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Updated: June 13, 2025
But when Borrow contrives to hear more of the old china collector and of Isopel also from the jockey, and shuffles about the postillion, Murtagh, the Man in Black, and Platitude, and introduces Sir John Bowring for punishment, he makes "The Romany Rye" much inferior to "Lavengro."
If it be true, as it is likely, that Borrow suffered in a more extended manner than he showed in his accounts of the horrors, the time of the suffering is still uncertain. Was it before his first escape from London, as he says in "Lavengro"? Was it during his second long stay in London or after his second escape? Or was it really not long before the actual narrative was written in the 'forties?
Surely you seem to cover vaster spaces with Lavengro, footing it with gipsies or driving his tinker's cart across lonely commons, than with many a globe-trotter or steam-yachtsman with diary or log?
Had it not been for the amazingly clumsy pieces of fiction which he threw into the narrative—such incidents as that of his meeting on the road the sailor son of the old apple-woman of London Bridge, and the exaggerated description of the man sent to sleep by reading Wordsworth—few readers would have doubted the autobiographical nature of ‘Lavengro’ and ‘The Romany Rye.’ Such incidents as these shed an air of unreality over the whole.
There was difference enough, it is true, but still there was a similarity at least I thought so the church, the clergyman, and the clerk, differing in many respects from those of pretty D , put me strangely in mind of them; and then the words! by the bye, was it not the magic of the words which brought the dear enchanting past so powerfully before the mind of Lavengro? for the words were the same sonorous words of high import which had first made an impression on his childish ear in the old church of pretty D .
The unfortunate episode estranged Borrow from Ford. Letters between them became less and less frequent and finally ceased altogether, although Borrow did not forget to send to his old friend a copy of Lavengro when it appeared. Worries seemed to rain down upon Borrow's head about this time.
But if the Borrovian is to lose temper with every one who girds at Borrow he will lead a not very comfortable life. Dr. Knapp has no doubt whatever that ‘Lavengro’ is in the main an autobiography. We have none. The only question is how much Dichtung is mingled with the Wahrheit.
"You can't think how I miss you and our chats by the fireside. The wine, now I am alone, has lost its flavour, and the cigars make me ill. The Eastern Tour considerably interfered with the writing of Lavengro. There was a seven months' break; but Borrow settled down to work on it again, still determined to take his time and produce a book that should be better than The Bible in Spain.
Both of their own accord introduced the subject of Lavengro. The Radical called the writer a grumbler, just as if there had ever been a greater grumbler than himself until, by the means above described, he had obtained a place: he said that the book contained a melancholy view of human nature just as if anybody could look in his face without having a melancholy view of human nature.
Watts thinks, was a very suggestive query of Borrow’s with regard to himself and his work. “That he sat down to write his own life in ‘Lavengro’ I know. He had no idea then of departing from the strict line of fact. Indeed, his letters to his friend, Mr. John Murray, would alone be sufficient to establish this in spite of his calling ‘Lavengro’ a dream.
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