Borrow’s school era was closed appropriately, says Dr. Knapp, by the mysterious distemper already referred to, which would, he thought, end his life; but as he recovered a career had to be decided upon, and, apparently on the advice of his friend Roger Kerrison, the law was chosen. So on Monday, March 30th, 1819, George Borrow was articled for a term of five years to the highly respectable firm of Simpson & Rackham, whose offices were in Tuck’s Court, St. Giles’s, still occupied by solicitors in the persons of Messrs. Leathes Prior & Son. “So,” says Borrow, “I sat behind a desk many hours in the day, ostensibly engaged in transcribing documents of various kinds. The scene of my labours was a strange old house, occupying one side of a long and narrow court, into which, however, the greater number of the windows looked not, but into an extensive garden, filled with fruit trees, in the rear of a large handsome house, belonging to a highly respectable gentleman.” This was William Simpson, Town Clerk of Norwich from 1826 till his death, in 1834, having succeeded Elisha de Hague, who attested Borrow’s articles. The portraits of both these worthies hang in Blackfriars Hall, that of De Hague by Sir William Beechey, that of Simpson by Thomas Phillips, whose son, H. W. Phillips, painted Borrow’s portrait in 1843: it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844. As articled clerk Borrow
lived at Mr. Simpson’s house in the Upper Close, which has long since disappeared.
Mr. Simpson was a genial and indulgent employer, so probably young Borrow found little to prevent him from bringing Ab Gwilym into company with Blackstone: by adopting the law the ardent young linguist had not ceased to be Lav-engro; indeed, the acquisition of languages was his chief pursuit. He already knew, in a way, Latin, Greek, Irish, French, Italian, Spanish, and what Dr. Knapp calls “the broken jargon” then current in England as gypsy. From a misshapen Welsh groom this queer lawyer’s clerk learned Welsh pronunciation, and to the consternation of his employer, “turned Sir Edward from the door,” and gladly admitted the petty versifier Parkerson who sold his sheets to the highest bidder in the streets; worse even than this was his audacity in contending against a wealthy archdeacon that Ab Gwilym was the superior of Ovid. This gentleman was probably the Rev. John Oldershaw, Archdeacon of Norfolk from 1797 till his death, January 31st, 1847, aged ninety-three. As he was one of the most active magistrates in the county, he would naturally be on friendly terms with so prominent a lawyer as Mr. Simpson, whose handsome wife, moreover, was in the habit of giving entertainments which rather worried her spouse. The episode of the Wake of Freya, included in Chapter XX. of Dr. Knapp’s edition of “Lavengro,” and the fine eulogy of Crome in the succeeding chapter, should inspire every reader’s genuine interest. Here is the memorable Crome passage: “A living master? Why, there he comes! thou hast had him long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that man has attained excellence, destined some day to be acknowledged, though not till he is cold, and his mortal part returned to its kindred clay. He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such as
Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural pieces, with trees which might well tempt the wild birds to perch upon them; thou needest not run to Rome, brother, after pictures of the world, whilst at home there are pictures of England; nor needest thou even go to London, the big city, in search of a master, for thou hast one at home in the old East Anglian town who can instruct thee whilst thou needest instruction. Better stay at home, brother, at least for a season, and toil and strive ’midst groanings and despondency till thou hast attained excellence even as he has done—the little dark man with the brown coat and the top-boots, whose name will one day be considered the chief ornament of the old town, and whose works will at no distant period rank among the proudest pictures of England—and England against the world! thy master, my brother, thy, at present, all too little considered master—Crome.”
Borrow was frankly bored by his experiences in law; he tired of his surroundings, but relaxation came when an old couple gave him a venerable collection of Danish ballads, jetsam of the sea, left with the yeoman and his wife by some shipwrecked red-haired man. This was enough to waken his greedy curiosity, and he at once shook off his listlessness, and set to work to learn Danish, by the aid of a Danish Bible bought of a Muggletonian preacher, who was also a bookseller. In less than a month he was able to read his prize. A correspondent in “Notes and Queries” (April 3rd, 1852) suggested that Borrow confounded Muggleton with Huntington, which, indeed, seems likely enough.
In the old Corporation Library Borrow was enabled to pursue his studies in Scandinavian literature, and having become acquainted with William Taylor, “one of the most extraordinary men that Norwich ever produced,” learned German from him with wonderful rapidity. He was a frequent visitor at Taylor’s house, 21, King Street, which has just been demolished for the extension of some motor works. Though a pronounced Free-thinker, Taylor was a friend of Southey, and gave his young pupil excellent advice. Mr. Elwin once said to me that most of the Norwich antipathetic references to Borrow arose from his waywardness and wildness as a youth, and considered that
there was no evidence that he was ever dissipated or loose in his life. We may largely discount Harriet Martineau’s acid references to Taylor’s harum-scarum young men, especially as she romanced about that very wild young man Polidori, Byron’s erstwhile physician, who, during his stay in Norwich—1817-8—was ever at the Martineaus’ house.
Whatever were the faults of “Godless Billy,” as the Norwich people called Taylor, it was at his table that Borrow met the most intellectual people of Norwich, and of visitors who were amongst Taylor’s admirers. One of these, in July, 1821, was Dr. Bowring (afterwards Sir John), so unjustly and rancorously pilloried in Appendix XI. of “The Romany Rye,” in 1857. Another guest at the same time was Dr. Lewis Evans, physician to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, 1821-50, a hot-tempered Welshman who had served with distinction in Spain during the Peninsular War. In 1823 William Taylor declared that Borrow translated with facility and elegance twenty different languages.