Sabreur was remarked, and
became the subject of jest amongst the comrades of the gallant
Frenchman”. But the writer of the novel of Bonaparte
did not know that the names were one and the same. Now
which was the best pedigree, that of the son of the pastry-cook,
or that of the son of the pettifogger? Which was the best
blood? Let us observe the workings of the two bloods.
He who had the blood of the “sons of the saddle” in
him, became the wonderful cavalier of the most wonderful host
that ever went forth to conquest, won for himself a crown and died
the death of a soldier, leaving behind him a son, only inferior
to himself in strength, in prowess, and in horsemanship.
The descendant of the cow-stealer became a poet, a novel writer,
the panegyrist of great folk and genteel people; became insolvent
because, though an author, he deemed it ungenteel to be mixed up
with the business part of authorship; died paralytic and
broken-hearted because he could no longer give entertainments to
great folks; leaving behind him, amongst other children, who were
never heard of, a son, who, through his father’s interest,
had become lieutenant-colonel in a genteel cavalry
regiment. A son who was ashamed of his father because his
father was an author; a son who—paugh—why ask which
was the best blood?
So, owing to his rage for gentility, Scott must needs become
the apologist of the Stuarts and their party; but God made this
man pay dearly for taking the part of the wicked against the
good; for lauding up to the skies the miscreants and robbers, and
calumniating the noble spirits of Britain, the salt of England,
and his own country. As God had driven the Stuarts from
their throne, and their followers from their estates, making them
vagabonds and beggars on the face of the earth, taking from them
all they cared for, so did that same God, who knows perfectly
well how and where to strike, deprive the apologist of that
wretched crew of all that rendered life pleasant in his eyes, the
lack of which paralysed him in body and mind, rendered him
pitiable to others, loathsome to himself,—so much so, that
he once said, “Where is the beggar who would change places
with me, notwithstanding all my fame?” Ah! God knows
perfectly well how to strike. He permitted him to retain
all his literary fame to the very last—his literary fame
for which he cared nothing; but what became of the sweetness of
life, his fine house, his grand company, and his
entertainments? The grand house ceased to be his; he was
only permitted to live in it on sufferance, and whatever grandeur
it might still retain, it soon became as desolate a looking house
as any misanthrope could wish to see—where were the grand
entertainments and the grand company? there are no grand
entertainments where there is no money; no lords and ladies where
there are no entertainments—and there lay the poor lodger
in the desolate house, groaning on a bed no longer his, smitten
by the hand of God in the part where he was most
vulnerable. Of what use telling such a man to take comfort,
for he had written the Minstrel and Rob
Roy,—telling him to think of his literary fame?
Literary fame, indeed! he wanted back his lost
gentility.—
Retain my
altar,
I care nothing for it—but, oh! touch not my
beard.
—Parny’s War of the Gods.
He dies, his children die too, and then comes the crowning
judgment of God on what remains of his race and the house which
he had built. He was not a Papist himself, nor did he wish
any one belonging to him to be Popish, for he had read enough of
the Bible to know that no one can be saved through Popery, yet
had he a sneaking affection for it, and would at times in an
underhand manner, give it a good word both in writing and
discourse, because it was a gaudy kind of worship, and ignorance
and vassalage prevailed so long as it flourished—but he
certainly did not wish any of his people to become Papists, nor
the house which he had built to become a Popish house, though the
very name he gave it savoured of Popery; but Popery becomes
fashionable through his novels and poems—the only one that
remains of his race, a female grandchild, marries a person who,
following the fashion, becomes a Papist, and makes her a Papist
too. Money abounds with the husband, who buys the house,
and then the house becomes the rankest Popish house in
Britain. A superstitious person might almost imagine that
one of the old Scottish Covenanters, whilst the grand house was
being built from the profits resulting from the sale of writings
favouring Popery and persecution, and calumniatory of
Scotland’s saints and martyrs, had risen from the grave,
and banned Scott, his race, and his house, by reading a certain
Psalm.
In saying what he has said about Scott, the author has not
been influenced by any feeling of malice or ill-will, but simply
by a regard for truth, and a desire to point out to his
countrymen the harm which has resulted from the perusal of his
works; he is not one of those who would depreciate the talents of
Scott—he admires his talents, both as a prose writer and a
poet; as a poet especially he admires him, and believes him to
have been by far the greatest, with perhaps the exception of
Mickiewicz, who only wrote for unfortunate Poland, that Europe
has given birth to during the last hundred years. As a
prose writer he admires him less, it is true, but his admiration
for him in that capacity is very high, and he only laments that
he prostituted his talents to the cause of the Stuarts and
gentility. What book of fiction of the present century can
you read twice, with the exception of Waverley and Rob
Roy? There is Pelham it is true, which the
writer of these lines has seen a Jewess reading in the steppe of
Debreczin, and which a young Prussian Baron, a great traveller,
whom he met at Constantinople in ’44 told him he always
carried in his valise. And, in conclusion, he will say,
in order to show the opinion which he entertains of the power of
Scott as a writer, that he did for the spectre of the wretched
Pretender what all the kings of Europe could not do for his
body—placed it on the throne of these realms; and for
Popery, what Popes and Cardinals strove in vain to do for three
centuries—brought back its mummeries and nonsense into the
temples of the British Isles.
Scott during his lifetime had a crowd of imitators, who,
whether they wrote history so called—poetry so
called—or novels—nobody would call a book a novel if
he could call it anything else—wrote Charlie o’er the
water nonsense; and now that he has been dead nearly a quarter of
a century, there are others daily springing up who are striving
to imitate Scott in his Charlie o’er the water
nonsense—for nonsense it is, even when flowing from his
pen. They, too, must write Jacobite histories, Jacobite
songs, and Jacobite novels, and much the same figure as the
scoundrel menials in the comedy cut when personating their
masters, and retailing their masters’ conversation, do they
cut as Walter Scotts. In their histories, they too talk
about the Prince and Glenfinnan, and the pibroch; and in their
songs about “Claverse” and “Bonny
Dundee”. But though they may be Scots, they are not
Walter Scotts. But it is perhaps chiefly in the novel that
you see the veritable hog in armour; the time of the novel is of
course the ’15 or ’45; the hero a Jacobite, and
connected with one or other of the enterprises of those periods;
and the author, to show how unprejudiced he is, and what
original views he takes of subjects, must needs speak up
for Popery, whenever he has occasion to mention it; though with
all his originality, when he brings his hero and the vagabonds
with which he is concerned before a barricaded house, belonging
to the Whigs, he can make them get into it by no other method
than that which Scott makes his rioters employ to get into the
Tolbooth, burning down the door.
To express the more than utter foolishness of this latter
Charlie o’er the water nonsense, whether in rhyme or prose,
there is but one word, and that word a Scotch word. Scotch,
the sorriest of jargons, compared with which even Roth-Welsch is
dignified and expressive, has yet one word to express what would
be inexpressible by any word or combination of words in any
language, or in any other jargon in the world; and very properly;
for as the nonsense is properly Scotch, so should the word be
Scotch which expresses it—that word is
“fushionless,” pronounced fooshionless; and
when the writer has called the nonsense fooshionless—and he
does call it fooshionless—he has nothing more to say, but
leaves the nonsense to its fate.
The writer now wishes to say
something on the subject of canting nonsense, of which there is a
great deal in England. There are various cants in England,
amongst which is the religious cant. He is not going to
discuss the subject of religious cant: lest, however, he should
be misunderstood, he begs leave to repeat that he is a sincere
member of the old-fashioned Church of England, in which he
believes there is more religion, and consequently less cant, than
in any other Church in the world; nor is he going to discuss many
other cants; he shall content himself with saying something about
two—the temperance cant and the unmanly cant.
Temperance canters say that, “it is unlawful to drink a
glass of ale”. Unmanly canters say that “it is
unlawful to use one’s fists”. The writer begs
leave to tell both these species of canters that they do not
speak the words of truth.
It is very lawful to take a cup of ale, or wine, for the
purpose of cheering or invigorating yourself when you are faint
and down-hearted; and likewise to give a cup of ale or wine to
others when they are in a similar condition. The Holy
Scripture sayeth nothing to the contrary, but rather encourageth
people in so doing by the text, “Wine maketh glad the heart
of man”. But it is not lawful to intoxicate yourself
with frequent cups of ale or wine, nor to make others
intoxicated, nor does the Holy Scripture say that it is.
The Holy Scripture no more says that it is lawful to intoxicate
yourself or others, than it says that it is unlawful to take a
cup of ale or wine yourself, or to give one to others. Noah
is not commended in the Scripture for making himself drunken on
the wine he brewed. Nor is it said that the Saviour, when
He supplied the guests with first-rate wine at the marriage
feast, told them to make themselves drunk upon it. He is
said to have supplied them with first-rate wine, but He doubtless
left the quantity which each should drink to each party’s
reason and discretion. When you set a good dinner before
your guests, you do not expect that they should gorge themselves
with the victuals you set before them. Wine may be abused,
and so may a leg of mutton.
Second. It is lawful for any one to use his fists
in his own defence, or in the defence of others, provided they
can’t help themselves; but it is not lawful to use them for
purposes of tyranny or brutality. If you are attacked by a
ruffian, as the elderly individual in Lavengro is in the
inn yard, it is quite lawful, if you can, to give him as good a
thrashing as the elderly individual gave the brutal coachman; and
if you see a helpless woman—perhaps your own
sister—set upon by a drunken lord, a drunken coachman, or a
drunken coalheaver, or a brute of any description, either drunk
or sober, it is not only lawful, but laudable to give them, if
you can, a good drubbing; but it is not lawful because you have a
strong pair of fists, and know how to use them, to go swaggering
through a fair, jostling against unoffending individuals; should
you do so, you would be served quite right if you were to get a
drubbing, more particularly if you were served out by some one
less strong, but more skilful than yourself—even as the
coachman was served out by a pupil of the immortal
Broughton—sixty years old, it is true, but possessed of
Broughton’s guard and chop. Moses is not blamed in
the Scripture for taking part with the oppressed, and killing an
Egyptian persecutor. We are not told how Moses killed the
Egyptian; but it is quite as creditable to Moses to suppose that
he killed the Egyptian by giving him a buffet under the left ear,
as by stabbing him with a knife. It is true that the
Saviour in the New Testament tells His disciples to turn the left
cheek to be smitten, after they had received a blow on the right;
but He was speaking to people divinely inspired, or whom He
intended divinely to inspire—people selected by God for a
particular purpose. He likewise tells these people to part
with various articles of raiment when asked for them, and to go
a-travelling without money, and take no thought of the
morrow. Are those exhortations carried out by very good
people in the present day? Do Quakers, when smitten on the
right cheek, turn the left to the smiter? When asked for
their coat, do they say, “Friend, take my shirt
also?” Has the Dean of Salisbury no purse? Does
the Archbishop of Canterbury go to an inn, run up a reckoning,
and then say to his landlord, “Mistress, I have no
coin?” Assuredly the Dean has a purse, and a
tolerably well-filled one; and, assuredly, the Archbishop, on
departing from an inn, not only settles his reckoning, but leaves
something handsome for the servants, and does not say that he is
forbidden by the gospel to pay for what he has eaten, or the
trouble he has given, as a certain Spanish cavalier said he was
forbidden by the statutes of chivalry. Now, to take the
part of yourself, or the part of the oppressed, with your fists, is quite
as lawful in the present day as it is to refuse your coat and
your shirt also to any vagabond who may ask for them, and not to
refuse to pay for supper, bed and breakfast, at the Feathers, or
any other inn, after you have had the benefit of all three.
The conduct of Lavengro with respect to drink may, upon the
whole, serve as a model. He is no drunkard, nor is he fond
of intoxicating other people; yet when the horrors are upon him
he has no objection to go to a public-house and call for a pint
of ale, nor does he shrink from recommending ale to others when
they are faint and downcast. In one instance, it is true,
he does what cannot be exactly justified; he encourages the
priest in the dingle, in more instances than one, in drinking
more hollands and water than is consistent with decorum. He
has a motive indeed in doing so; a desire to learn from the knave
in his cups the plans and hopes of the Propaganda of Rome.
Such conduct, however, was inconsistent with strict fair dealing
and openness; and the author advises all those whose consciences
never reproach them for a single unfair or covert act committed
by them, to abuse him heartily for administering hollands and
water to the Priest of Rome. In that instance the hero is
certainly wrong; yet in all other cases with regard to drink, he
is manifestly right. To tell people that they are never to
drink a glass of ale or wine themselves, or to give one to
others, is cant; and the writer has no toleration for cant of any
description. Some cants are not dangerous; but the writer
believes that a more dangerous cant than the temperance cant, or
as it is generally called, teetotalism, is scarcely to be
found. The writer is willing to believe that it originated
with well meaning, though weak people; but there can be no doubt
that it was quickly turned to account by people who were neither
well meaning nor weak. Let the reader note particularly the
purpose to which this cry has been turned in America—the
land, indeed, par excellence, of humbug and humbug cries.
It is there continually in the mouth of the most violent
political party, and is made an instrument of almost unexampled
persecution. The writer would say more on the temperance
cant, both in England and America, but want of space prevents
him. There is one point on which he cannot avoid making a
few brief remarks—that is, the inconsistent conduct of its
apostles in general. The teetotal apostle says, it is a
dreadful thing to be drunk. So it is, teetotaller; but if
so, why do you get drunk? I get drunk? Yes, unhappy
man, why do you get drunk on smoke and passion? Why are
your garments impregnated with the odour of the Indian weed?
Why is there a pipe or a cigar always in your mouth? Why is
your language more dreadful than that of a Poissarde?
Tobacco-smoke is more deleterious than ale, teetotaller; bile
more potent than brandy. You are fond of telling your
hearers what an awful thing it is to die drunken. So it is,
teetotaller. Then take good care that you do not die with
smoke and passion, drunken, and with temperance language on your
lips; that is, abuse and calumny against all those who differ
from you. One word of sense you have been heard to say,
which is, that spirits may be taken as a medicine. Now you
are in a fever of passion, teetotaller: so, pray take this
tumbler of brandy; take it on the homœopathic principle,
that heat is to be expelled by heat. You are in a
temperance fury, so swallow the contents of this tumbler, and it
will, perhaps, cure you. You look at the glass
wistfully—you say you occasionally take a glass
medicinally—and it is probable you do. Take one
now. Consider what a dreadful thing it would be to die
passion drunk; to appear before your Maker with intemperate
language on your lips. That’s right! You
don’t seem to wince at the brandy. That’s
right!—well done! All down in two pulls. Now
you look like a reasonable being!
If the conduct of Lavengro with regard to drink is open to
little censure, assuredly the use which he makes of his fists is
entitled to none at all. Because he has a pair of tolerably
strong fists, and knows to a certain extent how to use them, is
he a swaggerer or oppressor? To what ill account does he
turn them? Who more quiet, gentle and inoffensive than
he? He beats off a ruffian who attacks him in a dingle; has
a kind of friendly tuzzle with Mr. Petulengro, and behold the
extent of his fistic exploits.
Ay, but he associates with prize-fighters; and that very
fellow, Petulengro, is a prize-fighter, and has fought for a
stake in a ring. Well, and if he had not associated with
prize-fighters, how could he have used his fists? Oh,
anybody can use his fists in his own defence, without being
taught by prize-fighters. Can they? Then why does not
the Italian, or Spaniard, or Afghan use his fists when insulted
or outraged, instead of having recourse to the weapons which he
has recourse to? Nobody can use his fists without being
taught the use of them by those who have themselves been taught,
no more than any one can “whiffle” without being
taught by a master of the art. Now let any man of the
present day try to whiffle. Would not any one who wished to
whiffle
have to go to a master of the art? Assuredly! but where
would he find one at the present day? The last of the
whifflers hanged himself about a fortnight ago on a bell-rope in
a church steeple of “the old town,” from pure grief
that there was no further demand for the exhibition of his art,
there being no demand for whiffling since the discontinuation of
Guildhall banquets. Whiffling is lost. The old chap
left his sword behind him; let any one take up the old
chap’s sword and try to whiffle. Now much the same
hand as he would make who should take up the whiffler’s
sword and try to whiffle, would he who should try to use his
fists who had never had the advantage of a master. Let no
one think that men use their fists naturally in their own
disputes—men have naturally recourse to any other thing to
defend themselves or to offend others; they fly to the stick, to
the stone, to the murderous and cowardly knife, or to abuse as
cowardly as the knife, and occasionally more murderous. Now
which is best when you hate a person, or have a pique against a
person, to clench your fist and say “Come on,” or to
have recourse to the stone, the knife, or murderous
calumny? The use of the fist is almost lost in
England. Yet are the people better than they were when they
knew how to use their fists? The writer believes not.
A fisty combat is at present a great rarity, but the use of the
knife, the noose, and of poison, to say nothing of calumny, are
of more frequent occurrence in England than perhaps in any
country in Europe. Is polite taste better than when it
could bear the details of a fight? The writer believes
not. Two men cannot meet in a ring to settle a dispute in a
manly manner without some trumpery local newspaper letting loose
a volley of abuse against “the disgraceful
exhibition,” in which abuse it is sure to be sanctioned by
its dainty readers; whereas some murderous horror, the discovery
for example of the mangled remains of a woman in some obscure
den, is greedily seized hold on by the moral journal, and dressed
up for its readers, who luxuriate and gloat upon the ghastly
dish. Now, the writer of Lavengro has no sympathy
with those who would shrink from striking a blow, but would not
shrink from the use of poison or calumny; and his taste has
little in common with that which cannot tolerate the hardy
details of a prize-fight, but which luxuriates on descriptions of
the murder dens of modern England. But prize-fighters and
pugilists are blackguards, a reviewer has said; and blackguards
they would be provided they employed their skill and their
prowess for purposes of brutality and oppression; but
prize-fighters and pugilists are seldom friends to
brutality and oppression; and which is the blackguard, the writer
would ask: he who uses his fists to take his own part, or
instructs others to use theirs for the same purpose, or the being
who from envy and malice, or at the bidding of a malicious
scoundrel, endeavours by calumny, falsehood, and
misrepresentation to impede the efforts of lonely and unprotected
genius?
One word more about the race, all but extinct, of the people
opprobriously called prize-fighters. Some of them have been
as noble, kindly men as the world ever produced. Can the
rolls of the English aristocracy exhibit names belonging to more
noble, more heroic men than those who were called respectively
Pearce, Cribb and Spring? Did ever one of the English
aristocracy contract the seeds of fatal consumption by rushing up
the stairs of a burning edifice, even to the topmost garret, and
rescuing a woman from seemingly inevitable destruction? The
writer says no. A woman was rescued from the top of a
burning house; but the man who rescued her was no aristocrat; it
was Pearce, not Percy, who ran up the burning stairs. Did
ever one of those glittering ones save a fainting female from the
libidinous rage of six ruffians? The writer believes
not. A woman was rescued from the libidinous fury of six
monsters on — Down; but the man who rescued her was no
aristocrat; it was Pearce not Paulet, who rescued the woman, and
thrashed my Lord’s six gamekeepers—Pearce, whose
equal never was, and probably never will be, found in sturdy
combat. Are there any of the aristocracy of whom it can be
said that they never did a cowardly, cruel or mean action, and
that they invariably took the part of the unfortunate and weak
against cruelty and oppression? As much can be said of
Cribb, of Spring, and the other; but where is the aristocrat of
whom as much can be said? Wellington? Wellington
indeed! a skilful general, and a good man of valour, it is true,
but with that cant word of “duty” continually on his
lips. Did he rescue Ney from his butchers? Did he
lend a helping hand to Warner?
