The Life of George Borrow

by Clement King Shorter

One only needs to quote this by the light of the story as told so far in these pages to see how entirely Miss Cobbe misunderstood Borrow, or rather how little insight she was able to bring to a study of his curious character. The rest of her attempt at interpretation is largely taken up to demonstrate how much more clever and more learned she was than Borrow. Altogether it is a sorry spectacle, this of the pseudo-philanthropist relating her conversations with a man broken by misfortune and the death of his wife. Many of Miss Cobbe’s statements have passed into current acceptance. I do not find them convincing. Archdeacon Whately on the other hand tells us that he always found Borrow “most civil and hospitable,” and his sister gives us the following “impression”:

When Mr. Borrow returned from this Spanish journey, which had been full, as we all know, of most entertaining adventures, related with much liveliness and spirit by himself, he was regarded as a kind of “lion” in the literary circles of London. When we first saw him it was at the house of a lady who took great pleasure in gathering “celebrities” in various ways around her, and our party was struck with the appearance of this renowned traveller—a tall, thin, spare man with prematurely white hair and intensely dark eyes, as he stood upright against the wall of one of the drawing-rooms and received the homage of lion-hunting guests, and listened in silence to their unsuccessful attempts to make him talk.

During this sojourn in London, which was undertaken because Oulton and Yarmouth did not agree with his wife, Borrow suffered the tragedy of her loss. Borrow dragged on his existence in London for another five years, a much broken man. It is extraordinary how little we know of Borrow during that fourteen years’ sojourn in London; how rarely we meet him in the literary memoirs of this period. Happily one or two pleasant friendships relieved the sadness of his days; and in particular the reminiscences of Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton assist us to a more correct appreciation of the Borrow of these last years of London life. Of Mr. Watts-Dunton’s “memories,” we shall write in our next chapter. Here it remains only to note that Borrow still continued to interest himself in his various efforts at translation, and in 1861 and 1862 the editor of Once a Week printed various ballads and stories from his pen. The volumes of this periodical are before me, and I find illustrations by Sir John Millais, Sir E. J. Poynter, Simeon Solomon and George Du Maurier; stories by Mrs. Henry Wood and Harriet Martineau, and articles by Walter Thornbury.

In 1862 Wild Wales was published, as we have seen. In 1865 Henrietta married William MacOubrey, and in the following year, Borrow and his wife went to visit the pair in their Belfast home. In the beginning of the year 1869 Mrs. Borrow died, aged seventy-three. There are no records of the tragedy that are worth perpetuating. Borrow consumed his own smoke. With his wife’s death his life was indeed a wreck. No wonder he was so “rude” to that least perceptive of women, Miss Cobbe. Some four or five years more Borrow lingered on in London, cheered at times by walks and talks with Gordon Hake and Watts-Dunton, and he then returned to Oulton—a most friendless man.

CHAPTER XXXIII
Friends of Later Years

We should know little enough of George Borrow’s later years were it not for his friendship with Thomas Gordon Hake and Theodore Watts-Dunton. Hake was born in 1809 and died in 1895. In 1839 he settled at Bury St. Edmunds as a physician, and he resided there until 1853. Here he was frequently visited by the Borrows. We have already quoted his prophecy concerning Lavengro that “its roots will strike deep into the soil of English letters.” In 1853 Dr. Hake and his family left Bury for the United States, where they resided for some years. Returning to England they lived at Roehampton and met Borrow occasionally in London. During these years Hake was, according to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, “the earthly Providence of the Rossetti family,” but he was not, as his Memoirs show, equally devoted to Borrow. In 1872, however, he went to live in Germany and Italy for a considerable period. Concerning the relationship between Borrow and Hake, Mr. Watts-Dunton has written:

After Hake went to live in Germany, Borrow told me a good deal about their intimacy, and also about his own early life: for, reticent as he naturally was, he and I got to be confidential and intimate. His friendship with Hake began when Hake was practising as a physician in Norfolk. It lasted during the greater part of Borrow’s later life. When Borrow was living in London his great delight was to walk over on Sundays from Hereford Square to Coombe End, call upon Hake, and take a stroll with him over Richmond Park. They both had a passion for herons and for deer. At that time Hake was a very intimate friend of my own, and having had the good fortune to be introduced by him to Borrow I used to join the two in their walks. Afterwards, when Hake went to live in Germany, I used to take those walks with Borrow alone. Two more interesting men it would be impossible to meet. The remarkable thing was that there was between them no sort of intellectual sympathy. In style, in education, in experience, whatever Hake was, Borrow was not. Borrow knew almost nothing of Hake’s writings, either in prose or in verse. His ideal poet was Pope, and when he read, or rather looked into, Hake’s World’s Epitaph, he thought he did Hake the greatest honour by saying, “there are lines here and there that are nigh as good as Pope!”

