To Mrs. George Borrow
Tunbridge Wells, Tuesday evening.
Dear Carreta,—I have arrived here safe—it is a wonderful place, a small city of palaces amidst hills, rocks, and woods, and is full of fine people. Please to carry up stairs and lock in the drawer the little paper sack of letters in the parlour; lock it up with the bank book and put this along with it—also be sure to keep the window of my room fastened and the door locked, and keep the key in your pocket. God bless you and Hen.
George Borrow.
One of the very last letters of Borrow that I possess is to an unknown correspondent. It is from a rough 'draft' in his handwriting:
Oulton, Lowestoft, May 1875.
Sir,—Your letter of the eighth of March I only lately received, otherwise I should have answered it sooner. In it you mention Chamberlayne's work, containing versions of the Lord's Prayer translated into a hundred languages, and ask whether I can explain why the one which purports to be a rendering into Waldensian is evidently made in some dialect of the Gaelic. To such explanation as I can afford you are welcome, though perhaps you will not deem it very satisfactory. I have been acquainted with Chamberlayne's work for upwards of forty years. I first saw it at St. Petersburg in 1834, and the translation in question very soon caught my attention. I at first thought that it was an attempt at imposition, but I soon relinquished that idea. I remembered that Helvetia was a great place for Gaelic. I do not mean in the old time when the Gael possessed the greater part of Europe, but at a long subsequent period: Switzerland was converted to Christianity by Irish monks, the most active and efficient of whom was Gall. These people founded schools in which together with Christianity the Irish or Gaelic language was taught. In process of time, though the religion flourished, the Helveto Gaelic died away, but many pieces in that tongue survived, some of which might still probably be found in the recesses of St. Gall. The noble abbey is named after the venerable apostle of Christianity in Helvetia; so I deemed it very possible that the version in question might be one of the surviving fruits of Irish missionary labour in Helvetia, not but that I had my doubts, and still have, principally from observing that the language though certainly not modern does not exhibit any decided marks of high antiquity. It is much to be regretted that Chamberlayne should have given the version to the world under a title so calculated to perplex and mislead as that which it bears, and without even stating how or where he obtained it. This, sir, is all I have to say on the very obscure subject about which you have done me the honour to consult me.—Yours truly,
George Borrow.