In conclusion, the writer would advise those of his
country-folks who read his book to have nothing to do with the
two kinds of canting nonsense described above, but in their
progress through life to enjoy as well as they can, but always
with moderation, the good things of this world, to put confidence
in God, to be as independent as possible, and to take their own
parts. If they are low spirited, let them not make
themselves foolish by putting on sackcloth, drinking water, or
chewing ashes, but let them take wholesome exercise, and eat the
most generous food they can get, taking up and reading
occasionally, not the lives of Ignatius Loyola and Francis
Spira, but something more agreeable; for example, the life and
adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, the deaf and dumb gentleman;
the travels of Captain Falconer in America, and the journal of
John Randall, who went to Virginia and married an Indian wife;
not forgetting, amidst their eating and drinking, their walks
over heaths, and by the sea-side, and their agreeable literature,
to be charitable to the poor, to read the Psalms and to go to
church twice on a Sunday. In their dealings with people, to
be courteous to everybody, as Lavengro was, but always
independent like him; and if people meddle with them, to give
them as good as they bring, even as he and Isopel Berners were in
the habit of doing; and it will be as well for him to observe
that he by no means advises women to be too womanly, but bearing
the conduct of Isopel Berners in mind, to take their own parts,
and if anybody strikes them, to strike again.
Beating of women by the lords of the creation has become very
prevalent in England since pugilism has been
discountenanced. Now the writer strongly advises any woman
who is struck by a ruffian to strike him again; or if she cannot
clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular
times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and
nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is
dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be
beaten by a woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even
if, instead of possessing the stately height and athletic
proportions of the aforesaid Isopel, she were as diminutive in
stature, and had a hand as delicate, and foot as small, as a
certain royal lady, who was some time ago assaulted by a fellow
upwards of six feet high, whom the writer has no doubt she could
have beaten had she thought proper to go at him. Such is
the deliberate advice of the author to his countrymen and
women—advice in which he believes there is nothing
unscriptural or repugnant to common sense.
The writer is perfectly well aware that, by the plain language
which he has used in speaking of the various kinds of nonsense
prevalent in England, he shall make himself a multitude of
enemies; but he is not going to conceal the truth or to tamper
with nonsense, from the fear of provoking hostility. He has
a duty to perform and he will perform it resolutely; he is the
person who carried the Bible to Spain; and as resolutely as he
spoke in Spain against the superstitions of Spain, will he speak
in England against the nonsense of his own native land. He
is not one of those who, before they sit down to write a book,
say to themselves, what cry shall we take up? what principles
shall we advocate? what principles shall we abuse? before we put pen to
paper we must find out what cry is the loudest, what principle
has the most advocates, otherwise, after having written our book,
we may find ourselves on the weaker side.
A sailor of the Bounty waked from his sleep by the
noise of the mutiny, lay still in his hammock for some time,
quite undecided whether to take part with the captain or to join
the mutineers. “I must mind what I do,” said he
to himself, “lest, in the end, I find myself on the weaker
side;” finally, on hearing that the mutineers were
successful, he went on deck, and seeing Bligh pinioned to the
mast, he put his fist to his nose, and otherwise insulted
him. Now, there are many writers of the present day whose
conduct is very similar to that of the sailor. They lie
listening in their corners till they have ascertained which
principle has most advocates; then, presently, they make their
appearance on the deck of the world with their book; if truth has
been victorious, then has truth their hurrah! but if truth is
pinioned against the mast, then is their fist thrust against the
nose of truth, and their gibe and their insult spurted in their
face. The strongest party had the sailor, and the strongest
party has almost invariably the writer of the present day.
A certain set of individuals
calling themselves critics have attacked Lavengro with
much virulence and malice. If what they call criticism had
been founded on truth, the author would have had nothing to
say. The book contains plenty of blemishes, some of them,
by-the-bye, wilful ones, as the writer will presently show; not
one of these, however, has been detected and pointed out; but the
best passages in the book, indeed whatever was calculated to make
the book valuable, have been assailed with abuse and
misrepresentation. The duty of the true critic is to play
the part of a leech, and not of a viper. Upon true and upon
malignant criticism there is an excellent fable by the Spaniard
Iriarte. The viper says to the leech, “Why do people
invite your bite, and flee from mine?”
“Because,” says the leech, “people receive
health from my bite, and poison from yours.”
“There is as much difference,” says the clever
Spaniard, “between true and malignant criticism, as between
poison and medicine.” Certainly a great many
meritorious writers have allowed themselves to be poisoned by
malignant criticism; the writer, however, is not one of those who
allow themselves to be poisoned by pseudo-critics; no! no! he
will rather hold them up by their tails, and show the creatures
wriggling, blood and foam streaming from their broken jaws.
First of all, however, he will notice one of their
objections. “The book isn’t true,” say
they. Now one of the principal reasons with those who have
attacked Lavengro for their abuse of it is, that it is
particularly true in one instance, namely, that it exposes their
own nonsense, their love of humbug, their slavishness, their
dressings, their goings out, their scraping and bowing to great
people; it is the showing up of “gentility nonsense”
in Lavengro that has been one principal reason for the
raising the above cry; for in Lavengro, is denounced the
besetting folly of the English people, a folly which those who
call themselves guardians of the public taste are far from being
above. “We can’t abide anything that
isn’t true!” they exclaim. Can’t
they? Then why are they so enraptured with any fiction that
is adapted to purposes of humbug, which tends to make them
satisfied with their own proceedings, with their own nonsense, which does
not tell them to reform, to become more alive to their own
failings, and less sensitive about the tyrannical goings on of
the masters, and the degraded condition, the sufferings, and the
trials of the serfs in the star Jupiter? Had
Lavengro, instead of being the work of an independent
mind, been written in order to further any of the thousand and
one cants, and species of nonsense prevalent in England, the
author would have heard much less about its not being true, both
from public detractors and private censurers.
“But Lavengro pretends to be an
autobiography,” say the critics; and here the writer begs
leave to observe, that it would be well for people who profess to
have a regard for truth, not to exhibit in every assertion which
they make a most profligate disregard of it; this assertion of
theirs is a falsehood, and they know it to be a falsehood.
In the preface Lavengro is stated to be a dream; and the
writer takes this opportunity of stating that he never said it
was an autobiography; never authorised any person to say that it
was one; and that he has in innumerable instances declared in
public and private, both before and after the work was published,
that it was not what is generally termed an autobiography: but a
set of people who pretend to write criticisms on books, hating
the author for various reasons—amongst others, because,
having the proper pride of a gentleman and a scholar, he did not,
in the year ’43, choose to permit himself to be exhibited
and made a zany of in London, and especially because he will
neither associate with, nor curry favour with, them who are
neither gentlemen nor scholars—attack his book with abuse
and calumny. He is, perhaps, condescending too much when he
takes any notice of such people; as, however, the English public
is wonderfully led by cries and shouts, and generally ready to
take part against any person who is either unwilling or unable to
defend himself, he deems it advisable not to be altogether quiet
with those who assail him. The best way to deal with vipers
is to tear out their teeth; and the best way to deal with
pseudo-critics is to deprive them of their poison-bag, which is
easily done by exposing their ignorance. The writer knew
perfectly well the description of people with whom he would have
to do, he therefore very quietly prepared a stratagem, by means
of which he could at any time exhibit them, powerless and
helpless, in his hand. Critics, when they review books,
ought to have a competent knowledge of the subjects which those
books discuss.
Lavengro is a philological book, a poem if you choose
to call it so. Now what a fine triumph it would have been
for those who wished to vilify the book and its author, provided
they could have detected the latter tripping in his
philology—they might have instantly said that he was an
ignorant pretender to philology—they laughed at the idea of
his taking up a viper by its tail, a trick which hundreds of
country urchins do every September, but they were silent about
the really wonderful part of the book, the philological
matter—they thought philology was his stronghold, and that
it would be useless to attack him there; they of course would
give him no credit as a philologist, for anything like fair
treatment towards him was not to be expected at their hands, but
they were afraid to attack his philology—yet that was the
point, and the only point in which they might have attacked him
successfully; he was vulnerable there. How was this?
Why, in order to have an opportunity of holding up pseudo-critics
by the tails, he wilfully spelt various foreign words
wrong—Welsh words, and even Italian words—did they
detect these mis-spellings? not one of them, even as he knew they
would not, and he now taunts them with ignorance; and the power
of taunting them with ignorance is the punishment which he
designed for them—a power which they might but for their
ignorance have used against him. The writer besides knowing
something of Italian and Welsh, knows a little of Armenian
language and literature; but who knowing anything of the Armenian
language, unless he had an end in view, would say, that the word
for sea in Armenian is anything like the word tide in
English? The word for sea in Armenian is dzow, a
word connected with the Tibetian word for water, and the Chinese
shuy, and the Turkish su, signifying the same
thing; but where is the resemblance between dzow and
tide? Again, the word for bread in ancient Armenian is
hats; yet the Armenian on London Bridge is made to say
zhats, which is not the nominative of the Armenian noun
for bread, but the accusative: now, critics, ravening against a
man because he is a gentleman and a scholar, and has not only the
power but also the courage to write original works, why did not
you discover that weak point? Why, because you were
ignorant, so here ye are held up! Moreover, who with a name
commencing with Z, ever wrote fables in Armenian? There are
two writers of fables in Armenian—Varthan and Koscht, and
illustrious writers they are, one in the simple, and the other in
the ornate style of Armenian composition, but neither of their
names begins with a Z. Oh, what a precious opportunity ye
lost, ye ravening crew, of convicting the poor, half-starved,
friendless boy of the book, of ignorance or misrepresentation, by
asking who with a name beginning with Z ever wrote
fables in Armenian; but ye couldn’t help yourselves, ye are
duncie. “We duncie!” Ay, duncie. So
here ye are held up by the tails, blood and foam streaming from
your jaws.
The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this,
Messieurs les Critiques? Were ye ever served so
before? But don’t you richly deserve it?
Haven’t you been for years past bullying and insulting
everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with
everybody whom you thought strong? “We approve
of this. We disapprove of that. Oh, this will never
do. These are fine lines!” The lines perhaps
some horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord
So-and-so. To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown
up in this manner, and by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy
was the very right person to do it. But is it not galling,
after all?
Ah, but we don’t understand Armenian, it cannot
be expected that we should understand Armenian, or Welsh,
or—. Hey, what’s this? The mighty
we not understand Armenian or Welsh, or—. Then
why does the mighty we pretend to review a book like
Lavengro? From the arrogance with which it
continually delivers itself, one would think that the mighty
we is omniscient; that it understands every language; is
versed in every literature; yet the mighty we does not
even know the word for bread in Armenian. It knows bread
well enough by name in English, and frequently bread in England
only by its name, but the truth is, that the mighty we,
with all its pretension, is in general a very sorry creature,
who, instead of saying nous disons, should rather say
nous dis: Parny in his Guerre des Dieux, very
profanely makes the three in one say, Je faisons; now,
Lavengro, who is anything but profane, would suggest that
critics, especially magazine and Sunday newspaper critics, should
commence with nous dis, as the first word would be
significant of the conceit and assumption of the critic, and the
second of the extent of the critic’s information. The
we says its say, but when fawning sycophancy or vulgar
abuse are taken from that say, what remains? Why a blank, a
void, like Ginnungagap.
As the writer, of his own accord, has exposed some of the
blemishes of his book—a task, which a competent critic
ought to have done—he will now point out two or three of
its merits, which any critic, not altogether blinded with
ignorance, might have done, or not replete with gall and envy
would have been glad to do. The book has the merit of
communicating a fact connected with physiology, which in all the
pages of the multitude of books was never previously
mentioned—the mysterious practice of touching
objects to baffle the evil chance. The miserable detractor
will, of course, instantly begin to rave about such a habit being
common: well and good; but was it ever before described in print,
or all connected with it dissected? He may then vociferate
something about Johnson having touched: the writer cares not
whether Johnson, who, by-the-bye, during the last twenty or
thirty years, owing to people having become ultra Tory mad from
reading Scott’s novels and the Quarterly Review, has
been a mighty favourite, especially with some who were in the
habit of calling him a half crazy old fool—touched, or
whether he did or not; but he asks where did Johnson ever
describe the feelings which induced him to perform the magic
touch, even supposing that he did perform it? Again, the
history gives an account of a certain book called the Sleeping
Bard, the most remarkable prose work of the most difficult
language but one, of modern Europe,—a book, for a notice of
which, he believes, one might turn over in vain the pages of any
review printed in England, or, indeed, elsewhere. So here
are two facts, one literary and the other physiological, for
which any candid critic was bound to thank the author, even as in
the Romany Rye there is a fact connected with Iro-Norman
Myth, for the disclosing of which, any person who pretends to
have a regard for literature is bound to thank him, namely, that
the mysterious Finn or Fingal of Ossian’s Poems is
one and the same person as the Sigurd Fafnisbane of the Edda and
the Wilkina, and the Siegfried Horn of the Lay of the
Niebelungs.
The writer might here conclude, and, he believes, most
triumphantly; as, however, he is in the cue for writing, which he
seldom is, he will for his own gratification, and for the sake of
others, dropping metaphors about vipers and serpents, show up in
particular two or three sets or cliques of people, who, he is
happy to say, have been particularly virulent against him and his
work, for nothing indeed could have given him greater
mortification than their praise.
In the first place, he wishes to dispose of certain
individuals who call themselves men of wit and
fashion—about town—who he is told have abused his
book “vaustly”—their own word. These
people paint their cheeks, wear white kid gloves, and dabble in
literature, or what they conceive to be literature. For
abuse from such people, the writer was prepared. Does any
one imagine that the writer was not well aware, before he
published his book, that, whenever he gave it to the world, he
should be attacked by every literary coxcomb in England who had
influence enough to procure the insertion of a scurrilous article
in a magazine or newspaper! He has been in Spain, and has
seen how invariably the mule attacks the horse; now why does the
mule attack the horse? Why, because the latter carries
about with him that which the envious hermaphrodite does not
possess.
They consider, forsooth, that his book is low—but he is
not going to waste words about them—one or two of whom, he
is told, have written very duncie books about Spain, and are
highly enraged with him, because certain books which he wrote
about Spain were not considered duncie. No, he is not going
to waste words upon them, for verily he dislikes their company,
and so he’ll pass them by, and proceed to others.
The Scotch Charlie o’er the water people have been very
loud in the abuse of Lavengro—this again might be
expected; the sarcasms of the priest about the Charlie o’er
the water nonsense of course stung them. Oh! it is one of
the claims which Lavengro has to respect, that it is the
first, if not the only work, in which that nonsense is, to a
certain extent, exposed. Two or three of their remarks on
passages of Lavengro, he will reproduce and laugh
at. Of course your Charlie o’er the water people are
genteel exceedingly, and cannot abide anything low.
Gypsyism they think is particularly low, and the use of gypsy
words in literature beneath its gentility; so they object to
gypsy words being used in Lavengro where gypsies are
introduced speaking—“What is Romany forsooth?”
say they. Very good! And what is Scotch? has not the
public been nauseated with Scotch for the last thirty
years? “Ah, but Scotch is not”—the writer
believes he knows much better than the Scotch what Scotch is and
what it is not; he has told them before what it is: a very sorry
jargon. He will now tell them what it is not—a sister
or an immediate daughter of the Sanscrit, which Romany is.
“Ay, but the Scotch are”—foxes, foxes, nothing
else than foxes, even like the gypsies—the difference
between the gypsy and Scotch fox being that the first is wild,
with a mighty brush, the other a sneak with a gilt collar and
without a tail.
A Charlie o’er the water person attempts to be witty,
because the writer has said that perhaps a certain old Edinburgh
High-School porter, of the name of Boee, was perhaps of the same
blood as a certain Bui, a Northern Kemp who distinguished himself
at the battle of Horinger Bay. A pretty matter, forsooth,
to excite the ridicule of a Scotchman! Why, is there a
beggar or trumpery fellow in Scotland, who does not pretend to be
somebody, or related to somebody? Is not every Scotchman descended
from some king, kemp or cow-stealer of old, by his own account at
least? Why, the writer would even go so far as to bet a
trifle that the poor creature, who ridicules Boee’s
supposed ancestry, has one of his own, at least as grand and as
apocryphal as old Boee’s of the High School.
The same Charlie o’er the water person is mightily
indignant that Lavengro should have spoken disrespectfully of
William Wallace; Lavengro, when he speaks of that personage,
being a child of about ten years old, and repeating merely what
he had heard. All the Scotch, by-the-bye, for a great many
years past, have been great admirers of William Wallace,
particularly the Charlie o’er the water people, who in
their nonsense-verses about Charlie generally contrive to bring
in the name of William, Willie, or Wullie, Wallace. The
writer begs leave to say that he by no means wishes to bear hard
against William Wallace, but he cannot help asking why, if
William, Willie, or Wullie, Wallace was such a particularly nice
person, did his brother Scots betray him to a certain renowned
southern warrior, called Edward Longshanks, who caused him to be
hanged and cut into four in London, and his quarters to be placed
over the gates of certain towns? They got gold, it is true,
and titles, very nice things, no doubt; but, surely, the life of
a patriot is better than all the gold and titles in the
world—at least Lavengro thinks so—but Lavengro has
lived more with gypsies than Scotchmen, and gypsies do not betray
their brothers. It would be some time before a gypsy would
hand over his brother to the harum-beck, even supposing you would
not only make him a king, but a justice of the peace, and not
only give him the world, but the best farm on the Holkham estate;
but gypsies are wild foxes, and there is certainly a wonderful
difference between the way of thinking of the wild fox who
retains his brush, and that of the scurvy kennel creature who has
lost his tail.
Ah! but thousands of Scotch, and particularly the Charlie
o’er the water people, will say, “We didn’t
sell Willie Wallace, it was our forbears who sold Willie
Wallace— If Edward Longshanks had asked us to sell
Wullie Wallace, we would soon have shown him
that—” Lord better ye, ye poor trumpery set of
creatures, ye would not have acted a bit better than your
forefathers; remember how ye have ever treated the few amongst ye
who, though born in the kennel, have shown something of the
spirit of the wood. Many of ye are still alive who
delivered over men, quite as honest and patriotic as William
Wallace, into the hands of an English minister, to be chained and
transported for merely venturing to speak and write in the
cause of humanity, at the time when Europe was beginning to fling
off the chains imposed by kings and priests. And it is not
so very long since Burns, to whom ye are now building up obelisks
rather higher than he deserves, was permitted by his countrymen
to die in poverty and misery, because he would not join with them
in songs of adulation to kings and the trumpery great. So
say not that ye would have acted with respect to William Wallace
one whit better than your fathers—and you in particular, ye
children of Charlie, whom do ye write nonsense-verses
about? A family of dastard despots, who did their best,
during a century and more, to tread out the few sparks of
independent feeling still glowing in Scotland—but enough
has been said about ye.
Amongst those who have been prodigal in abuse and defamation
of Lavengro, have been your modern Radicals, and
particularly a set of people who filled the country with noise
against the King and Queen, Wellington, and the Tories, in
’32. About these people the writer will presently
have occasion to say a good deal, and also of real
Radicals. As, however, it may be supposed that he is one of
those who delight to play the sycophant to kings and queens, to
curry favour with Tories, and to bepraise Wellington, he begs
leave to state that such is not the case.
