But in 1854 Borrow made one more very serious effort to give his Ballads life. In that year he again took them in hand, subjected many of them to revision of the most drastic nature, and proceeded to prepare them finally for press. Advertisements which he drew up are still extant in his handwriting, and reduced facsimiles of two of these may be seen upon the opposite page. But again Fate was against him, and neither Kœmpe Viser nor Songs of Europe ever saw the light. [0b]
After the death of Borrow his manuscripts passed into the possession of his step-daughter, Mrs. MacOubrey, from whom the greater part were purchased by Mr. Webber, a bookseller of Ipswich, who resold them to Dr. William Knapp. These Manuscripts are now in the hands of the Hispanic Society, of New York, and will doubtless remain for ever the property of the American people. Fortunately, when disposing of the bulk of her step-father’s books and papers to Mr. Webber, Mrs. MacOubrey retained the Manuscripts of the Ballads, together with certain other
documents of interest and importance. It was from these Manuscripts that I was afforded the opportunity of preparing the series of Pamphlets printed last year.
The Manuscripts themselves are of four descriptions. Firstly, the Manuscripts of certain of the new Ballads prepared for the Songs of Scandinavia in 1829, untouched, and as originally written; [0c] secondly, other of these new Ballads, heavily corrected by Borrow in a later handwriting; thirdly, fresh transcripts, with the revised texts, made in or about 1854, of Ballads written in 1829; and lastly some of the more important Ballads originally published in 1826, entirely re-written in 1854, and the text thoroughly revised.
As will be seen from the few examples I have given in the following pages, or better still from a perusal of the pamphlets, the value as literature of Borrow’s Ballads as we now know them is immeasurably higher than that hitherto placed upon them by critics who had no material upon which to form their judgment beyond the Romantic Ballads, Targum, and The Talisman, together with the sets of minor verses included in his other books. Borrow himself regarded his work in this field as superior to that of Lockhart, and indeed seems to have believed that one cause at least of his inability to obtain a hearing was Lockhart’s jealousy for his own Spanish Ballads. Be that as it may—and Lockhart was certainly sufficiently small-minded to render such a suspicion by no means ridiculous
or absurd—I feel assured that Borrow’s metrical work will in future receive a far more cordial welcome from his readers, and will meet with a fuller appreciation from his critics, than that which until now it has been its fortune to secure.
Despite the unctuous phrases which, in obedience to the promptings of the Secretaries of the British and Foreign Bible Society [0d] whose interests he forwarded with so much enterprise and vigor, he was at times constrained to introduce into his official letters, Borrow was at heart a Pagan. The memory of his father that he cherished most warmly was that of the latter’s fight, actual or mythical, with ‘Big Ben Brain,’ the bruiser; whilst the sword his father had used in action was one of his best-regarded possessions. To that sword he addressed the following youthful stanzas, which until now have remained un-printed:
THE SWORD
Full twenty fights my father saw,
And died with twenty red wounds gored;
I heir’d what he so loved to draw,
His ancient silver-handled sword.It is a sword of weight and length,
Of jags and blood-specks nobly full;
Well wielded by his Cornish strength
It clove the Gaulman’s helm and scull.Hurrah! thou silver-handled blade,
Though thou’st but little of the air
Of swords by Cornets worn on p’rade,
To battle thee I vow to bear.Thou’st decked old chiefs of Cornwall’s land,
To face the fiend with thee they dared;
Thou prov’dst a Tirfing in their hand
Which victory gave whene’er ’twas bared.Though Cornwall’s moors ’twas ne’er my lot
To view, in Eastern Anglia born,
Yet I her son’s rude strength have got,
And feel of death their fearless scorn.And when the foe we have in ken,
And with my troop I seek the fray,
Thou’lt find the youth who wields thee then
Will ne’er the part of Horace play.Meanwhile above my bed’s head hang,
May no vile rust thy sides bestain;
And soon, full soon, the war-trump’s clang
Call me and thee to glory’s plain.