‘Lavengro,’ i. 265. Ibid., i. 340. His ‘Celebrated Trials’ was published March 19, 1825. Accounts of this fight, extracted from the Times and Morning Herald, are given in Hone’s ‘Every Day Book,’ vol. i., 1826. References to the attempts of the authorities to suppress this fair will be found in the Times of Tuesday, May 24, 1825, and a description of the fair of 1825 is given in Hone’s ‘Every Day Book’ of the following year (1826). Borrow says ‘two or three days passed by in much the same manner as the first.’ Since one of these days was Sunday, the latter seems the more probable; but if only two days passed, then Borrow must have left London one day later—i.e., Wednesday, May 25, 1825. The fair-town lay, therefore, to the east of Willenhall. For these astronomical calculations I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. W. E. Plummer, of the Liverpool Observatory. ‘Life of Borrow,’ i. 104. His calculation, for instance, gives one day too many at Salisbury, and places the poison episode and the Sunday with the preacher, which were two consecutive days, on the 8th and 12th respectively! This is the date given in Knapp’s ‘Life of Borrow,’ and also as a page heading in his edition of ‘Lavengro,’ p. 289. But in a note to his edition of ‘The Romany Rye,’ p. 385, he says that the fair was ‘on Easter-Monday’ (April 3). Thorpe’s ‘Environs of London,’ p. 48. See chapter xxiv. ‘Life of Borrow,’ i. 103. ‘There were Sells at Norwich; their great artist was John Sell Cotman.’ And there have been Sells elsewhere—nomen omen! to borrow one of Mr. Groome’s favourite quotations. ‘The Romany Rye,’ Appendix, chapter ix. Ibid., Appendix, chapter ii. ‘He eats his own bread, and is one of the very few men in England who are independent in every sense of the word.’ It looks as if he met Jasper by appointment at the Welsh border. But extraordinary rencontres are commonplace in Borrow’s career. He meets the Apple-woman’s Armenian customer and restores his purse, he meets Ardrey as he is leaving London, and later at the inn on the Great North Road, where he also meets the Man in Black, Mr. Platitude, and the Postillion. He meets the Apple-woman’s son after leaving Salisbury, and six days later meets Slingsby, whom he had met as a boy at Tamworth. He meets Mrs. Herne—or, rather, she meets him—in the Shropshire dingle; he meets his Irish friend Murtagh at Horncastle, at the same fair; and in the person of Jack Dale, he meets the pseudo-Quaker’s son, who many years ago had robbed the old Chinese scholar from whom Borrow had just parted. Christmas Day. Irishman. Guineas. Borrow had accompanied the preacher and his wife to the Welsh border, where he meets Mr. Petulengro and turns back. ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 262. Ibid., ii. 263. Ibid., ii. 264. Ibid., chapter x. ‘The Romany Rye,’ chapter xii. Lavengro, ii. 281. ‘Lavengro,’ ed. Knapp, notes, p. 567. ‘“Mumpers’ Dingle,” near Willenhall, Staffordshire. The place is properly Momber or Monmer Lane, and is now occupied by the “Monmer Lane Ironworks,” hence totally obliterated.’ ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 249. See the ‘Gypsy List’ appended to Knapp’s ed. of ‘The Romany Rye.’ ‘Wild Wales,’ iii. 352. ‘Lavengro’ was published February 7, 1851. ‘The earthern jugs out of which the people of Norfolk drink are called gotches.’—Wright: ‘Provincial Dict.’ Barberini. By Gregorio Leti, 2 v., 12°, 1667. Clement XIV., d. 1774. L’Alcoran des Cordeliers: c’est À dire Recueil des plus notables bourdes et blasphÈmes de ceux qui ont osÉ comparer Sainct FranÇois À Jesus Christ; tirÉ du grand livre des conformitez, iadis composÉ par frÈre BarthÉlemi de Pise.—12°, GenÈve, 1578. The British and Foreign Bible Society. Borrow acted as the Society’s agent in Russia and Spain, 1833-1839. Rome. Sir Thomas Dereham, d. 1739. ‘Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence, from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825.’ 6 vols., 8*****************186*********************, published March 19, 1825. I.e. Petulengro, the gypsy word for ‘smith.’ In the autograph MS. ‘Ambrose’ is written throughout (Kn.). Correctly kekaviÁko saster, ‘kettle-prop.’ It should be ‘blanket.’ Plenty of gypsies. Correct. ‘Gentlemen and ladies.’ Let it be. Jade. Borrow is fond of using ‘Roman’ and ‘Roumanian’ in the sense of ‘Romany’; but no gypsy ever does so. Knapp quotes from Borrow’s MSS. the rest of this ditty:
‘Sore the chavies ’dre their ten
Are chories and lubbenies—tatchipen.’