About kings and queens he has nothing to say; about Tories,
simply that he believes them to be a bad set; about Wellington,
however, it will be necessary for him to say a good deal, of
mixed import, as he will subsequently frequently have occasion to
mention him in connection with what he has to say about
pseudo-Radicals.
About Wellington, then, he says,
that he believes him at the present day to be infinitely
overrated. But there certainly was a time when he was
shamefully underrated. Now what time was that? Why
the time of pseudo-Radicalism, par excellence, from ’20 to
’32. Oh, the abuse that was heaped on Wellington by
those who traded in Radical cant—your newspaper editors and
review writers! and how he was sneered at then by your Whigs, and
how faintly supported he was by your Tories, who were half
ashamed of him; for your Tories, though capital fellows as
followers, when you want nobody to back you, are the faintest
creatures in the world when you cry in your agony, “Come
and help me!” Oh, assuredly Wellington was infamously
used at that time, especially by your traders in Radicalism, who
howled at and hooted him; said he had every vice—was no
general—was beaten at Waterloo—was a
poltroon—moreover a poor illiterate creature, who could
scarcely read or write; nay, a principal Radical paper said
boldly he could not read, and devised an ingenious plan for
teaching Wellington how to read. Now this was too bad; and
the writer, being a lover of justice, frequently spoke up for
Wellington, saying, that as for vice, he was not worse than his
neighbours; that he was brave; that he won the fight at Waterloo,
from a half-dead man, it is true, but that he did win it.
Also, that he believed he had read Rules for the Manual and
Platoon Exercises to some purpose; moreover, that he was sure
he could write, for that he the writer had once written to
Wellington, and had received an answer from him; nay, the writer
once went so far as to strike a blow for Wellington; for the last
time he used his fists was upon a Radical sub-editor, who was
mobbing Wellington in the street, from behind a rank of grimy
fellows. But though the writer spoke up for Wellington to a
certain extent when he was shamefully underrated, and once struck
a blow for him when he was about being hustled, he is not going
to join in the loathsome sycophantic nonsense which it has been
the fashion to use with respect to Wellington these last twenty
years. Now what have those years been to England! Why
the years of ultra-gentility, everybody in England having gone
gentility mad during the last twenty years, and no people more so
than your pseudo-Radicals. Wellington was turned
out, and your Whigs and Radicals got in, and then commenced the
period of ultra-gentility in England. The Whigs and
Radicals only hated Wellington as long as the patronage of the
country was in his hands, none of which they were tolerably sure
he would bestow on them; but no sooner did they get it into their
own, than they forthwith became admirers of Wellington. And
why? Because he was a duke, petted at Windsor and by
foreign princes, and a very genteel personage. Formerly
many of your Whigs and Radicals had scarcely a decent coat on
their backs; but now the plunder of the country was at their
disposal, and they had as good a chance of being genteel as any
people. So they were willing to worship Wellington because
he was very genteel, and could not keep the plunder of the
country out of their hands. And Wellington has been
worshipped, and prettily so, during the last fifteen or twenty
years. He is now a noble fine-hearted creature; the
greatest general the world ever produced; the bravest of men;
and—and—mercy upon us! the greatest of military
writers! Now the present writer will not join in such
sycophancy. As he was not afraid to take the part of
Wellington when he was scurvily used by all parties, and when it
was dangerous to take his part, so he is not afraid to speak the
naked truth about Wellington in these days, when it is dangerous
to say anything about him but what is sycophantically
laudatory. He said in ’32, that as to vice,
Wellington was not worse than his neighbours; but he is not going
to say in ’54, that Wellington was a noble-hearted fellow;
for he believes that a more cold-hearted individual never
existed. His conduct to Warner, the poor Vaudois, and
Marshal Ney, showed that. He said in ’32, that he was
a good general and a brave man; but he is not going, in
’54, to say that he was the best general, or the bravest
man, the world ever saw. England has produced a better
general—France two or three—both countries many
braver men. The son of the Norfolk clergyman was a brave
man; Marshal Ney was a braver man. Oh, that battle of
Copenhagen! Oh, that covering the retreat of the Grand
Army! And though he said in ’32 that he could write,
he is not going to say in ’54 that he is the best of all
military writers. On the contrary, he does not hesitate to
say that any Commentary of Julius Cæsar, or any chapter in
Justinus, more especially the one about the Parthians, is worth
the ten volumes of Wellington’s Despatches; though he has
no doubt that, by saying so, he shall especially rouse the
indignation of a certain newspaper, at present one of the most
genteel journals imaginable—with a slight tendency to
liberalism, it is true, but perfectly genteel—which is
nevertheless the very one which, in ’32, swore bodily that
Wellington could neither read nor write and devised an ingenious
plan for teaching him how to read.
Now, after the above statement, no one will venture to say, if
the writer should be disposed to bear hard upon Radicals, that he
would be influenced by a desire to pay court to princes, or to
curry favour with Tories, or from being a blind admirer of the
Duke of Wellington; but the writer is not going to declaim
against Radicals, that is, real Republicans, or their principles;
upon the whole, he is something of an admirer of both. The
writer has always had as much admiration for everything that is
real and honest as he has had contempt for the opposite.
Now real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, a much
finer thing than Toryism, a system of common robbery, which is
nevertheless far better than Whiggism [364]—a compound of petty larceny,
popular instruction, and receiving of stolen goods. Yes,
real Republicanism is certainly a very fine thing, and your real
Radicals and Republicans are certainly very fine fellows, or
rather were fine fellows, for the Lord only knows where to find
them at the present day—the writer does not. If he
did, he would at any time go five miles to invite one of them to
dinner, even supposing that he had to go to a workhouse in order
to find the person he wished to invite. Amongst the real
Radicals of England, those who flourished from the year ’16
to ’20, there were certainly extraordinary characters, men
partially insane, perhaps, but honest and brave—they did
not make a market of the principles which they professed, and
never intended to do so; they believed in them, and were willing
to risk their lives in endeavouring to carry them out. The
writer wishes to speak in particular of two of these men, both of
whom perished on the scaffold—their names were Thistlewood
and Ings. Thistlewood, the best known of them, was a brave
soldier and had served with distinction as an officer in the
French service; he was one of the excellent swordsmen of Europe;
had fought several duels in France, where it is no child’s
play to fight a duel; but had never unsheathed his sword for
single combat, but in defence of the feeble and insulted—he
was kind and open-hearted, but of too great simplicity; he had
once ten thousand pounds left him, all of which he lent to a
friend, who disappeared and never returned him a penny.
Ings was an uneducated man, of very low stature, but amazing
strength and resolution; he was a kind husband and father, and
though a humble butcher, the name he bore was one of the royal
names of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. These two men, along
with five others, were executed, and their heads hacked off, for
levying war against George the Fourth; the whole seven dying in a
manner which extorted cheers from the populace, the most of them
uttering philosophical or patriotic sayings. Thistlewood,
who was, perhaps, the most calm and collected of all, just before
he was turned off, said, “We are now going to discover the
great secret”. Ings, the moment before he was choked,
was singing “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace
bled.” Now there was no humbug about those men, nor
about many more of the same time and of the same
principles. They might be deluded about Republicanism, as
Algernon Sidney was, and as Brutus was, but they were as honest
and brave as either Brutus or Sidney, and as willing to die for
their principles. But the Radicals who succeeded them were
beings of a very different description; they jobbed and traded in
Republicanism, and either parted with it, or at the present day
are eager to part with it, for a consideration. In order to
get the Whigs into power, and themselves places, they brought the
country by their inflammatory language to the verge of a
revolution, and were the cause that many perished on the
scaffold; by their incendiary harangues and newspaper articles
they caused the Bristol conflagration, for which six poor
creatures were executed; they encouraged the mob to pillage, pull
down and burn, and then rushing into garrets looked on.
Thistlewood tells the mob the Tower is a second Bastile; let it
be pulled down. A mob tries to pull down the Tower; but
Thistlewood is at the head of that mob; he is not peeping from a
garret on Tower Hill like Gulliver at Lisbon. Thistlewood
and Ings say to twenty ragged individuals, Liverpool and
Castlereagh are two satellites of despotism; it would be highly
desirable to put them out of the way. And a certain number
of ragged individuals are surprised in a stable in Cato
Street, making preparations to put Castlereagh and Liverpool out
of the way, and are fired upon with muskets by Grenadiers, and
are hacked at with cutlasses by Bow Street runners; but the twain
who encouraged those ragged individuals to meet in Cato Street
are not far off, they are not on the other side of the river, in
the Borough, for example, in some garret or obscure cellar.
The very first to confront the Guards and runners are Thistlewood
and Ings; Thistlewood whips his long thin rapier through
Smithers’ lungs, and Ings makes a dash at Fitzclarence with
his butcher’s knife. Oh, there was something in those
fellows! honesty and courage; but can as much be said for the
inciters of the troubles of ’32? No; they egged on
poor ignorant mechanics and rustics, and got them hanged for
pulling down and burning, whilst the highest pitch to which their
own daring ever mounted was to mob Wellington as he passed in the
streets.
Now, these people were humbugs, which Thistlewood and Ings
were not. They raved and foamed against kings, queens,
Wellington, the aristocracy, and what not, till they had got the
Whigs into power, with whom they were in secret alliance, and
with whom they afterwards openly joined in a system of robbery
and corruption, more flagitious than the old Tory one, because
there was more cant about it; for themselves they got
consulships, commissionerships, and in some instances
governments; for their sons clerkships in public offices; and
there you may see those sons with the never-failing badge of the
low scoundrel-puppy, the gilt chain at the waistcoat-pocket; and
there you may hear and see them using the languishing tones, and
employing the airs and graces which wenches use and employ, who,
without being in the family way, wish to make their keepers
believe that they are in the family way. Assuredly great is
the cleverness of your Radicals of ’32, in providing for
themselves and their families. Yet, clever as they are,
there is one thing they cannot do—they get governments for
themselves, commissionerships for their brothers, clerkships for
their sons, but there is one thing beyond their craft—they
cannot get husbands for their daughters, who, too ugly for
marriage, and with their heads filled with the nonsense they have
imbibed from gentility-novels, go over from Socinus to the Pope,
becoming sisters in fusty convents, or having heard a few sermons
in Mr. Platitude’s “chapelle,” seek for
admission at the establishment of mother S—, who, after
employing them for a time in various menial offices, and making
them pluck off their eyebrows, hair by hair, generally dismisses
them on the plea of sluttishness; whereupon they return to their
papas to
eat the bread of the country, with the comfortable prospect of
eating it still in the shape of a pension after their sires are
dead. Papa (ex uno disce omnes) living as quietly as
he can; not exactly enviably, it is true, being now and then seen
to cast an uneasy and furtive glance behind, even as an animal is
wont, who has lost by some mischance a very sightly appendage; as
quietly however as he can, and as dignifiedly, a great admirer of
every genteel thing and genteel personage, the Duke in
particular, whose Despatches, bound in red morocco, you
will find on his table. A disliker of coarse expressions,
and extremes of every kind, with a perfect horror for revolutions
and attempts to revolutionise, exclaiming now and then, as a
shriek escapes from whipped and bleeding Hungary, a groan from
gasping Poland, and a half-stifled curse from down-trodden but
scowling Italy, “Confound the revolutionary
canaille, why can’t it be quiet!” in a word,
putting one in mind of the parvenu in the Walpurgis
Nacht. The writer is no admirer of Goethe, but the idea
of that parvenu was certainly a good one—yes,
putting one in mind of the individual who says:—
“Wir waren wahrlich auch nicht dumm,
Und thaten oft was wir nicht sollten;
Doch jetzo kehrt sich alles um und um,
Und eben da wir’s fest erhalten
wollten.”
We were no fools, as every one discern’d,
And stopp’d at nought our projects in
fulfilling;
But now the world seems topsy-turvy turn’d,
To keep it quiet just when we were willing.
Now, this class of individuals entertain a mortal hatred for
Lavengro and its writer, and never lose an opportunity of
vituperating both. It is true that such hatred is by no
means surprising. There is certainly a great deal of
difference between Lavengro and their own sons; the one thinking
of independence and philology, whilst he is clinking away at
kettles, and hammering horse-shoes in dingles; the others stuck
up at public offices with gilt chains at their waistcoat-pockets,
and giving themselves the airs and graces of females of a certain
description. And there certainly is a great deal of
difference between the author of Lavengro and
themselves—he retaining his principles and his brush; they
with scarlet breeches on, it is true, but without their
republicanism and their tails. Oh, the writer can well
afford to be vituperated by your pseudo-Radicals of
’32!
Some time ago the writer was set upon by an old Radical and
his wife; but the matter is too rich not to require a chapter to
itself.
“This very dirty man, with his very dirty
face,
Would do any dirty act, which would get him a place.”
Some time ago the writer was set
upon by an old Radical and his wife; but before he relates the
manner in which they set upon him, it will be as well to enter
upon a few particulars tending to elucidate their reasons for so
doing.
The writer had just entered into his eighteenth year, when he
met at the table of a certain Anglo-Germanist an individual,
apparently somewhat under thirty, of middle stature, a thin and
weaselly figure, a sallow complexion, a certain obliquity of
vision, and a large pair of spectacles. This person, who
had lately come from abroad, and had published a volume of
translations, had attracted some slight notice in the literary
world, and was looked upon as a kind of lion in a small
provincial capital. After dinner he argued a great deal,
spoke vehemently against the Church, and uttered the most
desperate Radicalism that was perhaps ever heard, saying, he
hoped that in a short time there would not be a king or queen in
Europe, and inveighing bitterly against the English aristocracy,
and against the Duke of Wellington in particular, whom he said,
if he himself was ever president of an English republic—an
event which he seemed to think by no means improbable—he
would hang for certain infamous acts of profligacy and bloodshed
which he had perpetrated in Spain. Being informed that the
writer was something of a philologist, to which character the
individual in question laid great pretensions, he came and sat
down by him, and talked about languages and literature. The
writer, who was only a boy, was a little frightened at first,
but, not wishing to appear a child of absolute ignorance, he
summoned what little learning he had, and began to blunder out
something about the Celtic languages and their literature, and
asked the Lion who he conceived Finn Ma Coul to be? and whether
he did not consider the “Ode to the Fox,” by Red Rhys
of Eryry, to be a masterpiece of pleasantry? Receiving no
answer to these questions from the Lion, who, singular enough, would
frequently, when the writer put a question to him, look across
the table, and flatly contradict some one who was talking to some
other person, the writer dropped the Celtic languages and
literature, and asked him whether he did not think it a funny
thing that Temugin, generally called Genghis Khan, should have
married the daughter of Prester John? [369] The Lion, after giving a
side-glance at the writer through his left spectacle glass,
seemed about to reply, but was unfortunately prevented, being
seized with an irresistible impulse to contradict a respectable
doctor of medicine, who was engaged in conversation with the
master of the house at the upper and farther end of the table,
the writer being a poor ignorant lad, sitting of course at the
bottom. The doctor, who had served in the Peninsula, having
observed that Ferdinand the Seventh was not quite so bad as had
been represented, the Lion vociferated that he was ten times
worse, and that he hoped to see him and the Duke of Wellington
hanged together. The doctor, who, being a Welshman, was
somewhat of a warm temper, growing rather red, said that at any
rate he had been informed that Ferdinand the Seventh knew
sometimes how to behave himself like a gentleman—this
brought on a long dispute, which terminated rather
abruptly. The Lion having observed that the doctor must not
talk about Spanish matters with one who had visited every part of
Spain, the doctor bowed, and said he was right, for that he
believed no people in general possessed such accurate information
about countries as those who had travelled them as bagmen.
On the Lion asking the doctor what he meant, the Welshman, whose
under jaw began to move violently, replied, that he meant what he
said. Here the matter ended, for the Lion turning from him,
looked at the writer. The writer, imagining that his own
conversation hitherto had been too trivial and common-place for
the Lion to consider it worth his while to take much notice of
it, determined to assume a little higher ground, and after
repeating a few verses of the Koran, and gabbling a little
Arabic, asked the Lion what he considered to be the difference
between the Hegira and the Christian era, adding, that he thought
the general computation was in error by about one year; and being
a particularly modest person, chiefly, he believes, owing to his
having been at school in Ireland, absolutely blushed at finding
that the Lion returned not a word in answer. “What a
wonderful individual I am seated by,” thought he, “to
whom Arabic seems a vulgar speech, and a question about the
Hegira not worthy of an answer!” not reflecting
that as lions come from the Sahara, they have quite enough of
Arabic at home, and that the question about the Hegira was rather
mal à propos to one used to prey on the flesh of
hadjis. “Now I only wish he would vouchsafe me a
little of his learning,” thought the boy to himself, and in
this wish he was at last gratified; for the Lion, after asking
him whether he was acquainted at all with the Sclavonian
languages, and being informed that he was not, absolutely
dumb-foundered him by a display of Sclavonian erudition.
Years rolled by—the writer was a good deal about,
sometimes in London, sometimes in the country, sometimes abroad;
in London he occasionally met the man of the spectacles, who was
always very civil to him, and, indeed, cultivated his
acquaintance. The writer thought it rather odd that, after
he himself had become acquainted with the Sclavonian languages
and literature, the man of the spectacles talked little or
nothing about them. In a little time, however, the matter
ceased to cause him the slightest surprise, for he had discovered
a key to the mystery. In the meantime the man of spectacles
was busy enough; he speculated in commerce, failed, and paid his
creditors twenty pennies in the pound; published translations, of
which the public at length became heartily tired; having, indeed,
got an inkling of the manner in which those translations were got
up. He managed, however, to ride out many a storm, having
one trusty sheet-anchor—Radicalism. This he turned to
the best advantage—writing pamphlets and articles in
reviews, all in the Radical interest, and for which he was paid
out of the Radical fund; which articles and pamphlets, when
Toryism seemed to reel on its last legs, exhibited a slight
tendency to Whiggism. Nevertheless, his abhorrence of
desertion of principle was so great in the time of the Duke of
Wellington’s administration, that when S— left the
Whigs and went over, he told the writer, who was about that time
engaged with him in a literary undertaking, that the said
S— was a fellow with a character so infamous, that any
honest man would rather that you should spit in his face than
insult his ears with the mention of the name of S—.
The literary project having come to nothing,—in which,
by-the-bye, the writer was to have all the labour, and his friend
all the credit, provided any credit should accrue from
it,—the writer did not see the latter for some years,
during which time considerable political changes took place; the
Tories were driven from, and the Whigs placed in, office, both
events being brought about by the Radicals coalescing with the
Whigs, over whom they possessed great influence for the
services which they had rendered. When the writer next
visited his friend, he found him very much altered; his opinions
were by no means so exalted as they had been—he was not
disposed even to be rancorous against the Duke of Wellington,
saying that there were worse men than he, and giving him some
credit as a general; a hankering after gentility seeming to
pervade the whole family, father and sons, wife and daughters,
all of whom talked about genteel
diversions—gentility-novels, and even seemed to look with
favour on high Churchism, having in former years, to all
appearance, been bigoted Dissenters. In a little time the
writer went abroad; as, indeed, did his friend; not, however,
like the writer, at his own expense, but at that of the
country—the Whigs having given him a travelling
appointment, which he held for some years, during which he is
said to have received upwards of twelve thousand pounds of the
money of the country, for services which will, perhaps, be found
inscribed on certain tablets, when another Astolfo shall visit
the moon. This appointment, however, he lost on the Tories
resuming power—when the writer found him almost as Radical
and patriotic as ever, just engaged in trying to get into
Parliament, into which he got by the assistance of his Radical
friends, who, in conjunction with the Whigs, were just getting up
a crusade against the Tories, which they intended should be a
conclusive one.
