Borrow was by no means the first Romany Rye. From Andrew Boorde (15th-16th Century) down the centuries they are to be found, even to our day, in the persons of Mr Theodore Watts-Dunton and Mr John Sampson; but Borrow was the first to bring the cult of Gypsyism into popularity. Before he wrote, the general view of Gypsies was that they were uncomfortable people who robbed the clothes-lines and hen-roosts, told fortunes and incidentally intimidated the housewife if unprotected by man or dog. Borrow changed all this. The suspicion remained, so strongly in fact that he himself was looked at askance for consorting with such vagabonds; but with the suspicion was more than a spice of interest, and the Gypsies became epitomised and immortalised in the person of Jasper Petulengro. Borrow’s Gypsyism was as unscientific as his “philology.” Their language, their origin he commented on without first acquainting himself with the literature that had gathered round their name. Francis Hindes Groome, “that perfect scholar-gypsy and gypsy-scholar,” wrote:—
“The meagreness of his knowledge of the Anglo-Gypsy dialect came out in his Word Book of the Romany (1874); there must have been over a dozen Englishmen who have known it far better than he. For his Spanish-Gypsy vocabulary in The Zincali he certainly drew largely either on Richard Bright’s Travels through Lower Hungary or on Bright’s Spanish authority, whatever that may have been. 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. And yet I would put George Borrow above every other writer on the Gypsies. In Lavengro and, to a less degree, in its sequel, The Romany Rye, he communicates a subtle insight into Gypsydom that is totally wanting in the works—mainly philological—of Pott, Liebich, Paspati, Miklosich, and their confrères.” [340a]
Groome was by no means partial to Borrow, as a matter of fact he openly taxed him [340b] with drawing upon Bright’s Travels in Hungary (Edinburgh 1819) for the Spanish-Romany Vocabulary, and was strong in his denunciation of him as a poseur.
Borrow scorned book-learning. Writing to John Murray, Junr. (21st Jan. 1843), about The Bible in Spain, he says, “I was conscious that there was vitality in the book and knew that it must sell. I read nothing and drew entirely from my own well. I have long been tired of books; I have had enough of them,” [340c] he wrote later, and this, taken in conjunction with another sentence, viz., “My favourite, I might say my only study, is man,” [340d] explains not only Borrow’s Gypsyism, but also his casual philology. Languages he mostly learned that he might know men. In youth he read—he had to do something during the long office hours, and he read Danish and Welsh literature; but he did not trouble himself much with the literary wealth of other countries, beyond dipping into it. He had a brain of his own, and preferred to form theories from the knowledge he had acquired first hand, a most excellent thing for a man of the nature of George Borrow, but scarcely calculated to advance learning. He hated anything academic.
“I cannot help thinking,” he wrote, “that it was fortunate for myself, who am, to a certain extent, a philologist, that with me the pursuit of languages has been always modified by the love of horses . . . I might, otherwise, have become a mere philologist; one of those beings who toil night and day in culling useless words for some opus magnum which Murray will never publish and nobody ever read—beings without enthusiasm, who, having never mounted a generous steed, cannot detect a good point in Pegasus himself.” [341]
This quotation clearly explains Borrow’s attitude towards philology. As he told the émigré priest, he hoped to become something more than a philologist.
There was nothing in the sale of The Zincali to encourage Borrow to proceed with the other books he had partially prepared. Nearly seven weeks after publication, scarcely three hundred copies had been sold. In the spring of the following year (18th March) John Murray wrote: “The sale of the book has not amounted to much since the first publication; but in recompense for this the Yankees have printed two editions, one for twenty pence complete.” As Borrow did not benefit from the sale of American editions, the news was not quite so comforting as it would have been had it referred to the English issue.
CHAPTER XXII
APRIL 1841–MARCH 1844
During his wanderings in Portugal and Spain Borrow had carried out his intention of keeping a journal, from which on several occasions he sent transcriptions to Earl Street instead of recapitulating in his letters the adventures that befell him. Many of his letters went astray, which is not strange considering the state of the country. The letters and reports that Borrow wrote to the Bible Society, which still exist, may be roughly divided as follows:—
| From his introduction until the end of the Russian expedition | 17.50 |
| Used for The Bible in Spain | 30.00 |
| Others written during the Spanish and Portuguese periods and not used for The Bible in Spain | 52.50 |
| 100.00 |