The song may be translated:
There’s a wizard and witch of evil fame,
And Petulengro it is their name;
Within their tent each lass and youth
Is a wanton or thief—I tell you truth.
Tent. See ‘Lavengro,’ i. 158, note. Lady. His real name seems to have been Anselo Herne. See p. 72. Brother. The girl she is black. See p. 182, note. See Introduction. Ibid. Better gaujo, ‘gentile.’ Smiths. Only used by gypsies in the phrase ‘Romani chal.’ According to Knapp, this song was built up from a slender prose draft, three separate versions of it occurring in his MSS. ‘People.’ Not Anglo Romani. The English gypsies use the loan word foki. Better trupos. Better raati. For hotcher, ‘to burn,’ but the right word for ‘roast’ is pek. Boshimengro, fiddler. Tarni juvel, ‘young woman.’ The apothecary. Lit., entrail. The best of Borrow’s songs, here or elsewhere. Knapp gives no account of it, but the Romani is evidently Borrow’s own, and does not admit of our taking it for a modernization of a genuine old gypsy song. Imitating the uncouth lilt of the original, this piece may be translated:
Said the gipsy girl to her mother dear,
‘O mother dear, a sad load I bear.’
‘And who gave thee that load to bear,
My gypsy girl, my own daughter dear?’
‘O mother dear, ’twas a lord so proud,
A lord so rich of gentile blood,
That on a mettled stallion rode—
’Twas he gave me this heavy load.’
‘Thou harlot young, thou harlot vile,
Begone! my tent no more defile;
Had gypsy seed within thee sprung,
No angry word had left my tongue,
But thou art a harlot base and lewd,
To stain thyself with gentile blood!’
Pronounced chy, ‘girl.’ Better kabni, ‘enceinte.’ ‘What,’ incorrectly for kon, ‘who.’ Better barvalo, ‘rich.’ Lit., ‘what’s,’ incorrectly for te, ‘that.’ Read kister’d, ‘rode.’ Better jal, ‘go.’ Better avri, ‘out.’ Pronounced chee, ‘nothing.’ Read gorjiko. Incorrectly for baulay, ‘pigs.’ Better balovas, ‘pigmeat.’ Lit., ‘sweet bee.’ ‘Tell their fortunes,’ but no gypsy would say anything except dukker lende. Jasper’s real name. See p. 29 note. King. Book. See Introduction. East Dereham. Better krallis, ‘king.’ See Introduction. ‘Cuckooing,’ a made-up word. Fortune-telling. Authorship. Ghost (Borrovian Gy.). See ‘Lavengro,’ i. 139. Lady. Cf. ‘King Lear,’ II. iv. 56:
‘O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy elements below!’
