“Lavengro” in 1851 and “The Romany Rye” in 1857 failed to impress the critics or the public. Men were disappointed because “Lavengro” was “not an autobiography.” They said that the adventures did not bear “the impress of truth.” They suggested that the anti-Papistry was “added and interpolated to suit the occasion of the recent Papal aggression.” They laughed at its mystery-making. They said that it gave “a false dream in the place of reality.” Ford regretted that Borrow had “told so little about himself.” Two friends praised it and foretold long life for it. Whitwell Elwin in 1857 said that “the truth and vividness of the descriptions both of scenes and persons, coupled with the purity, force and simplicity of the language, should confer immortality upon many of its pages.” “The Saturday Review” found that he had humour and romance, and that his writing left “a general impression of the scenery and persons introduced so strongly vivid and life-like,” that it reminded them of Defoe rather than of any contemporary author; they called the books a “strange cross between a novel and an autobiography.” In 1857 also, Émile MontÉgut wrote a study of “The Gypsy Gentleman,” which he published in his “Ecrivains Modernes de l’Angleterre.” He said that Borrow had revived a neglected literary form, not artificially, but as being the natural frame for the scenes of his wandering life: he even went so far as to say that the form and manner of the picaresque or rogue novel, like “Gil Blas,” is the inevitable one for pictures of the low and vagabond life. This form, said he, Borrow adopted not deliberately but intuitively, because he had a certain attitude to express: he rediscovered it, as Cervantes and Mendoza invented it, because it was the most appropriate clothing for his conceptions. Borrow had, without any such ambition, become the Quevedo and the Mendoza of modern England.

The autobiography resembles the rogue novel in that it is well peppered with various isolated narratives strung upon the thread of the hero’s experience. It differs chiefly in that the study of the hero is serious and without roguery. The conscious attempt to make it as good as a rogue novel on its own ground caused some of the chief faults of the book, the excess of recognitions and re-appearances, the postillion’s story, and the visits of the Man in Black.

When Borrow came to answer his critics in the Appendix to “The Romany Rye,” he assumed that they thought him vulgar for dealing in Gypsies and the like. He retorted:

“Rank, wealth, fine clothes and dignified employments, are no doubt very fine things, but they are merely externals, they do not make a gentleman, they add external grace and dignity to the gentleman and scholar, but they make neither; and is it not better to be a gentleman without them than not a gentleman with them? Is not Lavengro, when he leaves London on foot with twenty pounds in his pocket, entitled to more respect than Mr. Flamson flaming in his coach with a million? And is not even the honest jockey at Horncastle, who offers a fair price to Lavengro for his horse, entitled to more than the scroundrel lord, who attempts to cheat him of one-fourth of its value. . . .”

He might have said the books were a long tract to prove that many waters cannot quench gentlemanliness, or “once a gentleman always a gentleman.” As a rule, when Borrow gets away from life and begins to think about it, he ceases to be an individual and becomes a tame and entirely convenient member of society, fit for the Commission of the Peace or a berth at the British Museum. After he has made £20 by pen-slavery and saved himself from serious poverty, he exclaims:

“Reader, amidst the difficulties and dangers of this life, should you ever be tempted to despair, call to mind these latter chapters of the life of Lavengro. There are few positions, however difficult, from which dogged resolution and perseverance may not liberate you.”

When he comes to discuss his own work he says that “it represents him, however, as never forgetting that he is the son of a brave but poor gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. It shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the curiosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance with the man of the table, for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one, is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a week, even as Johnson is said to have written his ‘Rasselas,’ and Beckford his ‘Vathek,’ and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself to the roads and fields.

“In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming tinker, Gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange characters, or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of Chapter XLVII., which terminates the first part of the history, it hints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological expedition.

“Those who read this book with attention—and the author begs to observe that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly—may derive much information with respect to matters of philology and literature; it will be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland to China, and of the literature which they contain. . . .”

Away from the dingle and Jasper his view of life is as follows—ale, Tate and Brady, and the gloves:

“But, above all, the care and providence of God are manifested in the case of Lavengro himself, by the manner in which he is enabled to make his way in the world up to a certain period, without falling a prey either to vice or poverty. In his history there is a wonderful illustration of part of the text quoted by his mother, ‘I have been young, and now am old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread.’ He is the son of good and honourable parents, but at the critical period of life, that of entering into the world, he finds himself without any earthly friend to help him, yet he manages to make his way; he does not become a Captain in the Life Guards, it is true, nor does he get into Parliament, nor does the last chapter conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, Gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings of honour; and when the reader loses sight of him, he has money in his pocket honestly acquired, to enable him to commence a journey quite as laudable as those which the younger sons of earls generally undertake. Surely all this is a manifestation of the kindness and providence of God: and yet he is not a religious person; up to the time when the reader loses sight of him, he is decidedly not a religious person; he has glimpses, it is true, of that God who does not forsake him, but he prays very seldom, is not fond of going to church; and, though he admires Tate and Brady’s version of the Psalms, his admiration is rather caused by the beautiful poetry which that version contains than the religion; yet his tale is not finished—like the tale of the gentleman who touched objects, and that of the old man who knew Chinese without knowing what was o’clock; perhaps, like them, he is destined to become religious, and to have, instead of occasional glimpses, frequent and distinct views of his God; yet, though he may become religious, it is hardly to be expected that he will become a very precise and strait-laced person; it is probable that he will retain, with his scholarship, something of his Gypsyism, his predilection for the hammer and tongs, and perhaps some inclination to put on certain gloves, not white kid, with any friend who may be inclined for a little old English diversion, and a readiness to take a glass of ale, with plenty of malt in it, and as little hop as may well be—ale at least two years old—with the aforesaid friend, when the diversion is over; for, as it is the belief of the writer that a person may get to heaven very comfortably without knowing what’s o’clock, so it is his belief that he will not be refused admission there because to the last he has been fond of healthy and invigorating exercises, and felt a willingness to partake of any of the good things which it pleases the Almighty to put within the reach of His children during their sojourn upon earth.”

