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The British Minister complained that every step that he had taken for Borrow's protection was followed by fresh insult, and he further intimated that Borrow refused to leave the prison until his character had been publicly cleared. The Spanish Government now found itself in a quandary.
It is unlikely that he asked for the book in order to prevent a review appearing in The Edinburgh, as has been suggested. In the Preface, Lavengro is described as a dream; yet there can be not a vestage of doubt that Borrow's original intention had been to acknowledge it as an autobiography. This work is a kind of biography in the Robinson Crusoe style, he had written in 1844.
Borrow's scattered notes would perhaps never have been published in his lifetime, but for an accident. In 1870 Charles Godfrey Leland, author of "Hans Breitmann," introduced himself to Borrow as one who had read "The Zincali," "Lavengro," and "The Romany Rye," five times. Borrow answered that he would be pleased to see him at any time.
Here it is easy to notice how the uncolloquial and even ugly English does not destroy the illusion of the scene, but entirely subserves it and makes these two or three pages fine painter's work for richness and still drama. I have not forgotten the Man in Black, though I gladly would. Not that I am any more in sympathy with his theology than Borrow's, if it is more interesting and venerable.
It had become necessary for him to earn his own livelihood. Captain Borrow's pension had ceased with his death, and the old soldier's savings of a lifetime were barely sufficient to produce an income of a hundred pounds a year for his widow.
"Should John return home," he warns her, "by no means let him go near the Bible Society, for he would not do for them." Borrow's reply to the Literary Superintendent's kindly worded admonition was entirely satisfactory and "in harmony with the rule laid down by Christ himself."
He speaks himself of being traduced by malice, persecuted by faction, abandoned by false patrons, complaints which will remind the reader, perhaps, of George Borrow's "Jeremiad," to the effect that he had been beslavered by the venomous foam of every sycophantic lacquey and unscrupulous renegade in the three kingdoms.
In addition to this, the only other Manchu characters in St Petersburg belonged to Baron Schilling, who possessed a small fount of the type, which he used "for the convenience of printing trifles in that tongue," as Borrow phrased it. This was to be put at Borrow's disposal if necessary; but first the type at the Sarepta House had to be examined.
He had two sons who must be appropriately sent out into the world, and Norwich offered facilities for educating both. He accordingly took a small house in Willow Lane, to which access was obtained by a covered passage then called King's, but now Borrow's Court.
He was now a man, with a wife, a child, and also a mother-in- law, who took a violent dislike to the tall, fair-haired gorgio. Borrow's life was much broadened by his intercourse with Mr Petulengro.