A little time after the publication of The Bible in
Spain, the Tories being still in power, this individual, full
of the most disinterested friendship for the author, was
particularly anxious that he should be presented with an official
situation, in a certain region a great many miles off.
“You are the only person for that appointment,” said
he; “you understand a great deal about the country, and are
better acquainted with the two languages spoken there than any
one in England. Now I love my country, and have, moreover,
a great regard for you, and as I am in Parliament, and have
frequent opportunities of speaking to the Ministry, I shall take
care to tell them how desirable it would be to secure your
services. It is true they are Tories, but I think that even
Tories would give up their habitual love of jobbery in a case
like yours, and for once show themselves disposed to be honest
men and gentlemen; indeed, I have no doubt they will; for, having
so deservedly an infamous character, they would be glad to get
themselves a little credit, by a presentation which could not
possibly be traced to jobbery or favouritism.” The
writer begged his friend to give himself no trouble about the
matter, as he was not desirous of the appointment, being in
tolerably easy circumstances, and willing to take some rest after
a life of labour. All, however, that he could say was of no
use, his friend indignantly observing that the matter ought to be
taken entirely out of his hands, and the appointment thrust upon
him for the credit of the country. “But may not many
people be far more worthy of the appointment than myself?”
said the writer. “Where?” said the friendly
Radical. “If you don’t get it, it will be made
a job of, given to the son of some steward, or, perhaps, to some
quack who has done dirty work; I tell you what, I shall ask it
for you, in spite of you; I shall, indeed!” and his eyes
flashed with friendly and patriotic fervour through the large
pair of spectacles which he wore.
And, in fact, it would appear that the honest and friendly
patriot put his threat into execution. “I have
spoken,” said he, “more than once to this and that
individual in Parliament, and everybody seems to think that the
appointment should be given to you. Nay, that you should be
forced to accept it. I intend next to speak to Lord
A—.” [372a] And so he
did, at least it would appear so. On the writer calling
upon him one evening, about a week afterwards, in order to take
leave of him, as the writer was about to take a long journey for
the sake of his health, his friend no sooner saw him than he
started up in a violent fit of agitation, and glancing about the
room, in which there were several people, amongst others two Whig
members of Parliament, said: “I am glad you are come, I was
just speaking about you. This,” said he, addressing
the two members, “is so-and-so, the author of so-and-so,
the well-known philologist; as I was telling you, I spoke to Lord
A— [372b] this day about him, and said that he
ought forthwith to have the head appointment in —; and what
did the fellow say? Why, that there was no necessity for
such an appointment at all, and if there were, why—and then
he hummed and ha’d. Yes,” said he, looking at
the writer, “he did indeed. What a scandal! what an
infamy! But I see how it will be, it will be a job.
The place will be given to some son of a steward or to some
quack, as I said before. Oh, these Tories! Well, if
this does not make one—” Here he stopped short,
crunched his teeth, and looked the image of desperation.
Seeing the poor man in this distressed condition, the writer
begged him to be comforted, and not to take the matter so much to
heart; but the indignant Radical took the matter very much to
heart, and refused all comfort whatever, bouncing about the room,
and,
whilst his spectacles flashed in the light of four spermaceti
candles, exclaiming: “It will be a job—a Tory
job! I see it all, I see it all, I see it all!”
And a job it proved, and a very pretty job, but no Tory
job. Shortly afterwards the Tories were out, and the Whigs
were in. From that time the writer heard not a word about
the injustice done to the country, in not presenting him with the
appointment to —; the Radical, however, was busy enough to
obtain the appointment, not for the writer, but for himself and
eventually succeeded, partly through Radical influence, and
partly through that of a certain Whig lord, for whom the Radical
had done, on a particular occasion, work of a particular
kind. So, though the place was given to a quack, and the
whole affair a very pretty job, it was one in which the Tories
had certainly no hand.
In the meanwhile, however, the friendly Radical did not drop
the writer. Oh, no! On various occasions he obtained
from the writer all the information about the country in
question, and was particularly anxious to obtain from the writer,
and eventually did obtain, a copy of a work written in the court
language of that country, edited by the writer, a language
exceedingly difficult, which the writer, at the expense of a
considerable portion of his eyesight, had acquired, at least as
far as by the eyesight it could be acquired. What use the
writer’s friend made of the knowledge he had gained from
him, and what use he made of the book, the writer can only guess;
but he has little doubt that when the question of sending a
person to — was mooted in a Parliamentary
Committee—which it was at the instigation of the Radical
supporters of the writer’s friend—the Radical on
being examined about the country, gave the information which he
had obtained from the writer as his own, and flashed the book and
its singular characters in the eyes of the Committee; and then of
course his Radical friends would instantly say: “This is
the man! there is no one like him. See what information he
possesses; and see that book written by himself in the court
language of Serendib. This is the only man to send
there. What a glory, what a triumph it would be to Britain,
to send out a man so deeply versed in the mysterious lore of
—, as our illustrious countryman; a person who with his
knowledge could beat with their own weapons the wise men of
—! Is such an opportunity to be lost? Oh, no,
surely not; if it is, it will be an eternal disgrace to England,
and the world will see that Whigs are no better than
Tories.”
Let no one think the writer uncharitable in these
suppositions. The writer is only too well acquainted with
the antecedents of the individual, to entertain much doubt that he would
shrink from any such conduct, provided he thought that his
temporal interest would be forwarded by it. The writer is
aware of more than one instance in which he has passed off the
literature of friendless young men for his own, after making them
a slight pecuniary compensation and deforming what was originally
excellent by interpolations of his own. This was his
especial practice with regard to translation, of which he would
fain be esteemed the king. This Radical literato is
slightly acquainted with four or five of the easier dialects of
Europe, on the strength of which knowledge he would fain pass for
a universal linguist, publishing translations of pieces
originally written in various difficult languages; which
translations, however, were either made by himself from literal
renderings done for him into French or German, or had been made
from the originals into English, by friendless young men, and
then deformed by his alterations.
Well, the Radical got the appointment, and the writer
certainly did not grudge it him. He, of course, was aware
that his friend had behaved in a very base manner towards him,
but he bore him no ill-will, and invariably when he heard him
spoken against, which was frequently the case, took his part when
no other person would; indeed, he could well afford to bear him
no ill-will. He had never sought for the appointment, nor
wished for it, nor, indeed, ever believed himself to be qualified
for it. He was conscious, it is true, that he was not
altogether unacquainted with the language and literature of the
country with which the appointment was connected. He was
likewise aware that he was not altogether deficient in courage
and in propriety of behaviour. He knew that his appearance
was not particularly against him, his face not being like that of
a convicted pickpocket, nor his gait resembling that of a fox who
has lost his tail; yet he never believed himself adapted for the
appointment, being aware that he had no aptitude for the doing of
dirty work, if called to do it, nor pliancy which would enable
him to submit to scurvy treatment, whether he did dirty work or
not—requisites, at the time of which he is speaking,
indispensable in every British official; requisites, by-the-bye,
which his friend, the Radical, possessed in a high degree; but
though he bore no ill-will towards his friend, his friend bore
anything but good-will towards him; for from the moment that he
had obtained the appointment for himself, his mind was filled
with the most bitter malignity against the writer, and naturally
enough; for no one ever yet behaved in a base manner towards
another, without forthwith conceiving a mortal hatred against
him. You wrong another, know yourself to have acted basely,
and are enraged, not against yourself—for no one hates
himself—but against the innocent cause of your baseness;
reasoning very plausibly, “But for that fellow, I should
never have been base; for had he not existed, I could not have
been so, at any rate against him”; and this hatred is all
the more bitter, when you reflect that you have been needlessly
base.
Whilst the Tories are in power the writer’s friend, of
his own accord, raves against the Tories because they do not give
the writer a certain appointment, and makes, or says he makes,
desperate exertions to make them do so; but no sooner are the
Tories out, with whom he has no influence, and the Whigs in, with
whom he, or rather his party, has influence, than he gets the
place for himself, though, according to his own expressed
opinion—an opinion with which the writer does not, and
never did, concur—the writer was the only person competent
to hold it. Now had he, without saying a word to the
writer, or about the writer with respect to the employment, got
the place for himself when he had an opportunity, knowing, as he
very well knew, himself to be utterly unqualified for it, the
transaction, though a piece of jobbery, would not have merited
the title of a base transaction; as the matter stands, however,
who can avoid calling the whole affair not only a piece
of—come, come, out with the word—scoundrelism on the
part of the writer’s friend, but a most curious piece of
uncalled-for scoundrelism? and who, with any knowledge of fallen
human nature, can wonder at the writer’s friend
entertaining towards him a considerable portion of gall and
malignity?
This feeling on the part of the writer’s friend was
wonderfully increased by the appearance of Lavengro, many
passages of which the Radical in his foreign appointment applied
to himself and family—one or two of his children having
gone over to Popery, the rest become members of Mr.
Platitude’s chapel, and the minds of all being filled with
ultra notions of gentility.
The writer, hearing that his old friend had returned to
England, to apply, he believes, for an increase of salary, and
for a title, called upon him, unwillingly, it is true, for he had
no wish to see a person for whom, though he bore him no ill-will,
he could not avoid feeling a considerable portion of contempt;
the truth is, that his sole object in calling was to endeavour to
get back a piece of literary property which his friend had
obtained from him many years previously, and which, though he had
frequently applied for it, he never could get back. Well,
the writer called; he did not get his property, which, indeed, he
had scarcely time to press for, being almost instantly attacked by
his good friend and his wife—yes, it was then that the
author was set upon by an old Radical and his wife—the
wife, who looked the very image of shame and malignity, did not
say much, it is true, but encouraged her husband in all he
said. Both of their own accord introduced the subject of
Lavengro. The Radical called the writer a grumbler,
just as if there had ever been a greater grumbler than himself
until, by the means above described, he had obtained a place; he
said that the book contained a melancholy view of human
nature—just as if anybody could look in his face without
having a melancholy view of human nature. On the writer
quietly observing that the book contained an exposition of his
principles, the pseudo-Radical replied, that he cared nothing for
his principles—which was probably true, it not being likely
that he would care for another person’s principles after
having shown so thorough a disregard for his own. The
writer said that the book, of course, would give offence to
humbugs; the Radical then demanded whether he thought him a
humbug—the wretched wife was the Radical’s
protection, even as he knew she would be; it was on her account
that the writer did not kick his good friend; as it was, he
looked at him in the face and thought to himself, “How is
it possible I should think you a humbug, when only last night I
was taking your part in a company in which everybody called you a
humbug?”
The Radical, probably observing something in the
writer’s eye which he did not like, became all on a sudden
abjectly submissive, and, professing the highest admiration for
the writer, begged him to visit him in his government; this the
writer promised faithfully to do, and he takes the present
opportunity of performing his promise.
This is one of the pseudo-Radical calumniators of
Lavengro and its author; were the writer on his death-bed
he would lay his hand on his heart and say, that he does not
believe that there is one trait of exaggeration in the portrait
which he has drawn. This is one of the pseudo-Radical
calumniators of Lavengro and its author; and this is one
of the genus, who, after having railed against jobbery for
perhaps a quarter of a century, at present batten on large
official salaries which they do not earn. England is a
great country, and her interests require that she should have
many a well-paid official both at home and abroad; but will
England long continue a great country if the care of her
interests, both at home and abroad, is in many instances
intrusted to beings like him described above, whose only
recommendation for an official appointment was that he was deeply
versed in the secrets of his party and of the Whigs?
Before he concludes, the writer will take the liberty of
saying of Lavengro that it is a book written for the
express purpose of inculcating virtue, love of country, learning,
manly pursuits, and genuine religion, for example, that of the
Church of England, and for awakening a contempt for nonsense of
every kind, and a hatred for priestcraft, more especially that of
Rome.
And in conclusion, with respect to many passages of his book
in which he has expressed himself in terms neither measured nor
mealy, he will beg leave to observe, in the words of a great
poet, who lived a profligate life, it is true, but who died a
sincere penitent—thanks, after God, to good Bishop
Burnet—
“All this with indignation I have
hurl’d
At the pretending part of this proud world,
Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise
False freedoms, formal cheats, and holy lies,
Over their fellow fools to tyrannise.”
—Rochester.
THE
END.
NOTES TO THE ROMANY RYE , WITH CORRECTIONS, IDENTIFICATIONS AND TRANSLATIONS. — “THE PETULENGRES. — 1. “DRABBING THE BAULO, — 2. “DRABBING THE BAULO. — APPENDIX.
Page 5. The man in black: The Rev.
Fraser. See pp. 24–25, and “Arbuthnot” in
Bibliog.—Barbarini, read Barberini: Urban
VIII., pope 1623–44.—6. Nipotismo di
Roma: See “Leti” in
Bibliog.—Ganganelli: Clement XIV., pope,
1769–74.—10. Mezzofanti: So here
and elsewhere in Romany Rye; Mezzofante in
Lavengro—Cardinal Giuseppe, 1774–1849, the
celebrated linguist.—Leon the Isaurian: Reigned at
Constantinople from 717–741.—11.
Ignacio: Spanish form of Ignatius.—14.
Omani batsikhom: Manchu Tartar form of prayer given
elsewhere by Borrow as Oum-ma-ni-bat-mi-houm. See
Life, i., p. 176.—15. Bellissima
Biondina (It.): Fairest of blondes.—16.
Sono un Prete, etc. (It): I am a Roman Catholic
Priest.—19. Zamarra (Sp.): A sheep-skin
jacket with the wool outside.—Carajo: An oath fit
neither to be written nor pronounced, but common to the lower
classes of Spaniards, or to ambitious foreign Hispanophiles who
cannot know its meaning. See Oudin’s Tesoro,
Paris, 1607.—20. Scotch blood: He was,
then, a Fraser of Lovat, of whom Simon Lord F. was a supporter of
the last Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart,
1746.—Puta (Sp.): The most offensive word for
harlot.—Alcoran des Cordeliers, i.e.,
“the Franciscans’ Coran”: A blasphemous work
written in 1399 in Latin by Bartolommeo Albizzi (Albitius); first
published in printed form at Milan in 1510, then by Luther in
1542 with his peculiar comments, and finally in French at Geneva,
1556. See “Albizzi” in the
Bibliog.—22. Bible: The price of
the old apple-woman’s Bible was, it will be remembered, one
half-crown (Lavengro, p. 264).—23.
Alexander VI.: Pope 1492–1503. He was a
Spaniard of Valencia, and his family name was Rodrigo Borja, in
It. Borgia.—24. L’opere sue,
etc.: His deeds were not those of lions, but of foxes—a
slight alteration of Dante’s L’opere mie,
etc. See L’inf., xxvii., st.
25.—25. Oimè (It.):
Alas!—To . . ., read Rome.—Sir John D.,
read Sir Thomas Dereham: A follower of the Stuarts; he
died in 1739, and his monument stands in the English College at
Rome.—There is at . . ., read Rome.—Yes,
per Dio (It.): By Heaven!
Page 25. Parsons and Garnet: Two English
Jesuits—Robert Parsons (1547–1610), superior to the
Catholic Missions in England, and Henry Garnet (1555–1606),
hanged because he refused to reveal the secrets of the
confessional in connection with the Gunpowder Plot.—No
hay remedio (Sp.): There is no help for
it.—26. Inserted it: In vol. iv., p.
330.—32. Calañés: A
Spanish hat worn by the lower classes, having the rim turned up
against the crown.—There’s a chovahanee, etc.: The
full ditty runs thus in one of Borrow’s
MSS.:—
“There’s a chovahanee and a
chovahanó,
The nav se lendè Petulengro;
Sore the chavès ’dré their ten
Are chories and labbenies—tatchipen,”
which reading corrects that of the
text.—34. Flaming Bosville: Anselo
Herne. See p. 67, and note to Lavengro, p.
363.—37. Gentleman Cooper and White-headed
Bob: i.e., George Cooper and Ned Baldwin, who fought on the
5th of July, 1825, according to Pearce Egan’s
Boxiana, v., pp. 61 and 80. Observe that the date
harmonises perfectly with the chronology of the
expedition.—38. Brynhilda the Valkyrie,
or Amazon, was the wife of Gunnar and friend of Sigurd. See
the Edda in Bibliog. Sigurd, called Fafnisbane or
the Slayer of Fafnir, was a heroic character frequently mentioned
in the Edda, the Wilkina Saga, Snorro’s Heimskringla, and
Saxo-Grammaticus. In the Wilkina he is Sigurdr Sveinn, in
the old Danish Heroic Ballads (Kiæmpeviser) he is Sigurd
Snaresvend (Borrow’s “Snareswayne”), and
Siegfrid in the Lay of the Nibelungs. Sivard or Sivord is a
German variety of the same name.
Page 40. Feasting: This rustic banquet was
offered to Sylvester and Ursula who were married that day,
although our “rye” was not aware of the fact till
later. The song was built up by our author from a
very slender prose draft, which I find in its earliest form given
thus:—
“We jaws to the drab-engro and lels dui or
trin hors-worth of drab, and when we wels to the sweti we pens we
can have a drab at a baulo. Then we kairs it opré,
and jaws to a farm-ker to mang a bit of habben, and then we pens:
‘Chuva lis acai and dov-odoy baulo will lel it, and
to-morrow sorlu we’ll wel apopli and mang it’.
And so we kairs, and on the sorlu when we’ve got it, we
toves it well; we kins levinor at the kitchema, and have a kosko
habben. The boshom-engro plays (kils), and the tawni
juva gils, a kosko puro Rommany guillie.” Then
follows the gillie nearly as in the text.
“To mande shoon ye Rommany Chals
Who besh in the pus about the yag
I’ll pen how we drab the baulo.
“We jaws to the drab-engro ker
Trin horsworth there of drab we lels
And when to the swety back we wels
We pens we’ll drab the baulo.
“And then we kairs the drab opré,
And then we jaws to the farming ker
To mang a beti habben,
A beti poggado habben.
“A rinkeno baulo there we dick,
And then we pens in Rommany jib:
‘Chiv lis odoy oprey the chick,
The baulo he will lel lis,
The baulo he will lel lis.
“‘Apopli on the sorlo we
Will wel and mang him mullo,
Will wel and mang his truppo.’
“And so we kairs, and so we kairs,
We mang him on the sorlo,
And rig to the tan the baulo.
“And then we toves his wendror well
Till sore the wendror iuziou sie,
Till kekkeno drab’s adrey lis,
Till drab there’s kek adrey lis.
“And then his truppo well we hatch,
Kin levinor at the kitchema,
And have a kosko habben,
A kosko Rommano habben.
“The boshom-engro kils, he kils,
The tawni juva gils, she gils,
A puro Rommany gillie,
Now shoon the Rommany gillie.”
3. The third and last MS. is complete, but varies
considerably from the printed text. Romany is
written with two m’s, as in Lavengro
throughout; in the fourth verse it reads: “In Rommany
chib: chiv lis odoy opré the
chik”; fourth line omits “and”; in
the fifth and sixth verses it gives “sorlo”
properly, instead of “saulo”; in seventh verse it
reads “his wendror,” and in the last,
“boshom-engro” and
“tawni”.
