Edward FitzGerald.
In a letter to George Crabbe the third, and the grandson of the poet, in 1862, FitzGerald tells him that he has just been reading Borrow's Wild Wales, 'which I like well because I can hear him talking it. But I don't know if others will like it.' 'No one writes better English than Borrow in general,' he says. But FitzGerald, as a lover of style, is vexed with some of Borrow's phrases, and instances one: '"The scenery was beautiful to a degree," What degree? When did this vile phrase arise?' The criticism is just, but Borrow, in common with many other great English authors whose work will live was not uniformly a good stylist. He has many lamentable fallings away from the ideals of the stylist. But he will, by virtue of a wonderful individuality, outlive many a good stylist. His four great books are immortal, and one of them is Wild Wales.
We have a glimpse of FitzGerald in the following letter in my possession, by the friend who had introduced him to Borrow, William Bodham Donne:[217]
To George Borrow, Esq.
40 Weymouth Street, Portland Place, W., November 28/62.
My dear Borrow,—Many thanks for the copy of Wild Wales reserved for and sent to me by Mr. R. Cooke.[218] Before this copy arrived I had obtained one from the London Library and read it through, not exactly stans pede in uno, but certainly almost at a stretch. I could not indeed lay it down, it interested me so much. It is one of the very best records of home travel, if indeed so strange a country as Wales is can properly be called home, I have ever met with.
Immediately on closing the third volume I secured a few pages in Fraser's Magazine for Wild Wales, for though you do not stand in need of my aid, yet my notice will not do you a mischief, and some of the reviewers of Lavengro were, I recollect, shocking blockheads, misinterpreting the letter and misconceiving the spirit of that work. I have, since we met in Burlington Arcade, been on a visit to FitzGerald. He is in better spirits by far than when I saw him about the same time in last year. He has his pictures and his chattels about him, and has picked up some acquaintance among the merchants and mariners of Woodbridge, who, although far below his level, are yet better company than the two old skippers he was consorting with in 1861. They—his present friends—came in of an evening, and sat and drank and talked, and I enjoyed their talk very much, since they discussed of what they understood, which is more than I can say generally of the fine folks I occasionally (very occasionally now) meet in London. I should have said more about your book, only I wish to keep it for print: and you don't need to be told by me that it is very good.—With best regards to Mrs. Borrow and Miss Clarke, I am, yours ever truly,
W. B. Donne.
The last letter from FitzGerald to Borrow is dated many years after the correspondence I have here printed,[219] and from it we gather that there had been no correspondence in the interval.[220] FitzGerald writes from Little Grange, Woodbridge, in January 1875, to say that he had received a message from Borrow that he would be glad to see him at Oulton. 'I think the more of it,' says FitzGerald, 'because I imagine, from what I have heard, that you have slunk away from human company as much as I have.' He hints that they might not like one another so well after a fifteen years' separation. He declares with infinite pathos that he has now severed himself from all old ties, has refused the invitations of old college friends and old schoolfellows. To him there was no companionship possible for his declining days other than his reflections and verses. It is a fine letter, filled with that graciousness of spirit that was ever a trait in FitzGerald's noble nature. The two men never met again. When Borrow died, in 1881, FitzGerald, who followed him two years later, suggested to Dr. Aldis Wright, afterwards to be his (FitzGerald's) executor, who was staying with him at the time, that he should look over Borrow's books and manuscripts if his stepdaughter so desired. If this had been arranged, and Dr. Aldis Wright had written Borrow's life, there would have been no second biographer.[221]