Langham Hotel, Portland Place, March 31st, 1873.
Dear Sir,—I sincerely trust that the limited extent of our acquaintanceship will not cause this note to seem to you too presuming. Breviter, I have thrown the results of my observations among English gypsies into a very unpretending little volume consisting almost entirely of facts gathered from the Romany, without any theory. As I owe all my interest in the subject to your writings, and as I am sincerely grateful to you for the impulse which they gave me, I should like very much to dedicate my book to you. Of course if your kindness permits I shall submit the proofs to you, that you may judge whether the work deserves the honour. I should have sent you the MS., but not long after our meeting at the British Museum I left for Egypt, whence I have very recently returned, to find my publisher clamorous for the promised copy.
It is not—God knows—a mean and selfish desire to help my book by giving it the authority of your name, which induces this request. But I am earnestly desirous for my conscience' sake to publish nothing in the Romany which shall not be true and sensible, even as all that you have written is true and sensible. Therefore, should you take the pains to glance over my proof, I should be grateful if you would signify to me any differences of opinion should there be ground for any. Dr. A. F. Pott in his Zigeuner (vol. ii. p. 224), intimates very decidedly that you took the word shastr (Exhastra de Moyses) from Sanskrit and put it into Romany; declaring that it would be very important if shaster were Romany. I mention in my book that English gypsies call the New Testament (also any MS.) a shaster, and that a betting-book on a racecourse is called a shaster 'because it is written.' I do not pretend in my book to such deep Romany as you have achieved—all that I claim is to have collected certain words, facts, phrases, etc., out of the Romany of the roads—corrupt as it is—as I have found it to-day. I deal only with the gypsy of the Decadence. With renewed apology for intrusion should it seem such, I remain, yours very respectfully,
Charles G. Leland.
Francis Hindes Groome remarked when reviewing Borrow's Word Book in 1874,[149] that when The Gypsies of Spain was published in 1841 'there were not two educated men in England who possessed the slightest knowledge of Romany.' In the intervening thirty-three years all this was changed. There was an army of gypsy scholars or scholar gypsies of whom Leland was one, Hindes Groome another, and Professor E. H. Palmer a third, to say nothing of many scholars and students of Romany in other lands. Not one of them seemed when Borrow published his Word Book of the Romany to see that he was the only man of genius among them. They only saw that he was an inferior philologist to them all. And so Borrow, who prided himself on things that he could do indifferently quite as much as upon things that he could do well, suffered once again, as he was so often doomed to suffer, from the lack of appreciation which was all in all to him, and his career went out in a veritable blizzard. He published nothing after his Romano Lavo-Lil appeared in 1874.[150] He was then indeed a broken and a bitter man, with no further interest in life. Dedications of books to him interested him not at all. In any other mood, or a few years earlier, Leland's book, The English Gypsies,[151] would have gladdened his heart. In his preface Leland expresses 'the highest respect for the labours of Mr. George Borrow in this field,' he quotes Borrow continually and with sympathy, and renders him honour as a philologist, that has usually been withheld. 'To Mr. Borrow is due the discovery that the word Jockey is of gypsy origin and derived from chuckiri, which means a whip,' and he credits Borrow with the discovery of the origin of 'tanner' for sixpence; he vindicates him as against Dr. A. F. Pott,—a prince among students of gypsydom—of being the first to discover that the English gypsies call the Bible the Shaster. But there is a wealth of scientific detail in Leland's books that is not to be found in Borrow's, as also there is in Francis Hindes Groome's works. What had Borrow to do with science? He could not even give the word 'Rúmani' its accent, and called it 'Romany.' He 'quietly appropriated,' says Groome, 'Bright's Spanish gypsy words for his own work, mistakes and all, without one word of recognition. I think one has the ancient impostor there.'[152] 'His knowledge of the strange history of the gypsies was very elementary, of their manners almost more so, and of their folk-lore practically nil,' says Groome elsewhere.[153] Yet Mr. Hindes Groome readily acknowledges that Borrow is above all writers on the gypsies. 'He communicates a subtle insight into gypsydom'—that is the very essence of the matter.[154] Controversy will continue in the future as in the present as to whether the gypsies are all that Borrow thought them. Perhaps 'corruption has crept in among them' as it did with the prize-fighters. They have intermarried with the gorgios, thrown over their ancient customs, lost all their picturesque qualities, it may be. But Borrow has preserved in literature for all time, as not one of the philologists and folk-lore students has done, a remarkable type of people. But this is not to be found in his first original work, The Zincali, nor in his last, The Romano Lavo-Lil. This glamour is to be found in Lavengro and The Romany Rye, to which books we shall come in due course. Here we need only refer to the fact that Borrow had loved the gypsies all his life—from his boyish meeting with Petulengro until in advancing years the prototype of that wonderful creation of his imagination—for this the Petulengro of Lavengro undoubtedly was—came to visit him at Oulton. Well might Leland call him 'the Nestor of Gypsydom.'
We find the following letter to Dr. Bowring accompanying a copy of The Zincali:
To Dr. John Bowring.
58 Jermyn Street, St. James, April 14, 1841.
My dear Sir,—I have sent you a copy of my work by the mail. If you could contrive to notice it some way or other I should feel much obliged. Murray has already sent copies to all the journals. It is needless to tell you that despatch in these matters is very important, the first blow is everything. Lord Clarendon is out of town. So I must send him his presentation copy through Murray, and then write to him. I am very unwell, and must go home. My address is George Borrow, Oulton Hall, Oulton, Lowestoft, Suffolk. Your obedient servant,
George Borrow.