The Life of George Borrow

by Herbert George Jenkins

In the autobiographical notes that Borrow supplied to Mr John Longe in 1862 there appears the following passage:—

“At the expiration of his clerkship he knew little of the law, but he was well versed in languages, being not only a good Greek and Latin scholar, but acquainted with French, Italian, Spanish, all the Celtic and Gothic dialects, and likewise with the peculiar language of the English Romany Chals or gypsies.”

At William Taylor’s table Borrow met “the most intellectual and talented men of Norwich, as also those of note who visited the city.” [34c] Taylor was much interested in young men, into whose minds he did not hesitate to instil his own ideas, ideas that not only earned for him the name of “Godless Billy,” but outraged his respectable fellow-citizens as much as did his intemperate habits. “His face was terribly bloated from drink, and he had a look as if his intellect was almost as much decayed as his body,” wrote a contemporary. [35a] “Matters grew worse in his old age,” says Harriet Martineau, “when his habits of intemperance kept him out of the sight of ladies, and he got round him a set of ignorant and conceited young men, who thought they could set the whole world right by their destructive propensities. One of his chief favourites was George Borrow.” [35b] Borrow has given the following convincing picture of Taylor:

“Methought I was in a small, comfortable room wainscotted with oak; I was seated on one side of a fireplace, close by a table on which were wine and fruit; on the other side of the fire sat a man in a plain suit of brown, with the hair combed back from the somewhat high forehead; he had a pipe in his mouth, which for some time he smoked gravely and placidly, without saying a word; at length, after drawing at the pipe for some time rather vigorously, he removed it from his mouth, and emitting an accumulated cloud of smoke, he exclaimed in a slow and measured tone: ‘As I was telling you just now, my good chap, I have always been an enemy of humbug.’” [35c]

William Taylor appears to have flattered “the harum-scarum young men” with whom he surrounded himself by talking to them as if they were his intellectual equals. He encouraged them to form their own opinions, in itself a thing scarcely likely to make him popular with either parents or guardians, least of all with discipline-loving Captain Borrow, who declined even to return the salute of his son’s friend on the public highway.

Borrow now began to look to the future and speculate as to what his present life would lead to. His cogitations seem to have ended, almost invariably, in a gloomy mist of pessimism and despair—in other words, an attack of the “Horrors.” If Mr Petulengro were encamped upon Mousehold, the antidote lay near to hand in his friend’s pagan optimism; if, on the other hand, the tents of Egypt were pitched on other soil, there was no remedy, unless perhaps a prize-fight supplied the necessary stimulus to divert his thoughts from their melancholy trend.

Borrow met at the house of his tutor and friend, in July 1821, Dr Bowring [36a] (afterwards Sir John) at a dinner given in his honour. Bowring had recently published Specimen of Russian Poets, in recognition of which the Czar (Alexander I.) had presented him with a diamond ring. He had a considerable reputation as a linguist, which naturally attracted Borrow to him. Dr Bowring was told of Borrow’s accomplishments, and during the evening took a seat beside him. Borrow confessed to being “a little frightened at first” of the distinguished man, whom he described as having “a thin weaselly figure, a sallow complexion, a certain obliquity of vision, and a large pair of spectacles.” It would be dangerous to accept entirely the account that Borrow gives of the meeting, [36b] because when that was written he had come to hate and despise the man whom he had begun by regarding with such awe. Bowring appears to have ventilated his views with some freedom, and to have had a rather serious passage of arms with another guest whom he had rudely contradicted. It is very probable that Borrow’s dislike of Bowring prompted him to exaggerate his account of what happened at Taylor’s house that evening.

Whilst Borrow was industriously occupied in collecting vagabonds and imbibing the dangerous beliefs of William Taylor, there sat in an easy-chair in the small front-parlour of the little house in Willow Lane, in a faded regimental coat, a prematurely old man, whose frame still showed signs of the magnificent physique of his vigorous manhood. “Sometimes in prayer, sometimes in meditation, and sometimes in reading the Scriptures,” with his dog beside him, Captain Thomas Borrow, now sixty-five, was preparing for the end that he felt to be approaching. He frequently meditated upon what was to become of his younger son George, who held his father in such awe as to feel ill at ease when alone with him.