Isopel Berners | Page 5

Borrovian picaro). But, above all, as one follows the
author through the mazes of his book, one is conscious of two strangely
assorted figures, never far from the itinerant's side, and always ready to
improve the occasion if a shadow of an opportunity be afforded. One,
who is prolific of philological chippings, might be compared to a
semblance of Max Muller; while the other, alternately denouncing the
wickedness and deriding the toothlessness of a grim Giant Pope, may
be likened, at a distance, to John Bunyan. About the whole--to
conclude--is an atmosphere, not too pronounced, of the Newgate
Calendar, and a few patches of sawdust from the Prize Ring. May not
people well have wondered (the good pious English folk to whom Luck
is a scandal, as the Bible Society's secretary wrote to Borrow),--what
manner of man is this, this muleteer-missionary, this natural man with a
pen in the hand of a prize-fighter, but of a prize-fighter who is afflicted
with the fads of a philologer--and a pedant at that? The surprise may be
compared to what that of a previous generation would have been, had it
seen Johnson and Boswell and Baretti all fused into one man. The
incongruity is heightened by familiarity with Borrow's tall, blonde,
Scandinavian figure, and the reader is reminded of those roving

Northmen of the days of simple mediaeval devotion, who were wont to
signalise their conversion from heathen darkness by a Mediterranean
venture, combining the characters of a piratical cruise and a pious
pilgrimage.
That Curiosity exaggerated and was a marvel-monger we shall attempt
to demonstrate. But, in the meantime, it was there, and it was very
strong. As for Borrow, he was prepared to derive stimulus from it just
as long as it maintained the unquestioning attitude of Jasper Petulengro
when he expressed the sentiments of gipsydom in the well-worn "Lor',
brother, how learned you are!"
In February 1843 Borrow wrote to Murray that he had begun his Life--a
"kind of biography in the Robinson Crusoe style,"--and was determined
that it should surpass anything that he had already written. It had been
contemplated, he added, for some months already, as a possible sequel
to the Bible in Spain if that proved successful. Hitherto, he wrote, the
public had said "Good" (to his Gypsies of Spain, 1841), "Better" (to the
Bible in Spain), and he wanted it, when No. 3 appeared, to say "Best."
Five years rapidly passed away, until, in the summer of 1848, the book
was announced as about to appear shortly, under the title of Lavengro:
An Autobiography, which was soon changed to Life: a Drama. The
difficulty of writing a book which should have "no humbug in it,"
proved, as may well be supposed, immense, and would in any case be
quite sufficient to account for the long period of gestation. His
perplexities may have often been very near akin to those ascribed to the
superstitious author in the sixty-fifth chapter of Lavengro; his desire to
be original sadly cramping the powers of his mind, his fastidiousness
being so great that he invariably rejected whatever ideas he did not
consider to be legitimately his own. As a substitute for the usual
padding of humbug, sycophancy and second-hand ideas, he bethought
himself of philology, and he set himself to spring fragments of
philological instruction (often far from sound) upon his reader in the
most unexpected places, that his ingenuity could devise. He then began
to base hopes upon the book in proportion to its originality. At the last
moment, however, the Author grew querulous about his work,
distrustful of the reception that would be given to it, and even as to the

advisability of producing it at all. Much yet remained to be done, but
for a long time he refused, not only to forward new copy to Albemarle
Street, but even to revise the proofs of that which he had already
written, and it required all the dunning that Murray and the printer
Woodfall dare apply before Lavengro with its altered sub-title (for at
the last moment Borrow grew afraid of openly avowing his identity
with the speaking likeness which he had created) could be announced
as "just ready" in the Athenaeum of Dec. 14th, 1850.
Lavengro; the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest, eventually appeared in
three volumes on Feb. 7th, 1851. The autobiographical Lavengro
stopped short in July 1825, at the conclusion of the hundredth chapter,
with an abruptness worthy of the Sentimental Journey. The Author had
succeeded in extending the area of mystery, but not in satisfying the
public. Borrow's confidences were so very different in complexion
from those which the critics seemed to have expected, that they were
taken aback and declared to the public almost with one accord that the
writer's eccentricities had developed into mannerisms, that