From all these variants it results that MS. No. 3
furnishes a better reading than the printed text.
Page 42. Ursula’s Song: By the aid
of the Gypsy list at the end of this volume, the translation can
be easily made out by the curious reader.—46.
Piramus: In MS. also
Priamus.—Sanpriel: Corrupt form of
Sanspareil, unrivalled.—Synfye: Slavonic form
of Cynthia—th in Russian is pronounced
ph or f; Thomas,
Fómas.—47. Life of
Charles: Add XIIth.—48. The
church: Mentioned as three miles from the dingle, and on pp.
53, 110, as at M., has not yet been
discovered.—58. The Edda: Early
Icelandic literary monuments, consisting of the Elder or Poetic
Edda collected by Sæmund, and the later or Prose Edda
collected by Snorro Sturleson. See Mallet’s
Northern Antiquities, Bohn’s
Edition.—Sagas: Early historical tales handed down
by oral tradition. See
Bibliog.—67. Anselo Herne: His
clan-name. See note to p. 363 of Lavengro.
68. Pulci: Luigi Pulci (1432–87).
See Bibliog.—69. Ingravidata
(It.): With child.—E nacquene, etc.: “And of
her a son was born, says story, who subsequently gave great
victory to Charlemagne”.—71.
Fortiguerra: Niccolò Fortiguerra
(1674–1735). He did not live to print his voluminous
poem entitled Ricciardetto, having died in 1735, just
“ninety years” from the date 1825, as our text
declares.—76. Slammocks, etc.: Norwich
worthies, I suppose; at least I do not find them in the
Boxiana at my command.—89. The Armenian
in this (xivth) chapter I find correct. Hramahyel should
have been given hramaïyel, hntal, etc., khntal
(χντάλ), and madagh, madag.
See “Villotte” in the
Bibliog.—91. Hard-mouthed jade:
This favourite expression of Mr. Borrow’s proceeds, I
opine, from his readings in the quaint eighteenth century
literature with which his library abounded. In
Defoe’s Moll Flanders, p. 301, edition of 1722, we
read: “The witnesses were the two wenches, a couple of
hard mouth’d jades indeed”. And on p.
323: “A hard mouth’d
man”.—93. Brynhilda: See note
to p. 38.—133–34. The
“daffodil” poet: William Wordsworth
(1770–1850).—141. Carlo Borromeo:
The Cardinal saint, born 1538, died 1584.—143.
Bricconi abbasso (It.): “Down with the
rogues!”
Page 157. Friar Bacon: The celebrated
scientist Roger Bacon (1214–94) was fated, like Virgil, to
be popularly metamorphosed into a magician and conjuror.
Hence the “Friar Bacon” series of chap-books,
extending (so far as we know them) from the sixteenth century to
the present. I will give the passage referred to by Mr.
Borrow, so that it may be seen that the myth had no reference to
the railway. No. 3 in Bibliog., leaf 8:—
“Chapter V. How Miles watched the
Brazen-head, and in the end went away from his master.
“Fryer Bacon, having performed many wonderful things by
his curious Art, was now sifting out how he might wall England
with brass; wherefore he and Fryer Bungy, when they had
raised the devil, bound him to a tree, for to make him tell them
how it might be performed. He told them that they should
make a Brazen-head, which (if they could watch it till it
spoke) would tell them how it might be done. The head was
made, and they watched till they could watch no longer. At
last Fryer Bungey persuaded Fryer Bacon to let his man Miles
watch while they slept; to which the Fryer agreed. Then
Miles was called, who undertook to awake them when the Head would
speak. So to sleep they went, and Miles expected some great
speech to come from the Head. At last the Head cryed,
‘TIME IS’; at which Miles fell into a great
laughter, and made his scoffs and jears thereat. Then it
said, ‘TIME WAS’; but yet he would not awake
his master, counting them but silly and frivolous words.
Lastly, the Head said, ‘TIME IS PAST’; at
which words down it fell, and in falling made such a noise that
it awakened the two Fryers, and had almost affrighted poor Miles
out of his senses,” etc.
Page 158. L . . ., read Liverpool; C .
. ., read Chester.—162. Brooke of
Borneo: Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (1803–68),
George Borrow’s school-mate at Norwich in
1816–17–18.—165.
“Vails”: He means, of course,
vale.—175–6–7.
Romanvile: London. See “English Rogue”
in Bibl.—176. The chi she is
kaulo (read kauley), etc.: “The lass she is
black, she sleeps upon her
back”.—177–78. Sivord: Or
Sivard, the same as Sigurd, called the Snaresvend
(“Snareswayne” on the next page). See note to
p. 38, and Romantic Ballads, 1826, pp. 83 and 90.
For the reason of Borrow’s changing the Danish svend
into “swayne,” see Life, ii., p.
269.—The horse Grayman: i.e., the
“Skimming gray” of p. 96, Romantic
Ballads.—183. The Maugrabin
sorcerer: The “African Magician” in Lane’s
translation. There is in this passage of The Romany
Rye evidently a confusion of two of the tales in the
Arabian Nights—those of Aladdin and Sindbad, fifth
voyage.—221. Isten (pron.
íshten): Hung. for God.—222.
Magyar (pron. mädjr): A
Hungarian.—223. Tékéli
(1658–1705).—L’Eau de la Reine
d’Hongrie, read de Hongrie, h being
aspirate in this word.—Pigault Lebrun (Charles),
1753–1835; Les Barons de Felsheim, Paris,
1822.—Ersebet, read Erszebet,
Elisabeth.—Florentius of Buda: Flourished
1790–1805. See “Budai Ferencz” in the
Bibliog.—224. Álmus, or
Álmos (älmosh), died 889. The Hungarian
scholar Vámbéri, has exploded the
“dream” (or rather “sleep”) theory
heretofore entertained with regard to the origin of the name
Almos; he says it is an epithet, meaning the Great, the Sublime,
the Noble, the Glorious (Ursprung, pp. 62,
156).—225 (228 and elsewhere), Dunau, read
Donau, Germ. for Danube.—Király and
Ház: The former comes from the Servian
Králj (lj like Span. ll or Port.
lh), which the Hungarian lengthened into
kir-ály, not finding it convenient to pronounce
kr. [383] As for haz, from
haus (Austrian pop. pronunciation hôs), we
are told by Vámbéri that the ancient form was not
ház, but hos (Ursp., p.
556).—226. Janos (pron.
Yánosh): John.—226. Szava
(Hung.): The Save.—229. Laszlo:
Ladislaus.—Cilejia: The Roman Claudia
Celleia, now Cilly, in Carinthia.—230.
Matyas: In English Matthias.—Huz, read
husz (Hung.): Twenty. Vámbéri
questions this etymology of “hussar” (p. 283), but
unsatisfactorily, we think.—Ulazslo:
Wladislaus.—Tché Drak: The Roumanian
cé dracŭ, but pronounced as in the text, and
equivalent to the exclamation que diable!—Mohacs
Veszedelem, read Mohacsi Veszedelem: The Disaster of
Mohács, the title of a poem by Baron
Liszti.—231. Bátory: A mere
epithet, the “valiant”.—232.
Lajos (laï-osh), Louis or
Lewis.—Mufti: The ulémas or Doctors of the
(Mahomedan) law.—233. Coloscvar, read
Koloszvár, in German,
Klausenburg.—Budáï Ferencz: See
Bibliog.—235. Rysckie Tsar, read
Russki Tsar: The Russian Emperor.—Plescova,
now Pskov.—Iván Basilowitz, read
Vasiliévitch, known as Iván the
Terrible.—236. Izbushka (Russ.):
Hut—Tyzza, read Tisza: The river
Theiss.—Kopacs Teto, read Kopász
Tetö.—Kassau, read
Kaschau.—239. Eljen edes, etc.
(pron. elyen edesh tsigáñ oor, elyen gool
eraï): “Long live the sweet Gypsy gentleman, long
live the gudlo Rye”.—241.
Roth-Welsch: The German for Thieves’
Slang.—Tzernebock, read Tchernobog (g
like Germ. ch): Black god, evil
principle.—Bielebock, read Bielbog: White
god, the good principle.—242.
Saxo-Gramaticus, read Grammaticus, see
Bibliog.—Fekete (Hung.):
Black.—246. Erik Bloodaxe (Danish
Blodöxe): King of Norway, Snorro, 1633, p.
64.—256. Regner Lodbrok:
“Regnar” in Icelandic; Borrow gives the Danish term
of this king’s name. See his famous Death Song
in Mallet, pp. 383–85.—Halgerdr, read
Halgerda, Mallet, pp. 340–41.—257.
Biorn, read Björn and Ivarr,
Ivar.—258. Verdammt (Germ.):
Confounded.
Page 262. “Wife selling”: A very
common practice among a certain class, it seems, in England; and,
as this will hardly be credited in America, I will append some
extracts from the newspapers. The Norfolk Chronicle
of 5th May, 1894, says: “The belief formerly prevailed,
especially among the rural population, that a man had a perfectly
legal right to sell his wife to another, provided he observed two
indispensable formalities. One was that he placed a
halter about her neck, and the other that he led her into
the market and publicly transferred her to the purchaser.
Numerous instances of these strange transactions have been
recorded. Our columns, on the 9th of February, 1805,
contained an account of the sale of a wife at Norwich. A
Kentish tailor, the affections and person of whose amiable spouse
had been jockeyed away by a neighbouring horse-dealer,
caparisoned her neck with a halter and surrendered all
right and title to his virtuous rib, in consideration of the sum
of £5. On the 2nd of May, 1823, a similar sale was
effected in this city. A man named Stebbings disposed of
his wile to a person named Turner for the sum of £6
10s. The latter paid £4 on account, took the woman
home, and brutally turned his lawful wife out of
doors.”
The London Daily Mail of 1st March, 1899, prints the
following:—
“Very few people are aware that wives are literally sold
to-day in England. A very common error of the vulgar is
that a man by selling his wife releases himself from the marriage
contract as surely as if he were legally divorced. In
March, 1796, The Times announced the sale of a wife at
Sheffield for sixpence. A short time afterwards the same
journal calmly stated that the price of wives has risen in
Smithfield Market from half a guinea to three guineas and a
half! In 1803 a man led his wife, by a halter round her
neck, into the cattle market at Sheffield, and sold her for a
guinea, the purchaser leading away the woman to his home.
In 1820 a man named Brouchet hired a cattle-pen in the Canterbury
market, placed his wife in it, and ultimately sold her for
5s. Then wives began to increase in value, for soon
afterwards one was sold for £15. This was followed by
a ‘slump’. In 1855 a man led his wife with a
halter round her waist into Derby marketplace and offered her for
sale, but all be could get for her was eighteen pence and a quart
of ale. In 1873 a husband left his home and creditors in
Belper for the liberty of America. The week after his
flight all his goods were put up for auction to satisfy his
debts. His wife claimed part of the money, and this being
refused she insisted on being offered for sale as part of her
husband’s assets. There was no sale, however, for
‘Lot 29’. In even more recent days wife sales
were common, and are even being effected in this present year of
grace. In 1882 John Wilson, a collier of Alfreton,
Derbyshire, sold his wife in a public-house for fourpence.
Sheffield knife-grinders have long been noted for their
transactions in the wife trade. Within quite recent times
many a Sheffield wife has been sold by her husband for a gallon
of beer, which has been drunk on the spot. Sometimes these
sales assume a more formal aspect. In 1887, in the
Sheffield County Court, a man admitted that he had bought another
man’s wife for 5s. Most of these discreditable
‘deals’ escape notice, but a case has come to light
where a man agreed to sell his wife to a collier, and the trio,
with the woman’s father and mother and two family friends,
assembled to arrange terms. Thirty shillings was the price
finally agreed on. Four years ago, at Leeds, a man charged
with bigamy pleaded that, as he had sold his wife for 3s. 6d. to
another man, he could marry again legally! Eighteen
months’ imprisonment was what he got, and more than
deserved. A police court case in 1896 at Doncaster revealed
the fact that John Tart sold his wife to Enoch Childs, on the
understanding that the latter reared the vendor’s four
children. In a Durham court in 1894 it transpired that a
man named Shaw sold his daughter, a girl of sixteen, to a collier
called Cudman, for 1s. Many a wife is at present sold in
the East End of London, as well as in Yorkshire, for a quart of
beer or an ounce of thick twist. It is the poor man’s
method of divorce, and such is popular ignorance that there are
scores of people who imagine that selling a wife is as legal a
separation as a decree nisi pronounced by a bewigged and
berobed judge.”
Page 265. Herodotus: The story is found in
Thalia III., 84–88 (pp. 208–9 of Cary’s
Eng. translation). The groom’s name was
Œbares.—266. Deaghblasda,
read deaghbhlasda (Ir.): Sweet-tasted, dainty. This
is the soothing word hinted at, but not given, in
Lavengro, p. 83.—269. At H . .
., read Hertford, where John Thurtell was hanged, 9th
January, 1824.—Ned Flatnose: Ed. Painter of
Norwich.—270. Spring: His true name was
Thomas Winter; see Lavengro, p. 168. He died
20th August, 1851.—276. . . . Fair, read
Greenwich Fair, on Easter Monday. See Dickens’
Sketches.—279. Oilien (and p.
295, Oilein) nan Naomha, read Oilean na
Naomhtha (Ir.): Island of the Saints (Patrick and
Columba).—Finn-ma-Coul: The tale of Finn was first
learned by Borrow in January, 1854, from his Irish guide Cronan,
while travelling in Cornwall (Life, ii., p. 86, and
note). This fact shows that Murtagh and his tale are
introduced here to exhibit the author’s discovery of the
identity between the Finn of Ireland and the Eddaic tradition of
Sigurd Fafnisbane (p. 281). For Sigurd in the Wilkina Saga
is suckled by a hind (p. 120) and fostered by Mymmer Smed or
Mimer the Smith (p. 121) whom he eventually slays (p. 124).
In the Eddaic Lay of the serpent-killer we read: “Sigurd
took the heart of Fafnir and broiled it on a spit. And when
he judged that it was done, he touched it with his finger to
ascertain if that were really the case. Having burned his
finger in the act, he put it to his mouth, and no sooner had the
heart’s blood of Fafnir come in contact with Sigurd’s
tongue than he understood the speech of birds,” etc.
Here we have the two sides verified, the Irish by Cronan, and the
Scandian by the Edda. But Brooke’s Reliques, a
favourite work of Borrow’s in his Norwich days, and which
he cites in 1832 (Life, i., p. 146), give us certain other
fragments of these Finnic fables, whereby we can trace the
sources of the text before us. For example, after Jack Dale
had stripped Murtagh of all his money he is observed to be
sitting “in deep despondency, holding his thumb to his
mouth” (p. 278). And a little farther on (p. 282) a
verse is cited from “Conan the Bald”. Now all
this is found in Miss Brooke, that is, the names and the
ideas—Conan the Bald (p. 106), Lochlin (p. 46), and Darmod
Odeen (minus Taffy) and the verse with this note (p.
109):—“This strange passage is explained by some
lines in the Poem of Dubmac-Dighruibh, where Finn is reproached
with deriving all his courage from chewing his thumb for
prophetic information.”—281. Siol
Loughlin, read Lochlin (Ir.): Literally “the
seed of Norway,” i.e., the Danish or Norwegian
race. Miss Brooke very properly says (p. 46):
“Lochlin is the Gælic (and Irish) name for
Scandinavia in general”; but Borrow limits it to
Denmark—the Danish race. And a little below,
“the Loughlin songs” are his Danish Ballads
which he published the following year.
Page 283. The story of Murtagh at the Irish
College in Rome, and his subsequent wanderings in the South of
France and in Spain, mask, as we have said elsewhere, the
peregrinations of George Borrow in
1826–27.—286. M’anam on
Dioul: Explained in Lavengro, note to p.
65.—291. Dungarvon times of old: See
Life, i., p. 46, and ii., pp. 16–17.
Cradock’s letter was dated, 18th August, 1849, and Mr.
B.’s answer (i., p. 146) a little
after.—Raparees: Irish marauders, temp. James
II. See Life, i., p. 146, and Brooke’s
Reliques, p. 205. The latter says that the word is
from the Irish Réubóir Ri, plunderer,
robber, freebooter of the king, from reubaim, I
tear.—292. Chiviter Vik: Cività
Vecchia, the modern seaport of Rome, fifty miles
distant.—Army of the Faith: Spanish frontier corps
of observation under Gen. Don Vicente Quesada,
1823–24.—Prince Hilt: The Duke
d’Angoulême, nephew of Louis XVIII., and son of the
Count d’Artois (afterwards Charles X.).
D’Angoulême invaded Spain in 1823 with 100,000
Frenchmen, to restore Ferdinand VII. to his absolute throne,
against the Liberals of 1820–23.—298.
To . . ., read Rome.—At . . ., read
Rome.—Educated at . . ., read
Rome.—300. Direction of the east, read
south. He could only have gone south from Horncastle
to reach
Boston (the “large town on the arm of the
sea”) that day. The next he came to Spalding, some
fifteen miles farther, where he met the recruiting serjeant,
thence on to Norwich by Lynn Regis.
We must not forget that before Lavengro was begun, and
fifteen years prior to the publication of The Romany Rye,
that is, 26th December, 1842, Mr. Petulengro remarked to George
Borrow at Oulton: “I suppose you have not forgot how,
fifteen [seventeen] years ago, when you made horseshoes in the
dingle by the side of the great north road, I lent you fifty
guineas to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper
with the green Newmarket coat, which three days after you
sold for two hundred”. [386a] Now, this
is a very remarkable statement, and, taken in connection with the
fact that so little is said about Horncastle in the book, it
seems to me we are justified in proclaiming that Borrow was never
in Horncastle at all. The interview with the Magyar and the
syllabus of Hungarian history are clearly drawn from his
experiences in Hungary and Transylvania in the year 1844, and
hence are an anachronism here. It is a pity that the author
did not adhere to the chronological facts of his life so strictly
in The Romany Rye as he did in Lavengro.
Truth and literature would have gained by it. And then that
valedictory pledge, [386b] confirmed in the
appendix, drawing a veil over the period of his travails, if not
his travels, was an error of judgment which, in an autobiography
will, we fear, not easily be condoned.
Page 302. Age of nineteen, read
twenty; he was twenty-one less four months at his
father’s death.—303. Children of
Roma: Borrovian for Gypsies.—305–6.
Balm in Mary Flanders: See Lavengro, note to
p. 423.—311. Canning: Premier from 24th
April to his death, 8th August, 1827; succeeded by Viscount
Goderich from September, 1827, to 25th January,
1828.—312. Vaya! qué demonio es este!
(Sp.): Bless me! what demon have we here!—314.
Sessions of Hariri: Arabic tales in prose interlarded with
verse. The two languages: Chinese and
Manchu.—315–6. Luigi Pulci: Io
vo’ tagliar, etc.: I’ll sever the hands of them
all and bring them to those holy monks. Tu sarai or
perfetto, etc.: Now thou wilt be as true a friend to Christ
as aforetime thou wert his foe (M. M., canto i, sts. 53 and 57).—318.
Oberon: A poem by Wieland
(1733–1813).—319. The father of
Anglo-Germanism: Taylor of Norwich.—Andrew
Borde: (see Bibliog.). The text of the Bodleian
copy (1547?) runs as follows—(A 3 verso):—
“I am an Englysh man, and naked I stand
here,
Musyng in my mynd what rayment I shall were;
For now I wyll were thys, and now I wyl were that,
Now I wvl were I cannot tel what.