Gypsy girls. ‘My God’s book,’ the Bible. Steal. Better hokker, ‘lie.’ Harlot. God. Kiss. Uncles. Father (Spanish Gy.); the true word is dad. Law (Spanish Gy.). Enceinte. Uncles and brothers. Tent. Generally speaking, there is no purer gypsy clan than the Hernes. Read ‘Boswell.’ See pp. 261-264. Fighting-man. Hill-town, i.e., Norfolk. July 17, 1820. See ‘Lavengro,’ chap. xxvi. Lovell. Better pokonyes, ‘justice of the peace.’ Bow Street runners—Gy. prastermengre. Better patrin; the use of this word in the proper sense of ‘leaf’ is not so rare among English gypsies. Gypsies nowadays are generally married in church. They like the pomp. Simpson, member of the firm of Simpson and Rackham, Norwich, where Borrow served his articles. See pp. 88, 147, 164, and Introduction; ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 44, et seq. Good. ‘Dictionarium novum Latino-Armenium.’ Fo., RomÆ, 1714. Borrow quotes this sentence, with an added expletive, in his ‘Romano Lavo-Lil,’ p. 110. Borrow places these words on the title-page of the present book. A right-handed blow. See ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 289. Rather late for an Easter vestry meeting! Properly sar ’shan, ‘how art thou?’ By God (Borrovian Romani). Wordsworth’s. ‘The Excursion.’ The Swan Hotel at Stafford. In ‘Lavengro,’ ii. 386, the inn is described as upwards of thirty miles distant from the dingle, on the great North road. Louis Jeremiah Abershaw, hanged on Kennington Common, August 3, 1795. The Bald-faced Stag near Kingston was his headquarters. See Introduction.
See Camden Pelham’s ‘Life and Adventures of Galloping Dick.’ Philadelphia, 1863. See p. 27, note. Gaol (cant). I.e., highwayman. John Broughton, pugilist (1705-1789). April 11, 1750. At Broughton’s funeral Johnson and Big Ben acted as his pall-bearers, with Humphries, Mendoza, Ward, and Ryan. His real name was Francis Arden (Kn.). Liverpool. Chester. See ‘Lavengro,’ i. 399; ii. 57. See Introduction. Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawah, Borrow’s old school-fellow at Norwich (1816-1818). Probably meant for ‘gypsydom,’ but properly old cant for ‘London.’ Rome is here Shelta, or Gaelic back-slang for mor, ‘great.’ ‘The girl she is black,
She lies on her back.’
which looks like a translation of some English ditty. Sham sailors (old cant). Fair, straightforward (dialect). See after, in the jockey’s tale, p. 252. See Introduction. Donkey-boy. Transported. See Introduction. A witch hag. See Ralston’s ‘Russian Folk tales,’ pp. 137, 399. In Hungarian gypsy, properly gulo rai, ‘sweet sir.’ German cant. The English rogue described in ‘The Life of Meriton Latroon,’ a witty extravagant [by Richard Head], 4 vols. London, 1665-80. Mistress (cant). I.e., mathematics. John Thurtell, Borrow’s old Norwich crony, 1817-20, hanged at Hertford, January 9, 1824, for the murder of William Weare. Hertford. July 17, 1820, at North Walsham, Norfolk. See ‘Lavengro.’ Cf. the lines from a song which Borrow may have heard in Ireland:
‘And by this time to-morrow you’ll see
Your Larry will be dead as mutton.
All for what? ’Caze his courage was good!’
Thimble-rigger. Greenwich fair. See Introduction and ‘Lavengro,’ vol. ii., p. 22. Borrow really heard this tale in Cornwall, from the guide Cronan, in January, 1854. Tipperary. Civita Vecchia. The Duke d’AngoulÊme. South. Boston. Spalding. We first hear of this Appendix in a letter to Murray, dated Nov. 11, 1852, in which Borrow expresses his intention of ‘adding some notes’ to the present work. The result is this extraordinary ‘Malebolgia,’ as Professor Knapp terms it, into which Borrow has thrust all those who had incurred his ill-will, even for the most trivial of reasons. His enmity with Rome dates from his Spanish experiences as colporteur of the Bible Society in 1838 and 1839. ‘Mr. Flamson’ is placed in the pillory, because he had offended Borrow by carrying a railway line through his Oulton grounds; and Scott, apparently for no better reason than his neglect to acknowledge a presentation copy of the ‘Romantic Ballads.’ The ‘Lord-Lieutenant’ experiences Borrow’s resentment because he did not see his way to making ‘Lavengro’ a magistrate; and the ‘Old Radical’ is gibbeted because he obtained an official position which Borrow desired for himself. Twenty. George Borrow was born July, 1803, and his father died February, 1824. Borrovian for ‘gypsydom.’ ‘Canning (1827),’ (Kn.). Ibid. ‘Viscount Goderich’ (Kn.). Little Father (Russian). The full text and translation of this pointless little song are given in the ‘Romano Lavo-lil,’ pp. 200, 201. This was written in 1854. (G.B.) An obscene oath. (G.B.) See ‘Muses’ Library,’ pp. 86, 87. London, 1738 (G. B.). Reprinted from the original edition in the Early English Text Society (1870). Genteel with them seems to be synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo; if so, the manner in which it has been applied for ages ceases to surprise, for genteel is heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold, glittering armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and lust, should always be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls the Baron genteel:
‘La furent li gentil Baron,’ etc.
