Dear dear Sir,—Pray excuse my troubling you with a line. I wish you would send as many of the papers and manuscripts, which I left at yours some twelve years ago, as you can find. Amongst others there is an essay on Welsh poetry, a translation of the Death of Balder, etc. If I am spared to the beginning of next year, I intend to bring out a volume called Songs of Denmark, consisting of some selections from the Kæmpe Viser and specimens from Ewald, Grundtvig, Oehlenschläger, and I suppose I must give a few notices of those people. Have you any history of Danish literature from which I could glean a few hints. I think you have a book in two volumes containing specimens of Danish poetry. It would be useful to me as I want to translate Ingemann's Dannebrog; and one or two other pieces. I shall preface all with an essay on the Danish language. It is possible that a book of this description may take, as Denmark is quite an untrodden field.
Could you lend me for a short time a Polish and French or Polish and German dictionary. I am going carefully through Makiewitz, about whom I intend to write an article.
The Bible in Spain is in the press, and with God's permission will appear about November in three volumes. I shall tell Murray to send a copy to my oldest, I may say my only friend. Pray let me know how you are getting on. I every now and then see your name in the Examiner, the only paper I read. Should you send the papers and the books it must be by the Yarmouth coach which starts from Fetter Lane. Address: George Borrow, Crown Inn, Lowestoft, Suffolk. With kindest remembrances to Mrs. Bowring, Miss Bowring, and family—I remain, Dear Sir, ever yours,
George Borrow.
FACSIMILE OF A POEM FROM TARGUM
A Translation from the French by George Borrow
Now with the achieved success of The Bible in Spain and the leisure of a happy home Borrow could for the moment think of the ambition of 'twelve years ago'—an ambition to put before the public some of the results of his marvellous industry. The labours of the dark, black years between 1825 and 1830 might now perchance see the light. Three such books got themselves published, as we have seen, Romantic Ballads, Targum, and The Talisman. The Sleeping Bard had been translated and offered to 'a little Welsh bookseller' of Smithfield in 1830, who, however, said, when he had read it, 'were I to print it I should be ruined.' That fate followed the book to the end, and Borrow was premature when he said in his Preface to The Sleeping Bard that such folly is on the decline, because he found 'Albemarle Street in '60 willing to publish a harmless but plain-speaking book which Smithfield shrank from in '30.' At the last moment John Murray refused to publish, but seems to have agreed to give his imprint to the title-page. Borrow published the book at his own expense, it being set up by James Matthew Denew, of 72 Hall Plain, Great Yarmouth. Fourteen years later—in 1874—Mr. Murray made some amends by publishing Romano Lavo-Lil, in which are many fine translations from the Romany, and that, during his lifetime, was the 'beginning and the end' of Borrow's essays in publishing so far as his translations were concerned. Webber, the bookseller of Ipswich, did indeed issue The Turkish Jester—advertised as ready for publication in 1857—in 1884, and Jarrold of Norwich The Death of Balder in 1889; but enthusiasts have asked in vain for Celtic Bards, Chiefs and Kings, Songs of Europe, and Northern Skalds, Kings and Earls. It is not recorded whether Borrow offered these to any publisher other than 'Glorious John' of Albemarle Street, but certain it is that Mr. Murray would have none of them. The 'mountains of manuscript' remained to be the sorrowful interest of Borrow as an old man as they had—many of them—been the sorrow and despair of his early manhood. Here is a memorandum in his daughter's handwriting of the work that Borrow was engaged upon at the time of his death:
Songs of Ireland.
Songs of the Isle of Man.
Songs of Wales.
Songs of the Gaelic Highlands.
Songs of Anglo-Saxon England.
Songs of the North, Mythological.
Songs of the North, Heroic.
Songs of Iceland.
Songs of Sweden.
Songs of Germany.
Songs of Holland.
Songs of Ancient Greece.
Songs of the Modern Greeks.
Songs of the Klephts.
Songs of Denmark, Early Period.
Songs of Denmark, Modern Period.
Songs of the Feroe Isles.
Songs of the Gascons.
Songs of Modern Italy.
Songs of Portugal.
Songs of Poland.
Songs of Hungary.
Songs and Legends of Turkey.
Songs of Ancient Rome.
Songs of the Church.
Songs of the Troubadours.
Songs of Normandy.
Songs of Spain.
Songs of Russia.
Songs of the Basques.
Songs of Finland.