“Lavengro: The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest. By George Burrow. With an introduction by Theodore Watts-Dunton. (London: Ward, Lock, and Co., Ltd.) 2s.
“We suppose the publishers find that this sort of literary rubbish, suffused with antediluvian bigotry of the most benighted character, pays: otherwise, no doubt, they would not have issued it as a volume of their ‘New Minerva Library.’ It consists of a twaddling introduction by Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who tells us he has been ‘brought into personal relations with many men of genius,’ and so on ad nauseam, and of a sort of novel by Mr. Burrow, in a palpable imitation of the style of De Foe without a spark of De Foe’s ability. The only thing for which this Mr. Burrow is distinguished is his crass anti-Catholic bigotry; and the terms in which, in one part of the book at least, he refers to the Blessed Virgin are an outrage not merely on the religious feelings of Catholics, but also on ordinary propriety. Catholics, unless they deserve to be treated scornfully, will take note of the fact that such a work as this has been issued by Messrs. Ward and Lock.” To get an idea of the semper eadem of Catholic criticism, the reader should compare with the above the Dublin Review for May 1843, in which the author of the Bible in Spain is described as “a missionary sent out by a gang of conspirators against Christianity who denominate themselves the Bible Society.”
[{37}] The popularity of Lavengro has been rapidly on the increase during the past ten years, if we may judge by the number of editions. It was printed in the Minerva series in 1889, and reprinted 1900. A version of large portions of the work by Duclos appeared in 1892. Macmillans published an edition in 1896, Newnes in 1897. It was included in the “Oxford Library,” 1898. An illustrated edition, an edition produced under the supervision of Dr. Knapp, a miniature edition of Dent’s, and the reprint of the Minerva edition, already referred to, appeared in 1900, apart from booksellers’ reprints such as those of Denny and Mudie.
[{38}] Dr. Jessopp in Daily Chronicle. April 30th, 1900.
[{39a}] Borrow is said to have expressed a desire to meet but three sentient beings: Dan O’Connell, Lamplighter (a racehorse), and Anna Gurney. He was introduced into the presence of the last-mentioned at Sheringham, but so far below the vision was the reality (as must appear) that he turned and ran without stopping till he came to the Old Tucker’s Inn at Cromer (East Anglian tradition).
[{39b}] Mary Clarke, widow, daughter of Edmund Skepper, was wedded to Borrow on April 23rd, 1840. Her daughter, Henrietta, is still living at a great age at Yarmouth. Borrow gives a characteristic account of these two ladies in the first chapter of Wild Wales. “Of my wife I will merely say that she is a perfect paragon of wives—can make puddings and sweets and treacle posset, and is the best woman of business in East Anglia: of my step-daughter, for such she is though I generally call her daughter, and with good reason seeing that she has always shown herself a daughter to me, that she has all kinds of good qualities and several accomplishments, knowing something of conchology, more of botany, drawing capitally in the Dutch style, and playing remarkably well on the guitar—not the trumpery German thing so-called, but the real Spanish guitar.” Borrow’s mother had died in August 1858.
[{40}] This was written in December 1900.
[{43}] There remains only the Appendix. A delightful resumé of grievances brooded over in solitude, cruelly stigmatised by Professor Knapp as “certain posterior interpolations.” The ground base of the theme is the wickedness of popery; and when argument gives out Borrow is ready with all the boyish inconsequence of a Charles Kingsley to throw up his cap and shout ‘Go it, our side!’ ‘Down with the Pope!’
[{49}] Borrow’s personal appearance, as we know from the later portrait by his most intimate friend, Dr. Thomas Gordon Hake, must have been sufficiently striking at any period of his life. “His figure was tall and his bearing very noble. He had a finely moulded head and thick white hair—white from his youth; his brown eyes were soft, yet piercing; his mouth had a generous curve—his nose was somewhat of the Semitic type, which gave his face the cast of a young Memnon.” This is confirmed by the assurance in Lavengro that a famous heroic painter was extremely anxious to secure Don Jorge as a model for the face and figure of Pharaoh!
[{52}] “I am not cunning. If people think I am it is because, being made up of art themselves, simplicity of character is a puzzle to them.”—Romany Rye, chap. xi.