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Knapp says emphatically that Borrow never created a character, and that the originals are easily recognizable to one who thoroughly knows the times and Borrow’s writings. This is true, no doubt, as regards people with whom he was brought into contact at Norwich, and, indeed, generally before the period of his gipsy wanderings.
Indeed, his was one of the most remarkable and romantic literary lives that, since Borrow’s, have been lived in my time. The son of an Archdeacon of Suffolk, he was born in 1851 at Monk Soham Rectory, where, I believe, his father and his grandfather were born, and where they certainly lived; for—as has been recorded in one of the invaluable registry books of my friend Mr.
Although novelists, dramatists, and poets are particularly fond of trying to paint the gipsies, it cannot be said that many of them have been successful in their delineations. And this is because the inner and the outer life of a proscribed race must necessarily be unlike each other. Meg Merrilies is no more a gipsy than is Borrow’s delightful Isopel Berners.
He, himself, was no mean student of the art of self-defence, and there is some ground for believing that the scene between Lavengro and the Flaming Tinman, in which the burly tinker succumbs to the former’s prowess after a warm encounter in the Mumpers’ Dingle, is founded upon an event which occurred during Borrow’s wayward progress through rural England.
Within a few weeks of the publication of the “Bible in Spain,” Borrow’s name was in everyone’s mouth. Attempts were made to “lionise” him; but were met with his distinct disapproval, though it was always a pleasure to him to be looked upon as a celebrity. To escape from the Mrs. Leo Hunters of fashionable society, he almost immediately fled to the Continent, where he went on another pilgrimage.
The worthy Quaker, whose words had the effect of lessening Borrow’s inclination for angling, invited him to Earlham that he might search the library there for any such works as might please and interest him. This was an occupation so much to Borrow’s taste, that we wonder he did not accept the invitation.
The gipsies are extremely close observers; they were very quick to notice how different was Borrow’s bearing towards themselves from his bearing towards people of his own race, and Borrow used to say that “old Mrs. Herne and Leonora were the only gipsies who suspected and disliked him.”
What may be called the Isopel Berners chapter of Borrow’s life was soon to be followed by the “veiled period”—that is to say, the period between the point where ends ‘The Romany Rye’ and the point where the Bible Society engages Borrow. Dr. Knapp’s mind seems a good deal exercised concerning this period.
“From which well-known fact of ornithology,” continues the student, “I am driven to infer that in their choice of habitat nightingales are guided not so much by considerations of latitude as of good taste.” Borrow’s anger is evidently melting away.
After settling down for a time at Norman Cross in Huntingdonshire and in Edinburgh, Captain Borrow retired into private life; but not for long. Elba failed to hold the fiery Corsican, Napoleon again burst upon the battlefield of Europe, the demon of war and ravage was again abroad. Borrow’s corps was levied anew, and his eldest son, John, became one of its officers.
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