Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration | Page 8

hill slopes
gently down to the margin of the stream. On the right is a green level, a
smiling meadow, grass of the richest decks the side of the slope;
mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the
sun is nigh at its meridian, fling a broad shadow upon the face of the
pool; through yon vista you catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an
old English hall. It has a stately look, that old building, indistinctly seen,
as it is, among those umbrageous trees; you might almost suppose it an
earl's home; and such it was, or rather upon its site stood an earl's home,
in the days of old, for there some old Kemp, some Sigurd, or Thorkild,
roaming in quest of a hearthstead, settled down in the gray old time,
when Thor and Freya were yet gods, and Odin was a portentous name.
Yon old hall is still called the Earl's Home."
It was while fishing in "a sweet rivulet" in the grounds of the old hall
one summer's day that "a voice, clear and sonorous as a bell," asked,
"Canst thou answer to thy conscience for pulling all those fish out of
the water, and leaving them to gasp in the sun?" The speaker was none
other than the learned Friend, Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847), who as

a young man read nearly all the Old Testament in Hebrew in the early
morning. It was natural, therefore, that he should ask the young angler
if he knew Hebrew, having confessed, according to "Lavengro," that he
himself could not read Dante. This is clearly wrong, for writing to
Thomas Fowell Buxton, in 1808, he mentions that he is reading
Sophocles, some Italian, Livy, etc., and in the following year he
informs his sister, Hannah Buxton, that he is engaged, inter alia, on
Apollonius Rhodius, the Greek Testament, and Ariosto.
[Picture: The Strangers' Hall, Norwich. From Painting by Ventnor. Lent
by Mr. E. Peake]
Borrow had good reason to respect and admire the Quakers, as is
evidenced in "Wild Wales" (Chap. CVI.), for when a Methodist called
them "a bad lot," and said he at first thought Borrow was a Methodist
minister (!), and hoped to hear from him something "conducive to
salvation," Borrow's severe answer was: "So you shall. Never speak ill
of people of whom you know nothing. If that isn't a saying conducive
to salvation, I know not what is." It is not very creditable, in my
opinion, that the late Mr. J. B. Braithwaite, in his "Memoirs of J. J.
Gurney" (two volumes, 1854), never once mentions Borrow by name. I
have no doubt, however, that the following passage refers to him:
"'Wilt thou execute a little commission for me at Arch's?' said Joseph
John Gurney, addressing another of his young friends, whom he had
kindly taken one day to dine at his lodgings during the interval between
the sittings of the Yearly Meeting. His young friend, of course, readily
assented. J. J. Gurney wrote a few lines on a slip of paper which he
handed to his young friend, enclosed to his bookseller's; but without
giving to his young companion any intimation of its contents. The note
was duly delivered, and the circumstance was forgotten until, after a
lapse of a few weeks, the young friend, no less to his surprise than to
his delight, received a large parcel, sent to him, as he was informed, at
Joseph John Gurney's request, consisting of thirty volumes, comprising
the Lexicons of Simonis and Schleusner, and the Scholia of the
Rosenmullers (the father and son) on the Old and New Testaments: a
great prize indeed to a youthful student. Many were the instances in
which he thus encouraged, amongst his young friends, a taste for

reading, more especially in those pursuits in which he himself
delighted."
[Picture: Earlham Bridge. From Photograph. Lent by Mr. E. Peake]
Who can wonder at Mr. Clement Shorter's indignation when, in his
address in Norwich on the Borrow Centenary in 1903, after
enumerating many great Norwich people, he endeavoured to show "that
Borrow, the very least of those men and women in public estimation
for a good portion of his life, and perhaps the least in popular judgment
ever since his death, was really the greatest, was really the man of all
others, to whom this beautiful city should do honour if it asks for a
name out of its nineteenth-century history to crown with local
recognition."
In his Tombland Fair chapter is this vivid patch of local colour:
"I was standing on the castle hill in the midst of a fair of horses. I have
already had occasion to mention this castle. It is the remains of what
was once a Norman stronghold, and is perched