All new fashyons be plesaunt to me,
I wyll haue them, whether I thryue or thee;
Now I am a frysker, all men doth on me looke,
What should I do but set cocke on the hoope;
What do
I care yf all the worlde me fayle,
I wyl get a garment shal reche to my tayle;
Than I am a minion, for I were the new gyse;
The yere after this I trust to be wyse,
Not only in wering my gorgious aray,
For I wyl go to learnyng a hoole somers day;
I wyll learne Latyne, Hebrew, Grecke and Frenche,
And I wyl learne Douche sittyng on my benche;
I do feare no man, all men fearyth me,
I ouercome my aduersaries by land and by see;
I had no peere yf to my selfe I were trew,
Because I am not so diuers times I do rew;
Yet I lake nothing, I haue all thyng at wyll
If were wyse and wold holde my selfe styll,
And medel wyth no matters not to me partayning;
But I haue suche matters rolling in my pate,
That I wyl speake and do I cannot tell what.” etc.
—321. Mr. Flamson: Samuel Morton
Peto, M.P., later Sir Morton Peto of Somerleyton Hall, some five
miles inland from Lowestoft. See Life, ii., p.
52.—327. Orcadian poet:
“Ragnvald, Earl of the Orkney Islands, passed for a very
able poet; he boasts himself, in a song of his which is still
extant, that he knew how to compose verses on all
subjects,” Mallet, p. 235. The original Runic
of the lines translated by Borrow is found in Olaus
Wormius. Transliterated into Latin letters they read
thus:—
Tafl em eg or at efta
Idrottir kan eg niu
Tum eg tradla Runur
Tid er mer bog og smider
Skrid kann eg a gidum
Skot eg og re so nyter
Hvor tweggia kan ek hyggiu
Harpslatt og bragdattu.
—329. Lieut. P. . ., read
Perry. The item was taken from a newspaper (which, I know
not) published in September, 1854. Mr. Borrow read it at
Llangollen in Wales. I loaned the clipping and it was not
returned.—330. Balaklava: The usual
etymon of this famous name is the Italian Bella chiave,
beautiful key.—331. Companion of Bligh:
This was Thomas Hayward.—Once: See Bligh’s
Narrative (Bibliog.), p. 55.—336.
“Malditas sean tus tripas,” etc.: This
Borrovian Spanish must be rendered truthfully or not at
all. The squeamish may excuse the borracha:
“D— your g—s; we had enough of the stink of
your g—s the day you ran away from the battle of the
Boyne”.—338. Coronach
(Gælic), read Corránach: The funeral wail, a
dirge; in Irish, coránach.—342.
Abencerages, read Abencerrages: Arab.
ibn-serradj; son of the
saddle.—349–50. Whiffler: See
note to Lavengro, p. 225.—352.
Francis Spira: Francesco Spiera, a lawyer of Cittadella
(Venice), accepted the doctrines of the Reformation in
1548. Terrified by the menaces of the Church of Rome and
the prospective ruin of his family, he went to Venice and
solemnly abjured the Evangelical faith in the hands of the
Legate, Giovan della Casa (see Dict. de Bayle) who required him
to return home and repeat his abjuration before his
fellow-townsmen and the local authorities. Having performed
this act, he fell into the horrid state of remorse
depicted in the Protestant accounts of the time. The report
was first brought to Geneva by Pietro Paolo Vergerio, ex-bishop
of Pola, who visited Spiera in his last moments at Padua, whence
he himself bent his way to the Valtelina, as a fugitive from the
Roman Church.—Duncan Campbell and Falconer:
See Bibliog.—John Randall: Here is a
confusion of John Rolfe and John Randolph of Roanoke
(1773–1833). Pocahontas, daughter of the Indian Chief
Powhatan, saved the life of Captain John Smith in Virginia and
married John Rolfe in 1614. John Randolph of Roanoke
claimed to be descended from Pocahontas, but Rolfe is
evidently the one referred to in the text. See
Bibliog. under
“Pocahontas”.—354. Iriarte
(1750–96): Spanish poet and writer of fables. See
Bibliog.—355. Autobiographical
character of Lavengro denied: but see Life, ii., pp.
3–27 and 211.—357.
Ginnúngagap: The “yawning abyss” of
Northern Mythology. See Mallet, p.
402.—359. Horinger Bay: See note on
Lavengro, p. 46.—360.
Harum-beck, read harmanbeck, as in Lavengro,
p. 158.—Holkham Estate: The seat of the Cokes of
Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester. See White’s
Norfolk, and the C . . . of Lavengro, p.
124.—363. He said in ’32: See
Life, i., p. 143.—Son of Norfolk clergyman:
Nelson (nom de noms!).—364–66.
Thistlewood and Ings: See article in Celebrated Lives
and Trials, vol. vi., p. 339.—368. The
old Radical: John Bowring in 1821.—Vol. of
translations: See “Bowring” in
Bibliog.—Red Rhys: Rhys Goch of
Snowdon. See Wild Wales, p. 150, and
“Gorchestion” in
Bibliog.—369. The Doctor of
Medicine: Dr. Lewis Evans. See Life, i., p.
74.—370. S . . ., read
Southey.—Literary project (1829–30):
See Life, i., p. 129.—371.
Astolfo: His journey to the moon mentioned in Pulci, ed.
1546, Canto xxi., f. cxx. b:—
“Malagigi tagliava le parole,
Astolfo sopra ’l suo caval rimonta;
Cavalcano a la luna tanto e al sole
Che capitorno al castel di Creonta”.
—372. In —, read
China.—373. To —, read
China.—Copy of a work: Borrow’s edition
of the Manchu New Testament, St. Petersburg, 1835, in 8 parts,
4to.—All the dashes mean Canton or
China.—Serendib: (Ceylon) put for China.
COMPLETE LIST OF ENG. GYPSY WORDS SCATTERED THROUGH LAVENGRO AND ROMANY RYE .
Common European G. forms are in
parenthesis.
Abri (avrí), out, forth.
Adré / Adrey } (andré), in,
into.
Ambról, a pear.
Andé, in, into.
Angár, charcoal, coal.
Apopli, again, once more.
Ankko (aveká), here is.
Ava / Ávali } yes.
Avella (3rd sing. of aváva), he comes;
gorgio a., some one is coming. [Avava,
avesa, avela.]
Ballúva (baló), pork.
Baló, hog.
Baró, f. barí, pl.
baré, big, great.
Bátu, father.
Baulo, see baló.
Bawlor (pl. of baló), swine.
Bebee (bibí), aunt; (in G. B.
grandmother, with and without grand).
Beng, toad; dragon, devil.
Bengui (Sp. G. bengue), i.q. beng.
Besh (beshava), to sit.
Beti, a little, a bit of.
Bitchadey (bichavdé; pl. of
bichavdó), sent. With pawdel,
transported.
Bokht (bakht), fate, luck, fortune.
Boró, see baró.
Borodromengro, highwayman.
Boshom (bashava, I sing or play), violin,
fiddle.
Boshomengro, fiddler.
Bovaló (barvaló), rich.
Bute (but), much. B. dosta, a good
many, plenty of.
Cafi (καρφἱ), horse-shoe
nail.
Caloró, f, a Spanish Gypsy. Dim. of
caló; see kaló.
Cambrí (kamní), with child.
Camomescro (fr. kamama, I love), a Lovell (Gypsy
tribe-name).
Cana (kánna), when.
Caulor (collor, L.L.), pl. shillings.
Chabé, pl. of Chabó.
Chabó (tchavó), child, lad;
Gypsy.
Chachipen (tchatchipé), truth.
Chal (chabál or chavál,
still existant in Spain), lad; Gypsy. Romany ch.,
Gypsy; R. chi, Gypsy (lass).
Chal (for jal, from java). Ch.
Devléhi (ja Devlésa), go with God,
farewell.
Chavó, i.q. chabó.
Chi (tchái), girl, lass, child;
Gypsy.
Chibándo (Sp. G., see chive), tossing;
preaching (a sermon).
Chick (tchik), dirt, mud.
Chie, i.q. chi.
Chiknó (tiknó), a youth.
Tawno Ch., “Shorty”.
Chinomescro (from tchinava, I cut), chisel,
parer.
Chipe (tchip), tongue.
Chive (tchivava), to throw; to pass (false
coin).
Chívios, is cast (he).
Chong (tumba), hill. Ch. gav,
Norwich, town of the Castle hill.
Choomer (tchumi), a kiss.
Chore (tchorava), to steal.
Chories, thieves.
Chovahanee (tchovekhaní), a witch.
Chovahanó (tchovekhanó), a
wizard.
Churi (tchorí), knife.
Coin (kon), who?
Coko (káko), uncle.
Colikó (kalikó, Sp. G.
calicaste, on the morrow), on the morrow, in the morning
(B.’s “early” is a mistake).
Coor (curava, I strike), to strike, to
hammer.
Cooromengro, boxer.
Covántza, anvil.
Covar (ková), a thing.
Cral / Crállis } (krális),
king
Cukkerin (merely alliterative with
dukkerin).
Curomengro, boxer.
Czigány (Hung.),
Gypsy—(tsigáñ).
Dearginni (Hung., dörŏg, thunder;
dörgeni, to th.), it thunders.
Dick (dikava), to see.
Dinelo (deniló or diniló),
a fool.
Divvus (divés), day.
Dloovu (error for lovó).
Dook (Slavic), spirit, soul, divining spirit, demon,
ghost. Russ. dux.
Dook, to spirit away, to bewitch.
Dosta, enough.
Dove odoy (fr. odová), that there; up
yonder.
Drab, herb, drug; poison, see drow.
Drab, to poison.
Drabengro, seller of medicines, apothecary. D.
ker, apothecary’s shop.
Drom (δρόμος), road,
way.
Drow, i.q. drab; often pl. drugs; poison.
Dúi, two.
Duk (B.’s dook).
Dukker (fr. duk, spirit or demon, and
ker, to make, to evoke), to tell any one’s fortune,
to tell fortunes.
Dukkerin (the in is Eng. ing), any one’s
fortune or fortunes, fate; fortune-telling. “To
pen” a dukkerin is incorrect.
Dukkerin dook, the fortune-telling or divining
spirit.
Dukkeripen, fortune-telling.
Dumo (dumó), the back.
Duvel (devél), God.
Duvelskoe (devlesko), divine.
Dye (daï), mother.
Engro (a mere adj. ending, er, ing),
Borrovian for “master,” “fellow,”
“chap”.
Erajái (rashaï), priest, in Sp.
Gyp.
Eray, see rye.
Farm-engro, farmer.
Fino, Eng. fine.
Fóros (φόρος
= ἀγορά), city, town.
Gav, village, town.
Gil, to sing.
Gillie (ghili), song, ditty.
Gitáno, a (Sp.) Gypsy.
Gorgikie, f. of.
Gorgiko, f, non-gypsy.
Gorgio (gadjó), non-gypsy, stranger,
somebody, policeman.
Gorgious, adj. formed from gorgio.
Grandbebee, grandmother. See bebee.
Grasní, mare; jade.
Grondinni (fr. Roumanian), it hails.
Gry (graï), horse. Pellengo
g., stallion.
Gudló, í, sweet; g. pesham,
honeycomb.
Gul eray (Hung. G.?), sweet gentleman.
Habben (khabé, fr. khavava, I
eat), food, victuals; feast.
Harkomescro (arkíchi, tin), tinker.
Hatch, to cook (evidently fr. pekava, rather
than atchava).
Hinjirí (f. of hinjiró, fr.
djandjir, a chain), executioner.
Hir mi devlis (or diblis), by G—.
Hokkawar (khokhavava), to lie, to cheat.
Hokkeripen, falsehood, deception.
Hors-worth, pennyworth. (Hors, fr.
grosch?)
Iuziou (shuzó), clean.
Jaw (java), to go. See chal.
Jawing, going.
Jib (chib) tongue, language.
Juggal (jukél), dog.
Juva / Juwa } (young) woman.
Kair, see ker.
Kairdó, see Kerdó.
Kaló, f. kalí, pl.
kalé, black, dark.
Kauley, f. of kaulo.
Kaulo, see kaló.
Kaulomescro, blacksmith.
Ke, to.
Kek, none.
Kekaubi / Kekkauvi } (kakkávi),
kettle.
Kekauviskoe saster, kettle iron or hook.
Kekkaubi, see kekaubi.
Kekkenó, no, not one.
Ker, house.
Ker (kerava), to make, to do.
Kerdó, made (he).
Kil (kelava), to play.
Kin (kinava), to buy.
Kistur (klisava), to ride.
Kitchema, tavern, ale-house.
Kosko, i, good.
Kral / Krallis } king, see cral.
Lachipen, goodness.
Laki / Lakie } (lake), her, to her.
Lavengro, “word-master,”
“philologist”.
Lel (lava, lesa, lela), to take;
to buy.
Len, i.q. lende.
Lende, their, to them.
Leste, him.
Levinor (levina), ale.
Lil, paper, book.
Lirí, law.
Lis, it.
Lolló (loló), red.
Loovu, see
Lovó, coin; pl. lové, money.
Lubbeny (lubní), harlot.
Lundra, London.
Luripen, theft, robbery.
Mailla, donkey.
Man, me.
Mande, to me.
Mang (mangava), to beg.
Manriclí (manrikló), cake.
Manró, bread.
Manus (manush), man.
Marél (error for merel): merava,
meresa, merela—he dies.
Mek (mukava), to leave, to let; mek lis,
drop it.
Men, we.
Mensar (mensa), with us.
Mer (merava), to die.
Mi (me), I.
Miduveleskoe lil, divine or godly book.
Miró, f, my, mine.
Miry (mirí), my.
Morro, bread.
Muchtar (muktar), box, tool-box.
Mullo (muló), dead.
Nashkadó, í (nashavdó),
lost, ruined; hanged (G. B.).
Nashky, gallows (G. B.).
Nav, name.
O, the.
Odoi / Odoy } there, here.
Opré, on, upon, up.
Pa, over, for.
Pal (pral), brother; friend, mate.
Palor (pralá), brothers.
Parraco (L.L. paracrow; Zinc. parauco), I
thank.
Patteran (patrín), leaf of a tree, Gypsy
trail.
Pawdel (perdál), on the other side,
across.
Pellengo (pelengro, fr. pelé,
testicles), with gry, a stallion.
Pen (penava), to say, to tell.
Peshotá, pl. of peshót
(pishót), bellows.
Petúl (pétalo), horse-shoe.
Petulengro, head of the clan “Smith”.
Pindró (pinró), foot, hoof.
Pios (fr. piava, I drink), health, in
toasting.
Piramus, MS. Priamus.
Plaistra (klashta), pincers, tongs.
Plastramengro, runner, detective.
Poggadó, í (panghiardó),
broken.
Poknees (paknís, a man of trust),
magistrate.
Prala, voc. of pal or pral, brother.
Pré (opré), on, upon.
Pudamengro (fr. purdava or pudava, I
blow), bellows.
Puró, f. purí, pl.
puré, old, ancient.
Pus, straw.
Puv (or phuv) earth, ground.
Ran, stick, rod, cane.
Ráni, lady, wife.
Rarde (ratt), night.
Rat, rate and rati, blood, race.
Rawnie, see ráni.
Rig (?) to carry.
Rikkeno, see rinkenó.
Rin, a file.
Rinkenó, í, pretty, fine.
Rom, husband; Gypsy.
Roman, Borrovian tor Gypsy.
Romaneskoenaes, in Gypsy fashion.
Romanies, Gypsies.
Romanly, in Gypsy, Gypsy-like.
Romanó, í, Gypsy.
Romany (Anglicised form of Romanó,
í), Gypsy.
Romany Chal, Gypsy.
Romany Chi, Gypsy (girl).
Romany Rye, Gypsy gentleman.
Rome and dree (Rom andré? Gypsy at
heart).
Romí, wife.
Rommanis, in Gypsy, also wife (G. B.).
Rommany, i.q. Romany.
Rovél (3rd sing. of rovava), he
weeps.
Rup, silver.
Rye (ráï), gentleman.
Sanpriel, Sanspareil.
Sap, snake.
Sapengro, snake-catcher.
Sar shan, how art thou?
Sas, it was, were it.
Saster / Sastra } iron.
Sastramescro, worker in iron, smith.
Saulo (MS. sorlo), morning; early (?)
Savó, what kind of a man? who?
Scoppelo, ninny.
Se (isi), is, are.
Shan (isán), thou art.
Sherengro (fr. sheró, the head), head
man, chief.
Shom (isóm), I am.
Shoon (shunava), to hear, to listen.
Shukaro (tchokanó), hammer.
Shunella (shunéla, 3rd sing. of
shunava), is listening.
Si (isí), is, are; si men, are we;
si mensar (mensa), is or are with us.
Sinaba (Sp. G.), was.
Sore (saré), pl. all, all who.
Sos, who.
Sos (isás), was.
Sove (sovava), to sleep.
Swety (pl. of Russ. sviet), people, folks.
Synfye, Cinthia (Slav. th is pron.
ph).
Ta, and.
Tachó, í, true.
Tan, place, tent.
Tasaulor (read ta-sorlo), to-morrow.
Tatchenó, í, modest, chaste.
Tatchipen, truth.
Tawnie, f. of
Tawnó, í. (tarnó), little,
short.
Tove (tovava), to wash.
Trin, three.
Truppo (trupo), body.
Tu, thou.
Tute (tut), thee, to thy.
Vagescoe, adj. of yag.
Vassavie, f. of.
Vassavó, í, vile.
Villaminni (Hung. villám), it
lightens.
Wafodo, i, bad, raise.
Wel (corrupted from avella), to come, to go.
Welling, coming.
Wendror (connected with andró, within?),
the insides.
Wesh (vesh), forest.
Wust, to throw (better the first MS. form,
chiv).
Yag, fire.
Ye, the.
Yeck (yek), one.
Yov (ov), be.
Zigeuner (Ger.), Gypsy.
Zingaro (It.), Gypsy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EDITOR’S SOURCES.
Abarbanel, Leo (Lavengro, p.
282).—See Note l. c.
Ab Gwilym (Lavengro, p. 114).—Barddoniaeth
Dafydd ab Gwilym. O grynhoad Owen Jones, a William
Owen. [The Poetical Works of David ap Gwilym (son of
William), edited by O. J. and W. O.] Llundain,
1789. Sm. 8vo, pp. xliii, 548.
—Translations into English Verse from the Poems of
Davyth ap Gwilym, a Welsh Bard of the Fourteenth Century.
[By Arthur J. Johnes.] London, 1834. 12mo, pp. xliv,
127.
Albizzi, Bart. (Romany Rye, p.
20).—L’Alcorã des Cordeliers, tant en Latin
qu’en Frãçois: C’est a dire, la mer des
blasphemes & mensonges de cest idole stigmatizé,
qu’on appelle S. François, recueilli par le Docteur
M. Luther, du liure des Conformitez de ce beau S.
François, imprimé a Milan l’an M.D.X., &
nouuellement traduit. A Geneve, Par Conrad Badius.
M.D.LVI (1556). 8vo, pp. 311.—Bodl.
Aneurin (Lavengro, p. 431).—Y
Gododin. A poem on the Battle of Cattraeth, by Aneurin, a
Welsh Bard of the Sixth Century. With an English
translation by J. Williams ab Ithel. Llandovery,
1852. 8vo, pp. x, 204.
