Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration | Page 8

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 upon a round mound or monicle, in the midst of the old city. Steep is this mound and scarped, evidently by the hand of man; a deep gorge, over which is flung a bridge, separates it, on the south, from a broad swell of open ground called "the hill"; of old the scene of many a tournament and feat of Norman chivalry, but now much used as a show place for cattle, where those who buy and sell beeves and other beasts resort at stated