On the other hand, Hake’s acquaintance with Borrow’s works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to shine generally in any society.

So far as Hake was concerned the sole link between them was that of reminiscence of earlier days and adventures in Borrow’s beloved East Anglia. Among many proofs I would adduce of this I will give one. I am the possessor of the MS. of Borrow’s Gypsies of Spain, written partly in a Spanish notebook as he moved about Spain in his colporteur days. It was my wish that Hake would leave behind him some memorial of Borrow more worthy of himself and his friend than those brief reminiscences contained in Memoirs of Eighty Years. I took to Hake this precious relic of one of the most wonderful men of the nineteenth century, in order to discuss with him differences between the MS. and the printed text. Hake was writing in his invalid chair,—writing verses. “What does it all matter?” he said. “I do not think you understand Lavengro,” I said. Hake replied, “And yet Lavengro had an advantage over me, for he understood nobody. Every individuality with which he was brought into contact had, as no one knows better than you, to be tinged with colours of his own before he could see it at all.” That, of course, was true enough; and Hake’s asperities when speaking of Borrow in Memoirs of Eighty Years,—asperities which have vexed a good many Borrovians,—simply arose from the fact that it was impossible for two such men to understand each other. When I told him of Mr. Lang’s angry onslaught upon Borrow in his notes to the Waverley Novels, on account of his attacks upon Scott, he said, “Well, does he not deserve it?” When I told him of Miss Cobbe’s description of Borrow as a poseur, he said to me, “I told you the same scores of times. But I saw Borrow had bewitched you during that first walk under the rainbow in Richmond Park. It was that rainbow, I think, that befooled you.” Borrow’s affection for Hake, however, was both strong and deep, as I saw after Hake had gone to Germany and in a way dropped out of Borrow’s ken. Yet Hake was as good a man as ever Borrow was, and for certain others with whom he was brought in contact as full of a genuine affection as Borrow was himself.

Mr. Watts-Dunton refers here to Hake’s asperities when speaking of Borrow. They are very marked in the Memoirs of Eighty Years, and nearly all the stories of Borrow’s eccentricities that have been served up to us by Borrow’s biographers are due to Hake. It is here we read of his snub to Thackeray. “Have you read my Snob Papers in Punch?” Thackeray asked him. “In Punch?” Borrow replied. “It is a periodical I never look at.” He was equally rude, or shall we say Johnsonian, according to Hake, when Miss Agnes Strickland asked him if she might send him her Queens of England. He exclaimed, “For God’s sake don’t, madam; I should not know where to put them or what to do with them.” Hake is responsible also for that other story about the woman who, desirous of pleasing him, said, “Oh, Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!” On which he exclaimed, “Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account books?” Dr. Johnson was guilty of many such vagaries, and the readers of Boswell have forgiven him everything because they are conveyed to them through the medium of a hero-worshipper. Borrow never had a Boswell, and despised the literary class so much that he never found anything in the shape of an apologist until he had been long dead.

I find no letter from Hake to Borrow among my papers, but three to his wife:

Bury St. Edmunds, Jan. 27, ’48. Evening.

My dear Mrs. Borrow,—It gave me great pleasure, as it always does, to see your handwriting; and as respects the subject of your note you may make yourself quite easy, for I believe the idea has crossed no other mind than your own. How sorry I am to learn that you have been so unwell since your visit to us. I hope that by care you will get strong during this bracing weather. I wish that you were already nearer to us, and cannot resign the hope that we shall yet enjoy the happiness of having you as our neighbours. I have felt a strong friendship for Mr. Borrow’s mind for many years, and have ardently wished from time to time to know him, and to have realised my desire I consider one of the most happy events of my life. Until lately, dear Mrs. Borrow, I have had no opportunity of knowing you and your sweet simple-hearted child; but now I hope nothing will occur to interrupt a regard and friendship which I and Mrs. Hake feel most truly towards you all. Tell Mr. Borrow how much we should like to be his Sinbad. I wish he would bring you all and his papers and come again to look about him. There is an old hall at Tostock, which, I hear to-day, is quite dry; if so it is worthy of your attention. It is a mile from the Elmswell station, which is ten minutes’ time from Bury. This hall has got a bad name from having been long vacant, but some friends of mine have been over it and they tell me there is not a damp spot on the premises. It is seven miles from Bury. Mrs. Hake has written about a house at Rougham, but had no answer. The cottage at Farnham is to let again. I know not whether Mr. Harvey will make an effort for it. A little change would do you all good, and we can receive Miss Clarke without any difficulty. Give our kindest regards to your party, and believe me, dear Mrs. Borrow, sincerely yours,

T. G. Hake.