And he certainly could not have applied the word better than to the strong Norman thief, aimed cap-À-pie, without one particle of ruth or generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility, that is heathenism, should have no such feelings; and, indeed, the admirers of gentility seldom or never associate any such feelings with it. It was from the Norman, the worst of all robbers and miscreants, who built strong castles, garrisoned them with devils, and tore out poor wretches’ eyes, as the Saxon Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word genteel. What could ever have made the English such admirers of gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during three hundred years, they suffered enough by it. Their genteel Norman landlords were their scourgers, their torturers, the plunderers of their homes, the dishonourers of their wives, and the deflowerers of their daughters. Perhaps, after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility. (G.B.) Sir Samuel Morton Peto (1809-89), M.P. for Norwich, 1847-54. Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened minds associate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody can be genteel. (G.B.) A favourite figure of Carlyle’s, but both he and Borrow took the mot from a report of Thurtell’s trial: Q. ‘What do you mean by respectable?’ A. ‘He kept a gig.’ Perry. (Kn.) Gorgiko, ‘gentile,’ used here as a nickname. The writer has been checked in print by the Scotch with being a Norfolk man. Surely, surely, these latter times have not been exactly the ones in which it was expedient for Scotchmen to check the children of any county in England with the place of their birth, more especially those who have had the honour of being born in Norfolk—times in which British fleets, commanded by Scotchmen, have returned laden with anything but laurels from foreign shores. It would have been well for Britain had she had the old Norfolk man to dispatch to the Baltic or the Black Sea, lately, instead of Scotch admirals. (G. B.) The ‘whiffler’ was the official sword-flourisher of the Corporation. Tom Cribb (1781-1848), champion pugilist. Thomas Winter (1795-1851), pugilist. See Introduction. Harman-beck, ‘constable’ (old cant); modern slang, beak. As the present work will come out in the midst of a vehement political contest, people may be led to suppose that the above was written expressly for the time. The writer, therefore, begs to state that it was written in the year 1854. He cannot help adding that he is neither Whig, Tory, nor Radical, and cares not a straw what party governs England, provided it is governed well. But he has no hopes of good government from the Whigs. It is true that amongst them there is one very great man, Lord Palmerston, who is indeed the sword and buckler, the chariots and the horses of the party; but it is impossible for his lordship to govern well with such colleagues as he has—colleagues which have been forced upon him by family influence, and who are continually pestering him into measures anything but conducive to the country’s honour and interest. If Palmerston would govern well, he must get rid of them; but from that step, with all his courage and all his greatness, he will shrink. Yet how proper and easy a step it would be! He could easily get better, but scarcely worse, associates. They appear to have one object in view, and only one—jobbery. It was chiefly owing to a most flagitious piece of jobbery, which one of his lordship’s principal colleagues sanctioned and promoted, that his lordship experienced his late parliamentary disasters (G. B.). The Cato Street conspirators, a reminiscence of Borrow’s ‘Celebrated Trials.’ Sir John Bowring. William Taylor of Norwich. ‘Specimens of the Russian Poets,’ translated by John Bowring. 12mo., London, 1821. A fact (G. B.). Southey. Aberdeen. China. Manchu New Testament.
