manufactory at St. Maude,” and formerly showman, soldier, galley slave, and highwayman. Of this book the editor says:
“It is not our province or intention to enter into a discussion of the veracity of Vidocq’s “Memoirs”: be they true or false, were they purely fiction from the first chapter to the last, they would, from fertility of invention, knowledge of human nature, and easy style, rank only second to the novels of Le Sage.”
It was certainly with books such as this in his mind that Borrow composed his autobiography, but it goes so much deeper that it is at every point a revelation, usually of actual events and emotions, always of thought and taste. In these “Memoirs” of Vidocq there is a man named Christian, or Caron, with a reputation for removing charms cast on animals, and he takes Vidocq to his Gypsy friends at Malines:
“Having traversed the city, we stopped in the Faubourg de Louvain, before a wretched looking house with blackened walls, furrowed with wide crevices, and many bundles of straw as substitutes for window glasses. It was midnight, and I had time to make my observations by the moonlight, for more than half an hour elapsed before the door was opened by one of the most hideous old hags I ever saw in my life. We were then introduced to a long room where thirty persons of both sexes were indiscriminately smoking and drinking, mingling in strange and licentious positions. Under their blue loose frocks, ornamented with red embroidery, the men wore blue velvet waistcoats with silver buttons, like the Andalusian muleteers; the clothing of the women was all of one bright colour; there were some ferocious countenances amongst them, but yet they were all feasting. The monotonous sound of a drum, mingled with the howling of two dogs tied under the table, accompanied the strange songs, which
I mistook for a funeral psalm. The smoke of tobacco and wood which filled this den, scarcely allowed me to perceive in the midst of the room a woman, who, adorned with a scarlet turban, was performing a wild dance with the most wanton postures.”
Dr. Knapp, on insufficient evidence, attributes the translation to Borrow. But certainly Borrow might have incorporated this passage in his own work almost word for word without justifying a charge either of plagiarism or untruth. Other men had written fiction as if it were autobiography; he was writing autobiography as if it were fiction; he used his own life as a subject for fiction. Ford crudely said that Borrow “coloured up and poetised” his adventures.
CHAPTER XIV—OUT OF LONDON
If Borrow is taken literally, he was at Blackheath on May 12, 1825, sold his “Life of Joseph Sell” on the 20th, and left London on the 22nd. “For some months past I had been far from well, and my original indisposition, brought on partly by the peculiar atmosphere of the Big City, partly by anxiety of mind, had been much increased by the exertions which I had been compelled to make during the last few days. I felt that, were I to remain where I was, I should die, or become a confirmed valetudinarian. I would go forth into the country, travelling on foot, and, by exercise and inhaling pure air, endeavour to recover my health, leaving my subsequent movements to be determined by Providence.”
He says definitely in the appendix to “The Romany Rye,” that he fled from London and hack-authorship for “fear of a consumption.” Walking on an unknown road out of London the “poor thin lad” felt tired at the ninth milestone, and thought of putting up at an inn for the night, but instead took the coach to ---, i.e., Amesbury.
The remaining ninety chapters of “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye” are filled by the story of the next four months of Borrow’s life and by stories told to him during that period. The preceding fifty-seven chapters had sufficed for twenty-two years. “The novelty” of the new itinerant life, says Mr. Thomas Seccombe, [{96}] “graved every