'"I am afraid, indeed, it will all end ill," said Belle. "Hold your tongue!" said I, "or you will make me lose my patience." "You have already made me nearly lose mine," said Belle. "Let us have no unprofitable interruptions," said I. "The conjugations of the Armenian verbs are neither so numerous nor so difficult as the declensions of the nouns. Hear that and rejoice. Come, we will begin with the verb hntal, a verb of the first conjugation, which signifies to rejoice. Come along: hntam, I rejoice; hyntas, thou rejoicest. Why don't you follow, Belle?"
'"I am sure I don't rejoice, whatever you may do," said Belle. "The chief difficulty, Belle," said I, "that I find in teaching you the Armenian grammar proceeds from your applying to yourself and me every example I give. Rejoice, in this instance, is merely an example of an Armenian verb of the first conjugation, and has no more to do with your rejoicing than lal, which is also a verb of the first conjugation, and which signifies to weep, would have to do with your weeping, provided I made you conjugate it. Come along: hntam, I rejoice; hntas, thou rejoicest; hnta, he rejoices; hntamk, we rejoice. Now repeat those words." "I can't bear this much longer," said Belle. "Keep yourself quiet," said I. "I wish to be gentle with you, and to convince you, we will skip hntal, and also, for the present, verbs of the first conjugation, and proceed to the second. Belle, I will now select for you to conjugate the prettiest verb in Armenian, not only of the second, but also of all the four conjugations. That verb is siriel. Here is the present tense: siriem, siries, sire, siriemk, sirèk, sirien. Come on, Belle, and say siriem." Belle hesitated. "Pray oblige me, Belle, by saying siriem." Belle still appeared to hesitate. "You must admit, Belle, that it is softer than hntam." "It is so," said Belle, "and to oblige you I will say siriem." "Very well indeed, Belle," said I, "and now to show you how verbs act upon pronouns in Armenian, I will say siriem zkiez. Please to repeat siriem zkiez." "Siriem zkiez," said Belle; "that last word is very hard to say." "Sorry that you think so, Belle," said I. "Now, please to say siriá zis." Belle did so. "Exceedingly well," said I. "Now say girani thè sireir zis." "Girane thè sireir zis," said Belle. "Capital!" said I. "You have now said I love you—love me. Ah! would that you would love me!"
'"And I have said all these things?" said Belle. "Yes," said I. "You have said them in Armenian." "I would have said them in no language that I understood," said Belle. "And it was very wrong of you to take advantage of my ignorance, and make me say such things!" "Why so?" said I. "If you said them, I said them too."'
‘Was ever woman in this humour wooed?’
It is, I believe, the opinion of the best critics that The Bible in Spain is Borrow's masterpiece. It very likely is so. At the present moment I feel myself even more than usually disqualified for so grave a consideration by my over-powering delight in its dear, deluding title. A quarter of a century ago, in all decent homes, a boy's reading was, by the stern decree of his elders, divided rigorously, though at the same time it must be admitted crudely, into Sunday books and week-day books. 'What have you got there?' has before now been an inquiry addressed on a Sunday afternoon to some youngster, suspiciously engrossed in a book. 'Oh, The Bible in Spain,' would be the reply. 'It is written by a Mr. Borrow, you know, and it is all about'—(then the title-page would serve its turn) 'his attempts "to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula!"' 'Indeed! Sounds most suitable,' answers the gulled authority, some foolish sisters'-governess
or the like illiterate, and moves off. And then the happy boy would wriggle in his chair, and, as if thirsting to taste the first fruits of his wile, hastily seek out a streaky page, and there read, for perhaps the hundredth time, the memorable words:
'"Good are the horses of the Moslems," said my old friend; "where will you find such? They will descend rocky mountains at full speed, and neither trip nor fall; but you must be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do, they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses, and good our riders. Yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider compete with a Moslem on this beach, and at first the Frank rider had it all his own way and he passed the Moslem, but the course was long, very long, and the horse of the Frank rider, which was a Frank horse also, panted; but the horse of the Moslem panted not, for he was a Moslem also, and the Moslem rider at last gave a cry, and the horse sprang forward and he overtook the Frank horse, and then the Moslem rider stood up in his saddle. How did he stand? Truly he stood on his head, and these eyes saw him; he stood on his head in the saddle as he passed the Frank rider; and he cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank rider; and the Moslem horse cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank breed, and the Frank lost by a far distance. Good are the Franks, good their horses; but better are the Moslems, and better the horses of the Moslems."'
That boy, as he lay curled up in his chair, doting over the enchanted page, knew full well, else had he been no Christian boy, that it was not a Sunday book which was making his eyes start out of his head; yet, reckless, he cried, 'ha! ha!' and read on, and as he read he blessed the madcap Borrow for having called his romance by the sober-sounding, propitiatory title of The Bible in Spain!
‘Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole.’
In a world of dust and ashes it is a foolish thing to prophesy immortality, or even a long term of years, for any fellow-mortal. Good luck does not usually pursue such predictions. England can boast few keener, better-qualified critics than that admirable woman, Mrs. Barbauld, or, not to dock her of her accustomed sizings, Mrs. Anna Lætitia Barbauld. And yet what do we find her saying? 'The young may melt into tears at Julia Mandeville, and The Man of Feeling, the romantic will shudder at Udolpho, but those of mature age who know what human nature is, will take up again and again Dr. Moore's Zeluco.' One hates to contradict a lady like Mrs. Barbauld, or to speak in terms of depreciation of any work of Mrs. Radcliffe's, whose name is still as a pleasant savour in the nostrils; therefore I will let Udolpho alone. As for Henry Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, what was good enough for Sir Walter Scott ought surely to be good enough for us, most days. I am no longer young, and cannot therefore be expected to melt into tears at Julia Mandeville, but here my toleration is exhausted. Dr. Moore's Zeluco is too much; maturity has many ills to bear, but repeated perusals of this work cannot fairly be included amongst them.