Arbuthnot, A. (Romany Rye, pp.
24–26).—The Life, Adventures, and many and great
Vicissitudes of Fortune of Simon, Lord Lovat, the Head of the
Family of Frasers. From his birth at Beaufort, near
Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, in 1668, to the time of
his being taken by Capt. Millar, after three days search, in a
hollow tree, on the coasts of Knoidart and Arisaig. By the
Rev. Archibald Arbuthnot, . . . London, 1746. 12mo,
pp. 280+40.—Bodl.
Bampfylde-Moore-Carew.—An Apology for the Life of
Mr. Bampfylde-Moore-Carew, commonly call’d the King of the
Beggars. Being an impartial Account of his Life, from his
leaving Tiverton School, at the age of fifteen, and entering into
a Society of Gipsies, to the present time; wherein the motives of
his conduct will be explain’d, and the great number of
characters and shapes he has appeared in thro’ Great
Britain, Ireland, and several other places of Europe, be related;
with his Travels twice thro’ great part of America. A
particular account of the Origin, Government, Language, Laws, and
Customs of the Gipsies; their method of electing their king,
etc. London, 1763. 12mo, pp. xxiv, iv, 348.
Portrait.
With a “Cant” or “Flash” vocabulary at
the end, improperly called “Gipsy”.
Barbarian Cruelty; or an Accurate and Impartial
Narrative of the unparallel’d sufferings and almost
incredible hardships of the British Captives belonging to the
Inspector, privateer, Capt. Richard Veale, Commander,
during their slavery under the arbitrary and despotic government
of Muley Abdallah, Emperor of Fez and Morocco, January,
1745–46, to their happy ransom and deliverance from their
painful captivity. London, 1751. 12mo.
Plates.
Bayne, A. D.—A Comprehensive History of
Norwich. Norwich, 1869. 8vo, pp. xxxviii, 738.
Billy Blind (Lavengro, p. 225).—Not
identified.
Bligh, Capt. (Romany Rye, pp. 331,
335).—A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His
Majesty’s Ship Bounty; and the subsequent voyage of
part of the crew, in the ship’s boat, from Tofoa, one of
the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East
Indies. Written by Lieutenant William Bligh. London,
1790. 4to, pp. iv, 88. Four folded charts and
maps.—Bodl.
—A Description of Pitcairn’s Island and its
inhabitants. With an authentic account of the Mutiny of the
Ship Bounty. New York, 1845. 12mo.
—Pitcairn: the Island, the People, and the Pastor; with
a short account of the Mutiny of the Bounty. By the
Rev. T. B. Murray. London, 1853. 12mo.
Borde, Andrew (Romany Rye, p.
319).—The fyrst boke of the Introduction of
Knowledge. The which doth teache a man to speake parte of
all maner of Languages, and to knowe the vsage and fashion of al
maner of coũtreys. And for to knowe the most parte of
all maner of Coynes of money, ye which is curraunt in
euery region. Made by Andrew Borde, of Phisicke
Doctor. Dedicated to the right Honorable and
gracios lady Mary doughter of our souerayne lord Kyng
Henry the eyght.
(N 4). Imprented at London in Lothbury ouer
agaynste Sainct Margarytes church by me Wyllyam Copland
(c. 1547). 4to, 52 leaves (A-N in
4s). Black letter.
Plates.—Bodl.
Dedication dated: “Fro Moũt pyler
[Montpelier], the iii. days of Maye, the yere of our
Lorde. M.CCCCC.xlii.”
Borrow (Lavengro, p. 456; Romany Rye, p.
281).—Romantic Ballads, translated from the Danish; and
Miscellaneous Pieces; by George Borrow. Norwich: S. Wilkin,
1826. 8vo, pp. xi, 187.
Among the 146 subscribers’ names given at the end, the
following may be recognised:—
F(rancis) Arden, Esq., London, 5
copies.
J(ohn) Bowring, Esq., Hackney.
Thomas Campbell, Esq., London.
T(orlough) G. O’Donnahoo, Esq.,
London, 5 copies.
Dr. (Lewis) Evans.
R(obert) Hawkes, Esq.
B. R. Haydon, Esq., London.
Rev. J. (read P.) Kennedy,
Templemore, Tipperary.
Mr. R(oger) Kerrison.
W(illiam) Rackham, Esq.
Mr. J(ohn) Turner, London.
Borrow (L., pp. 151, 432).—Targum.
Or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and
Dialects. By George Borrow. St. Petersburg.
Printed by Schulz and Beneze. [June] 1835. 8vo, pp.
viii, 106.
—The Talisman. From the Russian of Alexander
Pushkin. With other pieces. St. Petersburg.
Printed by Schulz and Beneze. [August] 1835. 8vo, pp.
14.
Bowring, John (Lavengro, p. 146;
Romany Rye, p. 368).—Specimen of the Russian Poets:
with preliminary remarks and biographical notices. By John
Bowring, F.L.S. London: Whittaker, 1821. 12mo, pp. xxii,
240.
Published December, 1820. Second vol. in 1823.
Boxiana (Lavengro, pp.
166–69).—Fights for the Championship, and celebrated
Prize Battles, from the days of Figg and Broughton to the present
time. By the Editor of Bell’s Life in
London. London, 1855. 8vo, pp. iv, 410. See
Egan.
Braithwaite, Captain.—The history of the
Revolutions in the Empire of Morocco, upon the death of the late
Emperor Muley Ishmael; being a most exact Journal of what
happen’d in those parts in the last and part of the present
year. With observations natural, moral and political,
relating to that country and people. Written by Captain
Braithwaite, who accompany’d John Russell, Esq., his
Majesty’s Consul General into those parts, etc.
London, 1829. 8vo, pp. viii, 381.
Map.—Bodl.
Braithwaite, J. B. (Lavengro, pp.
93–96).—Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney; with
selections from his Journal and Correspondence. Norwich,
1854. 2 vols., 8vo.
Brooke, Miss Charlotte (Romany Rye, pp.
278–82).—Reliques of Irish Poetry: consisting of
heroic poems, odes, elegies, and songs, translated into English
verse: with notes explanatory and historical; and the originals
in the Irish character. Dublin, 1789. 4to, pp. xxvi,
369.—Bodl.
The source of the Fingalian “thumb” (p. 109),
“Dermod (David) Odeen” (Diarmad Mac
O’Dhuivne, p. 77), “Conan the Bald” (pp. 79,
106), “Loughlin” (Lochlin, p. 46).
Budai Ferencz (Romany Rye, p. 233).—Magyar
Ország Poigári
Históriá-járá való
Lexicon. Nagy-Varad (Gross-Wardein), 1804–5. 3
vols., 8vo.—B.M.
Carthew, G. A. (Lavengro, p.
15).—The Town We Live In. A Lecture on the Origin and
History of East Dereham. London, 1857. 12mo.
Croix, François Petis de la
(Lavengro, p. 55; Romany Rye, p. 369).—The
History of Genghiscan the Great, first Emperor of the Ancient
Moguls and Tartars, his Life, Advancements, and Conquests, Laws
of the Ancient Moguls and Tartars, and the Geography of the vast
countries of Mogolistan, Turquestan, Capschae, Yagurestan, and
the Eastern and Western Tartary etc. By the late M. Petis
de la Croix, senior Secretary and Interpreter to the King in the
Turkish and Arabick Languages. London, 1722.
8vo. Map.
Day, Thomas (Lavengro, p.
362).—History of Little Jack. London, 1788.—The
History of Sandford and Merton. London,
1783–87–89. 3 vols.—Bodl.
Dictionary of National Biography. London,
1885–99, vols. 59. 8vo.—Bodl.
Duncan Campbell (Romany Rye, p.
352).—History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan
Campbell, a gentleman who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any
strangers’ name at first sight, with their future
contingencies of fortune; now living in Exeter Court, over
against the Savoy in the Strand. [By Daniel Defoe].
London, 1720. 8vo, pp. xix, 320. Portrait and
Plates.
Edda Sæmundar Hinns Fróda. Edda
Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgò Sæmundina
dicta. Hafniæ, sumptibus Soc. Arn. Magn., 1787,
1828. 3 vols. 4to.—Bodl.
See in vol. ii. (1818): Quida Sigurdar Fafnisbana, or,
The Song of Sigurd the Serpent-Slayer (pp. 124–244),
including the Quida Brynhildar, or Lay of Brynhild (pp.
189–210).—Romany Rye, pp. 279, 281, 358.
Egan, Pierce.—Boxiana; or, Sketches of
Ancient and Modern Pugilism, from the days of the renowned
Broughton and Slack, to the Championship of
Cribb.—Boxiana; or, Sketches of Modern Pugilism during the
Championship of Cribb, to Spring’s Challenge to all
England.—New Series of Boxiana: being the only original and
Complete Lives of the Boxers. London,
1821–24–29. 5 vols., 8vo.
English Rogue (The) described, in the Life of Meriton
Latroon, a witty extravagant. Being a compleat history of
the most eminent cheats of both sexes. London,
1665–80. 4 vols., 8vo
(Reprint).—Bodl.
Chap. v. of vol. i., pp. 38–53, contains a vocabulary of
English cant; in it are the Borrovian words pannam, bread;
harmanbeck, constable; mumpers, gentile beggars;
ken, house; tip, to give; Rome-vile, London,
and the verses given in the Zincali, beginning:—
“Bing out, bien morts, and toure and
toure”.
Falconer, Capt. (Romany Rye, p.
352).—The Voyages, dangerous Adventures and imminent
escapes of Captain Richard Falconer . . . intermix’d with
the Voyages . . . of T. Randal. London, 1720.
8vo.
Fortiguerra, Niccolò (Romany Rye,
p. 71).—Ricciardetto di Niccolò Carteromaco.
Parigi, 1738. 4to, pp. xxxvi, 420 +
412.—Bodl.
Index: “Despina, principessa di Cafria, figliuola
dello Scricca Imperadore”.
Friar Bacon (Romany Rye, p. 157).—The
History of Frier Bacon. London, 1683. 8vo, ll.
12. Plates.—Bodl.
—The Three Famous Conjurers, Fryer Bacon, Bongey, and
Vandermast. London (168–). 8vo, ll. 10.
Plates.—Bodl.
—The History of Fryer Bacon: The Second Part: Being a
most true and exact Relation of the most famous and merry
Exploits of that worthy Gentleman of Renown, and deep Professor
of Astrology, and most expert in the Magick Art, MILES
WAGNER; Being once a servant to that famous Conjurer Fryer
Bacon, with whom he learned his Art. As also how he met
with Paccolet upon his Wooden Horse. Lastly, how he
by his Art was carried amongst the Stars in a fiery Chariot,
drawn by six Dragons: And how he did eat and drink with the
inhabitants of the World in the Moon. London
(168–). 8vo. ll. 12.
Plates.—Bodl.
—The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon. Containing
the wonderfull things that he did in his life: also the manner of
his death; with the lives and deaths of the two Conjurers, Bungye
and Vandermast. Printed at London . . . (1615), pp.
62.—In vol. i. of A Collection of Early Prose
Romances. Edited by William J. Thoms.
London: Pickering, 1828. 3 vols.,
8vo.—Bodl.
Glyde, John (Lavengro, pp.
130–33).—The Norfolk Garland: a Collection of the
superstitious beliefs and practices, proverbs, curious customs,
ballads and songs, of the people of Norfolk. London
(1873). 8vo, pp. iv, 405.
Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru: Neu Flodau Godidowgrwydd
Awen. O gasgliad Rhys Jones, o’r Tyddyn Mawr.
[Beauties of the Bards of Wales; or, Flowers of
Welsh Poetry. Collected by Rhys Jones of Great
Farms.] Amwythig (Shrewsbury), 1773.
4to.—(Lavengro, p. 432.)
Haggart (Lavengro, pp. 51–55).—The
Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias John Morison,
alias Barney McCoul, alias John McColgan, alias Daniel O’
Brian, alias the Switcher. Written by himself, while under
sentence of death. Edinburgh, 1821. 12mo, pp. viii,
173. Port. “Cant” vocabulary at the end.
Haydon, B. R. (Lavengro, p.
223).—Life of Benjamin R. Haydon, Historical Painter, from
his Autobiography and Journals. By Tom Taylor.
London, 1853. 3 vols., 8vo.
Hickathrift (Lavengro, pp. 50 &
63).—The Pleasant History of Thomas Hickathrift.
[Plate.] Printed for William Thackeray, and Thomas Passmore
[at the Angel in Duck-lane, 1688]. 16mo, ll. 2, pp. 18, l.
i. Plates.—Bodl.
—The History of Thomas Hickathrift. Part the First
[Second]. Printed and sold in Aldermary Church Yard, Bow
Lane, London (c. 1780). 12mo, pp. 24 + 24.
Plates.—Bodl.
—The History of Tom Hickathrift. Part the First
[Second]. Manchester: Printed by A. Swindells, 8
Hanging-bridge. 12mo, pp. 16 + 15 (1825 ?).
Plates.—Bodl.
Iriarte, Tomás de (Romany Rye, p.
354).—Coleccion de Obras en Verso y Prosa de D. Tomas de
Yriarte. Madrid, 1787. 6 vols., 8vo.
LA VÍBORA Y LA
SANGUIJUELA.
“Aunque las dos picamos” (dixo un dia
La Vibora á la simple Sanguijuela),
“De tu boca reparo que se fia
El hombre, y de la mia se rezela.”
La Chupona responde: “Ya, querida;
Mas no picamos de la misma suerte:
Yo, si pico á un enfermo, le doy vida;
Tú, picando al más sano, le das muerte”.
Vaya ahora de paso una advertencia:
Muchos censuran, sí, Lector benigno;
Pero á fe que hay bastante diferencia
De un Censor útil á un Censor maligno.
—Fábula, lxvii.,
vol i.
Keysler, J. G. (Lavengro, p. 136;
Romany Rye, p. 23).—Travels through Germany,
Bohemia, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Lorrain.
Translated from the German. London, 1756–57. 4
vols., 4to. Second ed.—Taylor Inst.
Kiæmpe Viser (Lavengro, pp.
141–45).—Ed. by Anders Sörenson Vedel.
Kjöbenhavn, 1591. 8vo.—“G.
Borrow.”
—Danmarks Gamle Folkeviser, udgivne af Svend
Grundtvig. Kjöbenhavn, 1853–56–62. 3
vols., sm. fol.
Supersedes the old collections by Vedel, Syv, Nyerup, Rahbeck,
etc.
Lesage (Lavengro, p. 201).—Histoire de Gil
Blas de Santillane. Paris, 1815. 4 vols., 16mo.
“Je l’invitai à souper avec moi.
‘Ah! très volontiers,’
s’écria-t-il.”—Vol. i., ch.
II.
[Leti, Gregorio] (Romany Rye, p.
6).—Il Nipotismo di Roma, o vero, Relatione delle Ragioni
che muouono i Pontefici all’ Aggrandimento de’
Nipoti. (s. l.), 1667. 2 vols. in 1, 12mo (pp.
932).
—Il Nipotismo di Roma: or, the History of the Popes
Nephews. From the time of Sixtus IV. anno 1471, to the
death of the late Pope, Alexander VII. anno 1667. In
Two Parts. Written originally in Italian, and Englished by
W. A., Fellow of the Royal Society. London, 1673.
12mo (pp. 343). Portrait of Alexander VII.
This was the edition used by Mr. Borrow, and purchased by
me.
Lhuyd, Edw. (Lavengro, p.
68).—Archæologia Britannica, giving some account
additional to what has been hitherto publish’d, of the
languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of
Great Britain. Vol. i. Glossography. Oxford,
1707. Fol.—Bodl.
Lilly, William (Lavengro, pp.
38–39).—A Shorte Introdvction of Grammar, generally
to be vsed in the Kynges Maiesties dominions, for the bryngynge
up of all those that inteade to atteyne the knowlege of the
Latine tongue. An. Domini 1549.—Brevissima Institutio
seu Ratio Grammatices cognoscendæ, ad omnium puerorum
vtilitatem præscripta, quam solam Regia Maiest. in omnibus
scholis profitendam præcipit. Londini, anno
1549. [End.] “Londini: apud Reginaldum
Wolfium Regiæ Maiestatis in Latinis Typographum. Anno
Domini M.D.XLIX.” 4to, ll. 36 + 80, 2 parts in
1.—Bodl.
—A Short Introduction of Grammar, generally to be used:
Compiled and set forth for the bringing up of all those, that
intend to attain to the knowledge of the Latin
Tongue.—Brevissima Institvtio, seu Ratio Grammatices
cognoscendæ, ad omnium puerorum utilitatem
perscripta; Quam solam Regia Majestas in omnibus scholis
docendam præcipit.—Propria Qvæ Maribvs . . .
construed. London: Longman, et al., 1811. 3
parts in 1, 12mo (pp. 77, 140, 80 = 290).—Bodl.
This last edition of 1811 would be the one the lad Borrow used
at East Dereham in the autumn of that year.
Loyola, Ignatius (Romany Rye, p.
351).—Vita Ignatii Loiolæ. Antverpiæ,
1587, 8vo, and Romæ, 1590, 8vo.—The Life of B. Father
Ignatius of Loyola (S.L.), 1616. 8vo.—Also
in the Flos Sanctorum, ó Libro de las Vidas de los
Santos. Madrid, 1599–1601. 2 vols., fol.
The Life in all these forms is by Pedro de Rivadeneyra.
Mallet.—Northern Antiquities; or, an historical
account of the manners, customs, religion and laws, language and
literature of the ancient Scandinavians. London: Bonn,
1859. 8vo, pp. 578.
Matchett.—The Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer
and Vade-Mecum; containing . . . a Chronological Retrospect of
the most Remarkable Events which have occurred in Norfolk and
Norwich from 1701 to 1821 inclusive. Norwich: Matchett
& Stevenson, 1822. Sm. 8vo, pp. xxiv, 256.
Moll Flanders (Lavengro, p. 194).—The
Fortunes and Misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, &c.,
who was born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu’d
Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve
Year a W (. . .), five times a Wife (. . .), Twelve Year a Thief,
Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich,
liv’d Honest, and died a Penitent. Written [by Daniel
Defoe] from her own Memorandums [in 1683]. London,
1721. 8vo, pp. vi, 366. First ed.
This is Borrow’s “Blessed Mary
Flanders”!
Monthly Magazine, The; or, British Register.
London: for Sir Richard Phillips & Co., 1822–26, vols.
liv.–lx. 8vo.—(Lavengro, pp.
186–87.)
Murray (Lavengro, p. 139).—See in Sir
Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,
Kelso, 1802. 2 vols., 8vo.—“The Song of the
Outlaw Murray” (vol. i., pp. 5 and ff.).
Muses’ Library (Romany Rye, p.
318).—Historical and Poetical Medley; or, Muses’
Library, being a choice and faithful Collection of the best
English Poetry from the times of Edward the Confessor to the
reign of King James 1st, with the lives and characters of the
known writers, etc. London, 1738.
8vo.—Bodl.
(Newgate).—The New Newgate Calendar; or, Modern
Criminal Chronology, comprehending the most remarkable cases
between 1796 and 1826. London: Robins & Co.,
1826. 3 vols., 8vo. Portrait
—The Chronicles of Crime; or, The New Newgate
Calendar. [By Camden Pelham.] London, 1841. 2
vols., 8vo (pp. 1228). Plates.
Newgate Lives and Trials (Lavengro, p.
