FOOTNOTES:
[100] Darlow's George Borrow's Letters to the Bible Society, page 76. There are twenty letters written by Borrow from Russia to the Bible Society, contained in T. H. Darlow's Letters of George Borrow to the British and Foreign Bible Society, several of which, in the original manuscripts, are in my possession. There are as many also in Knapp's Life of Borrow, and these last are far more interesting, being addressed to his mother and other friends. I have several other letters concerned with Borrow's Bible Society work in Russia, but they are not inspiring. Borrow's correspondence with Hasfeld, of which Knapp gives us glimpses, is more bracing, and the two or three letters from that admirable Dane that are in my collection I am glad to print here.
[101] In the Athenæum for March 5, 1836, there is a short, interesting letter, dated from St. Petersburg, signed J. P. H. This was obviously written by Hasfeld. 'Here your journal is found in every well furnished library,' he writes, 'and yet not a passing word do you ever bestow upon us,' and then, to the extent of nearly five columns, he discourses upon the present state of Russian literature, and has very much to say about his friend George Borrow:
'Will it be thought ultra-barbarian if I mention that Mr. George Borrow concluded, in the autumn, the publication of the New Testament in the Mandchou language? Remember, if you please, that he was sent here for the express purpose by the British and Foreign Bible Society of London. The translation was made for the Society by Mr. Lipóftsof, a gentleman in the service of the Russian Department of Foreign Affairs, who has spent the greater part of an industrious life in Peking and the East. I can only say that it is a beautiful edition of an Oriental work, that it is printed with great care on a fine imitation of Chinese paper made on purpose. At the outset, Mr. Borrow spent weeks and months in the printing-office to make the compositors acquainted with the intricate Mandchou types, and that, as for the contents, I am assured by well-informed persons, that this translation is remarkable for the correctness and fidelity with which it has been executed.'
Then Hasfeld goes on to describe Borrow's small volume, Targum: 'The exquisite delicacy with which he has caught and rendered the beauties of his well-chosen originals,' he says, 'is a proof of his learning and genius. The work is a pearl in literature, and, like pearls, it derives value from its scarcity, for the whole edition was limited to about a hundred copies.' Then Hasfeld gives two poems from the book, which really justify his eulogy, for the poetic quality of Targum has not had justice done to it by Borrow's later critics.
[102] The name is frequently spelt 'Hasfeldt,' but I have followed the spelling not only of Hasfeld's signature in his letters in my possession, but also of the printed addressed envelope which he was in the habit of forwarding to his friends in his letters.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MANCHU BIBLE—TARGUM—THE TALISMAN
The Bible Society wanted the Bible to be set up in the Manchu language, the official language of the Chinese Court and Government. A Russian scholar named Lipóftsof, who had spent twenty years in China, undertook in 1821 to translate the New Testament into Manchu for £560. Lipóftsof had done his work in 1826, and had sent two manuscript copies to London. In 1832 the Rev. William Swan of the London Missionary Society in passing through St. Petersburg discovered a transcript of a large part of the Old and New Testament in Manchu, made by one Pierot, a French Jesuit, many years before. This transcript was unavailable, but a second was soon afterwards forthcoming for free publication if a qualified Manchu scholar could be found to see it through the Press. Mr. Swan's communication of these facts to the Bible Society in London gave Borrow his opportunity. It was his task to find the printers, buy the paper, and hire the qualified compositors for setting the type. It must be admitted Borrow worked hard for his £200 a year. First he had to ask the diplomatists for permission from the Russian Government, not now so friendly to British Missionary zeal. The Russian Bible Society had been suppressed in 1826. He succeeded here. Then he had to continue his studies in the Manchu language. He had written from Norwich to Mr. Jowett on 9th June 1833, 'I have mastered Manchu,' but on 20th January 1834 we find him writing to the same correspondent: 'I pay about six shillings, English, for each lesson, which I grudge not, for the perfect acquirement of Manchu is one of my most ardent wishes.'[103] Then he found the printers—a German firm, Schultz and Beneze—who probably printed the two little books of Borrow's own for him as a 'make weight.' He purchased paper for his Manchu translation with an ability that would have done credit to a modern newspaper manager. Every detail of these transactions is given in his letters to the Bible Society, and one cannot but be amused at Borrow's explanation to the Reverend Secretary of the little subterfuges by which he proposed to 'best' the godless for the benefit of the godly:
Knowing but too well that it is the general opinion of the people of this country that Englishmen are made of gold, and that it is only necessary to ask the most extravagant price for any article in order to obtain it, I told no person, to whom I applied, who I was, or of what country; and I believe I was supposed to be a German.[104]
Then came the composing or setting up of the type of the book. When Borrow was called to account by his London employers, who were not sure whether he was wasting time, he replied: 'I have been working in the printing-office, as a common compositor, between ten and thirteen hours every day.' In another letter Borrow records further difficulties with the printers after the composition had been effected. Several of the working printers, it appears, 'went away in disgust,' Then he adds:
I was resolved 'to do or die,' and, instead of distressing and perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write nothing until I could write something perfectly satisfactory, as I now can; and to bring about that result I have spared neither myself nor my own money. I have toiled in a close printing-office the whole day, during ninety degrees of heat, for the purpose of setting an example, and have bribed people to work whom nothing but bribes would induce so to do. I am obliged to say all this in self-justification. No member of the Bible Society would ever have heard a syllable respecting what I have undergone but for the question, 'What has Mr. Borrow been about?'[105]
It is not my intention to add materially to the letters of Borrow from Russia and from Spain that have already been published, although many are in my possession. They reveal an aspect of the life of Borrow that has been amply dealt with by other biographers, and it is an aspect that interests me but little. Here, however, is one hitherto unpublished letter that throws much light upon Borrow's work at this time: