In a chapter on this subject intended to form part of a book on Shelta, never completed, Leland wrote:
“The first or second time I conversed with Borrow was in the British Museum, where he was examining an old Irish manuscript, and made the remark to me that he did not believe there was a man now living who could really read such works. But this Nestor of the Romany ryes, who was indeed a man of marvellous attainments and real genius, was somewhat touched with the common weakness of the old school, that he had mastered many subjects. Thus he positively declared in his ‘Lavo-Lil’ that there are only twelve hundred Anglo-Romany words, when in fact my own manuscript collection actually contains between three and four thousand, all approved as authentic by the late Professor E. H. Palmer. What Borrow would have said had he been told that there were thousands of tinkers now living who spoke the secret language of the bards—which was probably that of the Druids—passes conjecture.” [265]
We should certainly have had a tinker portrait as fine as that of Murtagh, from whom Borrow learned the Irish Gaelic of ordinary commerce. But it is idle to pursue the subject of Borrow’s empiricism. That is a matter which concerns the experts of philology and not the wider world. The important thing is the use which Borrow made of his gypsy knowledge and the fascination he himself exercised over the Romany chalu gypsy men.
While he often affected to approach the subject from the scientist’s point of view, and to lay the Romany language on the dissecting table, what in actual fact attracted him was the picturesque aspect of gypsy life. That is what attracts his readers to-day. His books are fitting companions of the pictures of David Cox and De Wint. Who, looking upon that wonderful drawing by Cox of “Gypsies Crossing a Moor”—a drawing so phenomenally realistic of the effect of wind that the spectator is almost induced to turn up his coat collar—does not recall the description in “The Zincali” of “the hurried march; the women and children, mounted on lean but spirited asses, would scour along the plains fleeter than the wind; ragged and savage-looking men, wielding the scourge and goad, would scamper by their side or close behind . . .”? And there are a score of scenes in “Lavengro” to match the sketches made by De Wint in his visits to the Romany tans (tents)—his glowing yellows, his swarthy faces, and his romantic rags.
The point specially to be observed is that Borrow’s vision of the gypsy race in the early part of the nineteenth century is practically the only one in existence. It has the value of a record, in addition to the value of a picture. Though there are great numbers of gypsies in the British islands, the old order of society known to Borrow has largely broken up. When he knew it, the organisation and status of that society had been unaltered for centuries. Borrow’s gypsies were as esoteric as they had been in 1550, when Andrew Borde, writing his “Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge,” “introduced” as a great discovery a few sentences of Romany, which he described as “Egipt speche,” and drew an uncomplimentary character sketch of the ’Gyptians, to whom he ascribed origin in the land of Rameses: “The people of the country be swarte, and doth go disgised in theyr apparel contrary to other nacions, they be lyght fingerd and use pyking [picking pockets], they have litle manner, and evyl looking, and yet be pleasant dansers.” [267] Even while Borrow’s books were appearing, however, the old gypsy society was disappearing. The enclosure of the English commons had made it hard for them to survive in their original state; the arrival of the railway so altered the whole atmosphere and outlook of the countryside that it became intolerable to them, and vast numbers of the wealthier class, the gryengroes or horse-dealers, with whom Borrow consorted, left for a newer and more simply-organised country on the other side of the Atlantic. Those who remained deteriorated. Gypsy traditions survive. So does the language. But the racial purity has been to a great extent lost by intermarriage among the gypsies, the “tinklers,” and the mumpers; and many of the caravanners on the English roads to-day have very little gypsy blood in their veins. How long any gypsyism at all will combat the onslaughts of the law on the one hand and the motor on the other is a doubtful point. There is a tendency in the one case to impose conditions which make the nomadic life almost impracticable; [268] in the other case, the caravan (in the gypsy sense) is seriously incommoded by the speeding up of road traffic.
Borrow wrote in his autobiography about gypsies as they were in the days before education and petrol had combined against them, when their camps were to be found in lonely lanes and obscure dells, and they rested in the heat of noon by the green roadside. The substantial accuracy of his picture has been amply confirmed. He recorded facts about their habits and their habitat. For some reason he was able to read more deeply into their character than many observers who are not open to the same charge of being unscientific. What he tells us of gypsy pride, love of race, exclusiveness, mutual honour, hostility to the gentiles, faithfulness to their own standards amidst what seems to be degradation and squalor, is perfectly true. It remains as true to-day, indeed, as it was when Borrow wrote, wherever unadulterated gypsy blood is found. He extenuated nothing. Complaint has been made that, on the contrary, he failed to do justice to the better side of the gypsy woman’s character. Mr. Watts-Dunton has pointed this out; and it cannot be denied that the figures of Mrs. Herne and Leonora are horrible enough, grotesquely villainous, and compelling mainly by reason of the baneful magnetism of their unequivocal wickedness. The companion portrait of Ursula should not, however, be overlooked, nor that section of “The Zincali” which he devotes to the vindication of the gitanas’ chastity.
The charm exercised by the gypsies upon Borrow was so strong that he said he did not remember the time when the mere mention of the name failed to awaken within him feelings hard to be described. He knew all the tribes of the East of England from his boyhood—the Smiths, the Pinfolds, Grays, Bosviles,—visited their camps, met them on Mousehold Heath, admired their horse-craft, worshipped the pugilists among them, followed them to fairs and studied their tricks and wiles, learnt their language, and found his way into their confidence. It could only be done because he worked spells upon them much as they worked their enchantment upon him. The tall youth with the white hair and the piercing eyes, who seemed to be more absorbed in their saying and their doing than in any other employment of his life, became one of them whenever he pleased. They, indeed, refused to believe that one so learned in their business was not one of them. Remarking on the fact that in all his intercourse with the tribes in various parts of the world he had never received the least injury from men whose hatred and contempt of the “gorgios” (“gentiles,” or non-gypsies) was inveterate, he said he was “not deceived as to the motive of their forbearance: they thought him a Rom (c.f. page [277]), and on this supposition they hurt him not, their love of ‘the blood’ being their most distinguishing characteristic.” This was the set of circumstances which enabled Borrow to give us sketches of life and character as fine as are to be found within any book-covers: the masterly-limned portrait of Jasper Petulengro, quaintest and most alluring of pagans, and the towering figure of Tawno Chikno, type of gypsy beauty and chivalry. This vision of gypsydom in England is one of Borrow’s finest bequests to his countrymen, if, indeed, its value is not greater than that of anything else he accomplished.
In Spain he pursued the same road. He would turn aside anywhere to talk with a gitano (gypsy), and the gypsy episodes help to flush and enliven the pages of “The Bible in Spain” in a very striking manner. The method he adopted in compiling “The Zincali” has been remarked in an earlier chapter. The reader who cares not at all for Sancho de Moncada will yet find much in the book of curious incident and lively observation. He who is bored to death with Quinones may yet be interested in such a dramatic story as that of the Bookseller of Logrono, and in such a graphic description as that of the forge in the woods, with its gypsy metaphor of the sparks: “More than a hundred lovely daughters I see produced at one time, fiery as roses; in one moment they expire, gracefully circumvolving.” As he tells us in “Lavengro,” Borrow always saw poetry in a forge. But just as he preferred Gronwy Owen to Homer, so he set the vision of the gypsy smithy, under the trees of an English dingle or in a Spanish forest, high above the more grandiose forges of the classic shades in which
“. . . the mighty family
Of one-eyed brothers hasten to the shore,
And gather round the bellowing Polypheme.”
Indeed, he sometimes expressed downright contempt for Vulcan and his minions, though he did not disdain the Cyclopean legend as a literary element in the composition of the scene just mentioned. The traditional trade of the smith is dying out among the gypsies, and the sale of cheap tinpots is a much commoner occupation of their lives than the forging of the petul (horseshoe). Certain aspects of gypsydom described in “The Zincali,” however, are constant, and here it is proposed to notice more particularly Borrow’s remarks bearing on the general and permanent features of Romany character and customs, arts and manners.