204).—Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal
Jurisprudence, from the earliest records to the year 1825.
London: Knight & Lacey, 1825. 6 vols., 8vo.
Plates. Compiled and edited by Geo. Borrow.
Olaus Magnus.—De Gentibus Septentrionalibus
Historia. Ambergæ, 1599. 18mo.—Taylor
Inst.
Olaus Wormius.—(Runer) Sive Danica Literatura
Antiquissima vulgo Gothica dicta. Luci reddita operâ
Olai Wormii, D. M. Hafniæ, anno M.DC.XXXVI.
4to.
—Literatura Runica. Hafniæ, 1651.
4to.
O’Reilly, Edward.—A Chronological
Account of nearly four hundred Irish writers, down to 1750, with
catalogue of their works. Dublin, 1820.
4to.—“G. Borrow.”
Owlenglass (Lavengro, p. 225).—Von
Vlenspiegel eins bauren sun des lands Braunschweick / wie er sein
leben volbracht hat / gar mit seltzamen sachen.—Gedruckt zu
Erffurdt durch Melcher Sachssen ynn der Archen Noe.
M.D.XXXiij (1533). 4to. A-V in 4s & X 3.
Plates.—Bodl.
—Wunderliche und seltsame Historie Tillen Eulenspiegels,
eines Bauern Sohn, aus dem Lande zu Braunschweig
gebürtig. Welche aus Niedersächsischer Sprache
ins Hochdeutsche übersetzt, und sehr kurzweilig zu
lesen. Aus verlangen sehr vieler guten Freunde aufs neue
wieder aufgelegt.—Gedruckt in diesem Jahre.
Frankfurth a. d. O., bei Trowitzsch und Sohn.
(S.A.). A-K in 8s. 8vo.
Plates.—Borrow’s copy.
—The German Rogue; or, the Life and Merry Adventures,
Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances of Tiel Eulespiegle.
Made English from the High-Dutch. London, 1720. 8vo,
ll. 2, pp. 111.—Bodl.
Parny (Romany Rye, pp. 344, 357).—Guerre
des Dieux, anciens et modernes: poëme en dix chants.
Seconde édition. Paris: Didot, an vii (1798).
8vo, pp. 204.
Patten, R.—The History of the late
Rebellion, with Original Papers and Characters of the principal
Noblemen and Gentlemen concern’d in it. By the Rev.
Mr. Robert Patten, formerly Chaplain to Mr. Foster. Second
edition, with large additions. London, 1717.
8vo.—Bodl.
Phillips, Sir Richard (Lavengro, p.
205).—The Proximate Causes of Material Phenomena, and the
true principles of universal causation considered. Second
edition. London, 1821. 8vo.—Bodl.
—(Lavengro, p. 254.)—Ueber die
nächsten Ursachen der materiellen Erscheinungen des
Universums. Von Sir Richard Philipps (sic).
Nach dem Englischen bearbeitet von General v. Theobald und Prof.
Dr. Lebret. Stuttgart, 1826. 8vo, pp. xxxii, 429.
—Four Dialogues between an Oxford Tutor and a Disciple
of the Common-sense Philosophy, relative to the proximate causes
of material phenomena. London, 1824.
8vo.—Bodl.
See
Lavengro: “Oxford” principles (pp. 190, 216),
theory (p. 215), politics (p. 228), Oxford-like manner (pp. 215,
216), “Oxford” Review (pp. 190, 215).
Piers Ploughman (Romany Rye, p. 315).—The
Vision and the Creed of Piers Ploughman. With notes and a
glossary by Thomas Wright. London: Pickering, 1842. 2
vols., sm. 8vo.
Pocahontas (Romany Rye, p. 352).—The
Indian Princess; or, the Story of Pocahontas. By Edward
Eggleston and Lillie Eggleston Seelye. London
(1880?). 12mo, pp. 310.
—American Statesmen. John Randolph. By Henry
Adams. Boston, 1884. 12mo, pp. vi, 313.
Psalmboek, Hebreus en Nederlants, door Leusden.
Amsterdam, 1666. 18mo. “George Borrow ejus
liber, 1821.”—(Lavengro, pp. 151,
160.)
Pulci (Lavengro, p. 497; Romany Rye, pp.
69, 316).—Morgante Maggiore di Lvigi Pvlci Firentino,
etc. Venetia, 1546. 4to, ll. 4, ff.
199.—Bodl.
—Il Morgante Maggiore, di Luigi Pulci. Londra
(Livorno), 1768. 3 vols., 16mo.
Records of the West Norfolk Militia: I. Original
Enrollment Book, 1787–1815. II. Regimental
Order Book, 1812–15. 2 vols., fol.—Mousehold
Barracks, Norwich.
Richmond, Rev. Legh (Lavengro, pp. 189,
197, 202).—The Dairyman’s Daughter [i.e.,
Elizabeth Wallbridge]: An authentic narrative. By a
clergyman of the Church of England. London, 1810, 1817,
1819, 1824, etc.
—Annals of the Poor. By the Rev. Legh Richmond,
M.A., late Rector of Turvey, Bedfordshire. London: The
Religious Tract Society, 1842. 24mo, pp. 240.
1. The Dairyman’s
Daughter, pp. 101.
2. The Negro Servant.
3. The Young Cottager.
4. The Cottage Conversation.
5. A Visit to the Infirmary.
One of the first of the “Evangelicals” (Romany
Rye, p. 37).
(Sagas).—Fornmanna Sögur.
Kaupmannahafn, 1825–37. 12 vols.,
8vo.—Bodl.
“Bui hin Digri,” vol. x., p. 258.
—Fornaldar Sögur Nordlanda eftir gömlum
handritum, utgefnar af C. C. Rafn. Kaupm.,
1829–30. 3 vols., 8vo.—“G.
Borrow.”
See also Snorro and Wilkina.
Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danica. S. J.
Stephanus recog. notisque illustravit. Sorae,
1644–45. 2 vols., fol.
Plates.—“G. H. Borrow.”
—Ed. P. E. Müller. Havniæ,
1839–58. 2 vols., roy. 8vo.—Bodl.
Smith, Capt. Alex.—A Compleat History of
the Lives and Robberies of the most notorious Highwaymen,
Footpads, Shoplifts, and Cheats, of both sexes, about London and
Great Britain, for above an hundred years past. London,
1719. 12mo.—Library of G. B.
Snorro Sturleson (Lavengro, pp. 12,
46).—Heims Kringla / eller Snorre Sturlusons
Nordländske Konunga Sagor. Sive Historiæ Regum
Septentrionalium, â Snorrone Sturlonide, ante secula
quinque, patrio sermone antiquo conscriptæ, quas . . .
illustravit Iohann Peringskiöld. Stockholmiæ,
1697. 2 vols., fol.—Bodl.
—Snorre Sturlesons Norske Kongers Sagaer.
Oversatte [paa Danske] af Jacob Aal. Christiania,
1838–39. 3 parts in 1, fol.—Bodl.
“Bui hin Digri,” part 1, p. 138.
—Snorre Sturlesøns Norake Kongers
Chronica. Vdaat paa Danske / aff H. Peder
Claussøn. Kiöbenhavn, 1633. 4to, ll. 12,
pp. 858, ll. 11.
“Bui hin Digri,” p. 136.
“Torstein Midlang hug til Boo tvert ofver Ansictet / oc
hog Mundstycket bort med all Hagen. Boo sagde / ugierne
skulle de Danske Möer nu kysse mig / om jeg kommer nogen tid
hiem igien / og hand hug til Torstein igien / uden paa siden / og
hug hannem i to stycker. Da kom Sigmund Brestesøn / en
Færöisk Mand / oc hug baade Hænder aff Boo i
Handledit / saa at de fulde met Sverdet ned paa Skibet. Boo
stack Armstumpene i baandene paa to kister / som stode ved Borde
/ fulde aff Guld oc Sölff / som hand röfvit havde / oc
raabte hojt / ‘For borde / for borde /
alle Bois Tienere’ / oc hand störte sig ofver
borde met Kisterne. Der efter sprunge mange aff hans mend
for borde / oc mange blefve slagne i Skibet / thi ey var det got
om Fred at bede.”
Spira, Francis (Romany Rye, p.
352).—Francisci Spieræ,
qvi, qvod svsceptam semel Euãgelice ueritatis
professionë abnegasset, damnassetq; in horrendam incidit
desperationem, Historia, à
quatuor summis uiris, summa fide conscripta: cum clariss. uirorum
Præfationibus, Cælij S(ecundi) C(urionis), & Io.
Caluini, & Petri Pauli Vergerij Apologia, in quibus multa hoc tempore scitu
digna grauissimè tractantur. Accessit quoq; Martini
Borrhai, de usu, quem Spieræ tum exemplum, tum doctrina
afferat, iudicium. 2. Petri 2
(etc.) Basileæ, M.D.L. (1550). 16mo, ll. 7, pp.
191, ll. 4.—Bodl.
—A Relation of the Fearfvl Estate of Francis Spira, in
the year 1548. Compiled by Natth. Bacon, Esq.
London, 1649. 16mo, pp. 80.—Bodl.
Steven, William (Lavengro, p.
46).—The History of the High School of Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, 1849. 8vo, pp. xx, 367 + 220. Plates.
Taylor, William (Lavengro, p.
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various translations. London, 1830. 3 vols., 8vo.
—A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the late William
Taylor of Norwich, containing his correspondence with Robert
Southey. Compiled and edited by J. W. Robberds.
London, 1843. 2 vols., 8vo.
“With the Author’s Compliments to George Borrow,
Esq.”
Thurtell, John (Lavengro, pp.
157–8, 171; Romany Rye, pp.
268–71).—“Observer:” London, 10th
January, 1824. With woodcuts.—“Norwich
Mercury:” 8th, 15th, 22nd November, 1823; 3rd, 10th, 17th
January, 1824.—“Monthly Magazine:” 1st
December, 1823, p. 472; 1st February, 1824, p. 92.
—The Trial of John Thurtell and Joseph Hunt, for the
Murder of Mr. William Weare, in Gill’s Hill Lane, Herts,
before Mr. Justice Park, on Tuesday, the 6th, and Wednesday, the
7th January, 1824; with the Prayer, and the Condemned Sermon,
that was preached before the unhappy Culprits; also, full
particulars of the Execution. Embellished with six engraved
views, taken expressly for this edition by Mr. Calvert.
London: Hodgson & Co., 1824. 8vo, pp. 91.
Plates.
—Pierce Egan’s Account of the Trial of John
Thurtell and Joseph Hunt; with an Appendix, disclosing some
extraordinary facts, exclusively in the possession of the Editor,
with Portraits, and many other illustrative Engravings.
London: Knight & Lacey, 1824. 8vo, pp. 105.
Plates.
—The Fatal Effects of Gambling exemplified in the Murder
of Wm. Weare, and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell, the
Murderer, and his Accomplices; with Biographical Sketches of the
Parties concerned, etc. London: Thomas Kelly, 1824.
8vo, pp. xxii, 512.
Thurtell, John.—Celebrated Trials,
etc. London, 1825. Vol. vi, p. 534. Article by
Mr. Borrow.
Till Eulenspiegel (Lavengro, p. 225).—See
Owlenglass.
Vámbéry, Hermann (Romany
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587.—Taylor Inst.
Villotte, Jacobus (Lavengro, p. 175;
Romany Rye, p. 92).—Dictionarium Novum
Latino-Armenium ex præcipuis Armeniæ Linguæ
Scriptoribus concinnatum: Accedit Tabula Regum et Patriarcharum
utriusque Armeniæ. Romæ, 1714. Thick
fol.—Bodl.
The Latin-Armenian Dictionary, with a Grammar prefixed, from
which Borrow drew the Haïkian words and forms displayed in
Lavengro and Romany Rye, such as kini, wine;
hatz, bread; dzow, sea; the verbs hntal,
siriel, etc.
Wace (Romany Rye, p. 320).—Le Roman de Rou
et des Ducs de Normandie, par Robert Wace, poète normand
du xiie siècle; publié pour la
première fois par F. Pluquet. Rouen, 1827. 2
vols., 8vo.
Walker, J. C. (Lavengro, p.
233).—Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards. Dublin,
1786. 4to.—Bodl.
Wayland Smith.—A Dissertation on a Tradition of
the Middle Ages. From the French of G. B. Depping and
Francisque Michel. London, 1847. 12mo, pp. 163.
Mr. Borrow’s “Völundr” or
“Velint”.—Lavengro, p. 444.
Webb, Alfred.—Compendium of Irish
Biography. Dublin, 1878. 8vo.—Bodl.
Weir, George (Romany Rye, p.
211).—Historical and Descriptive Sketches of the Town and
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places adjacent. London, 1820. Large 8vo, pp. vi,
119. Plates and Map.
Wells, J. S. (Lavengro, p.
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the most admired and approved Songs, interspersed with select and
original Poetry. Compiled by J. S. Wells. Norwich,
1831. 12mo, pp. iv, 251.
White, Wm.—History, Gazetteer, and
Directory of Norfolk, and the City and County of the City of
Norwich. Sheffield, 1854. 8vo, pp. 881.
—History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk,
etc. Sheffield, 1844. 8vo, pp. 756.
—Ed. 1855. 8vo, pp. 824.
Wight Wallace (Lavengro, p. 63).—The Life
and Acts of the most famous and valiant Champion, Syr William
Wallace, Knight of Ellerslie: Maintainer of ye Liberty of
Schottland. [Written by Blind Harry in the year
1361.] Printed at Edinburgh by Andrew Hart, 1630.
16mo, pp. 341, ll. 2. Black Letter.—Bodl.
P. 341, after Finis:—
“Thus endeth William Wallace
wight,
Behinde him left not such a Knight
Of worthinesse and deed of hand;
From thraldom thrice he fred this land”.
—The Life and Acts of Sir William Wallace, of
Ellerslie. By Henry the Minstrel. (Published from a
MS. of 1488 with Notes by Dr. Jamieson.) Edinburgh,
1820. 4to, pp. xx, 444.—Bodl.
This rhymed “Story-book of Wight Wallace” is in
twelve parts or books.
Wilkina Saga.—Sagan om Didrik af
Bern. Efter Svenska Handskrifter utgifven af Gunnar Olof
Hyltén-Cavallius. Vol. v. af Samlingar utgifna af
Svenska Fornskrift-Sällskapet. Stockholm,
1850. 8vo, pp. xlv, 487.—Bodl.
Stories of Sigurd (Siegfrid), Gunnar (Gunther), Brynhilda
(Brunhilt).
Worm, J.—Forsøg til et Lexicon over
Danske, Norske, og Islandske Lærde Mænd.
Helsingöer, 1771–84. 3 vols.,
8vo.—“G. Borrow.”
Wynn, Ellis (Lavengro, pp.
404–5).—Gweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsg: yn Cynnws I.
Gweledigaeth Cwrs y Byd. II. Gweledigaeth Angai. III.
Gweledigaeth Uffern. Gan Ellis Wynn. Caerfyrddin,
1811. 12mo, pp. 77.
—The Sleeping Bard; or Visions of the World, Death, and
Hell. By Elis Wyn. Translated from the Cambrian
British by George Borrow. London, 1860. 8vo, pp. vii,
128.
W. I.
Knapp.
High St., Oxford,
November, 1899
Printed by Hasell, Watson
& Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
FOOTNOTES.
MS.,
“’49”.
MS., “execrated by
every unmanly scoundrel, every sycophantic lacquey, and every
political and religious renegade in Britain”.
Cf. L’Inferno,
xxvii., 25.
The apothecary.
MS., see Life, i.,
34, n.
Ibid.
Tipperary.
MS.,
“Canning” (1827).
Viscount Goderich.
MS.,
“Canning” (1827).
MS.,
“Canning” (1827).
MS., “who
eventually presented him with a bishopric, had espoused,”
etc.
MS., “He is a
small landed proprietor who eats,” etc.
MS., “the
Despatch, of course”.
The Spanish Revolution of
’54–’56, made by O’Donnell.
MS.
(corrected):—
Un Erajái
Sinába chibando an sermón;
Y lle falta un balichó
Al chindomá de aquel gáo;
Y chanéla que los calés
Lo habían nicobáo;
Y penelá ’l erajái:
“Chaboró!
Guíllate á tu quer,
Y nicobéla la pirí
Que teréla ’l balichó,
Y chibéla andró
Una lima de tun chaborí,
Chaborí,
Una lima de tun chaborí.”
See also Lavo-Lil, p. 200.
Canto i,
st. 53.
St. 57.
An obscene oath.
See Muses’ Library,
pp. 86, 87. London, 1738. [Better, the original ed.
(1547). See Notes.]
Genteel with them seems to be
synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo; if so, the manner in which it
has been applied for ages ceases to surprise, for genteel is
heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold, glittering
armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and lust, should always
be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls
the Baron Genteel:—
“La furent li gentil Baron,” etc.
And he certainly could not have applied the word better than
to the strong Norman thief, armed cap-a-pie without one particle
of ruth or generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility,
that is heathenism, should have no such feelings; and, indeed,
the admirers of gentility seldom or never associate any such
feelings with it. It was from the Norman, the worst of all
robbers and miscreants, who built strong castles, garrisoned them
with devils, and tore out poor wretches’ eyes, as the Saxon
Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word
genteel. What could ever have made the English such
admirers of gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during
three hundred years, they suffered enough by it. Their
genteel Norman landlords were their scourgers, their torturers,
the plunderers of their homes, the dishonourers of their wives,
and the deflowers of their daughters. Perhaps after all,
fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility.
Gentle and gentlemanly may be
derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more
distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened
minds associate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly
mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering
or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody
can be genteel.
The writer has been checked in
print by the Scotch with being a Norfolk man. Surely,
surely, these latter times have not been exactly the ones in
which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of any
county in England with the place of their birth, more especially
those who have had the honour of being born in
Norfolk—times in which British fleets, commanded by
Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything but laurels from
foreign shores. It would have been well for Britain had she
had the old Norfolk man to despatch to the Baltic or the black
Sea, lately, instead of Scotch admirals.
As the present work will come
out in the midst of a vehement political contest, people may be
led to suppose that the above was written expressly for the
time. The writer therefore begs to state that it was
written in the year 1854. He cannot help adding that he is
neither Whig, Tory, nor Radical, and cares not a straw what party
governs England, provided it is governed well. But he has
no hopes of good government from the Whigs. It is true that
amongst them there is one very great man, Lord Palmerston, who is
indeed the sword and buckler, the chariots and the horses of the
party; but it is impossible for his lordship to govern well with
such colleagues as he has—colleagues which have been forced
upon him by family influence, and who are continually pestering
him into measures anything but conducive to the country’s
honour and interest. If Palmerston would govern well, he
must get rid of them; but from that step, with all his courage
and all his greatness, he will shrink. Yet how proper and
easy a step it would be! He could easily get better, but
scarcely worse, associates. They appear to have one object
in view and only one—jobbery. It was chiefly owing to
a most flagitious piece of jobbery, which one of his
lordship’s principal colleagues sanctioned and promoted,
that his lordship experienced his late parliamentary
disasters.
A fact.
MS.
“Aberdeen.”
MS.
“Aberdeen.”
Like Ingilis in Turkish,
for English; Beritania (England) in Hawaiian, for
Britannia.
Zincali, 1843, second
ed., vol. ii., p. 146.*
“I think I’ll go
there,” p. 301. “He is about to quit his native
land on a grand philological expedition,” p. 303.