It is quite evident then that Borrow does not advocate the open air, the tinkers’ trade, and a-roving-a-roving, for the sons of gentlemen. It is not apparent that the open air did his health much good. As for tinkering, it was, he declares, a necessity and for lack of anything better to do, and he realised that he was only playing at it. When he was looking for a subject for his pen he rejected Harry Simms and Jemmy Abershaw because both, though bold and extraordinary men, were “merely highwaymen.”

On the other hand, when he has known a “bad man” he cannot content himself with mere disapproval. Take, for example, his friends the murderers, Haggart and Thurtell. He shows Haggart as an ambitious lad too full of life, “with fine materials for a hero.” He calls the fatalist’s question: “Can an Arabian steed submit to be a vile drudge?”—nonsense, saying: “The greatest victory which a man can achieve is over himself, by which is meant those unruly passions which are not convenient to the time and place.” Then he exclaims:

“But peace to thee, poor David! why should a mortal worm be sitting in judgment over thee? The Mighty and Just One has already judged thee, and perhaps above thou hast received pardon for thy crimes, which could not be pardoned here below; and now that thy feverish existence has closed, and thy once active form become inanimate dust, thy very memory all but forgotten, I will say a few words about thee, a few words soon also to be forgotten. Thou wast the most extraordinary robber that ever lived within the belt of Britain; Scotland rang with thy exploits, and England, too, north of the Humber; strange deeds also didst thou achieve when, fleeing from justice, thou didst find thyself in the sister Isle; busy wast thou there in town and on curragh, at fair and race-course, and also in the solitary place. Ireland thought thee her child, for who spoke her brogue better than thyself?—she felt proud of thee, and said, ‘Sure, O’Hanlon is come again.’ What might not have been thy fate in the far west in America, whither thou hadst turned thine eye, saying, ‘I will go there, and become an honest man!’ But thou wast not to go there, David—the blood which thou hadst shed in Scotland was to be required of thee; the avenger was at hand, the avenger of blood. Seized, manacled, brought back to thy native land, condemned to die, thou wast left in thy narrow cell, and told to make the most of thy time, for it was short; and there, in thy narrow cell, and thy time so short, thou didst put the crowning stone to thy strange deeds, by that strange history of thyself, penned by thine own hand in the robber tongue. Thou mightest have been better employed, David!—but the ruling passion was strong with thee, even in the jaws of death. Thou mightest have been better employed!—but peace be with thee, I repeat, and the Almighty’s grace and pardon.”

He makes the jockey speak in the same fashion of Thurtell whom he went to see hanged, according to an old agreement:

“I arrived at H--- just in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail—the scaffold—and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, ‘God Almighty bless you, Jack!’ The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me—for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see—nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, ‘All right, old chap.’ The next moment . . . my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a scrape whilst in the Marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had. But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge; for example, he never bribed Tom Oliver to fight cross, as it was said he did, on the day of the awful thunderstorm. Ned Flatnose fairly beat Tom Oliver, for though Ned was not what’s called a good fighter, he had a particular blow, which if he could put in he was sure to win. His right shoulder, do you see, was two inches farther back than it ought to have been, and consequently his right fist generally fell short; but if he could swing himself round, and put in a blow with that right arm, he could kill or take away the senses of anybody in the world. It was by putting in that blow in his second fight with Spring that he beat noble Tom. Spring beat him like a sack in the first battle, but in the second Ned Painter—for that was his real name—contrived to put in his blow, and took the senses out of Spring; and in like manner he took the senses out of Tom Oliver.

“Well, some are born to be hanged, and some are not; and many of those who are not hanged are much worse than those who are. Jack, with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord, who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of his value, without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged, and probably will remain so. You ask the reason why, perhaps. I’ll tell you: the lack of a certain quality called courage, which Jack possessed in abundance, will preserve him; from the love which he bears his own neck he will do nothing that can bring him to the gallows.”

Isopel Berners, with Moses and David in her mind, expresses Borrow’s private opinion more soberly when she says:

“Fear God, and take your own part. There’s Bible in that, young man; see how Moses feared God, and how he took his own part against everybody who meddled with him. And see how David feared God, and took his own part against all the bloody enemies which surrounded him—so fear God, young man, and never give in! The world can bully, and is fond, provided it sees a man in a kind of difficulty, of getting about him, calling him coarse names, and even going so far as to hustle him; but the world, like all bullies, carries a white feather in its tail, and no sooner sees the man taking off his coat, and offering to fight its best, than it scatters here and there, and is always civil to him afterwards. So when folks are disposed to ill-treat you, young man, say ‘Lord, have mercy upon me!’ and then tip them Long Melford, to which, as the saying goes, there is nothing comparable for shortness all the world over.”

The Green, Long Melford, Suffolk. Photo: C. F. Emeny, Sudbury

He had probably a natural inclination towards a liberal or eccentric morality, but he was no thinker, and he gave way to a middle-class phraseology—with exceptions, as when he gives it as the opinion of his old master, the Norwich solicitor, that “all first-rate thieves were sober, and of well-regulated morals, their bodily passions being kept in abeyance by their love of gain.” Sometimes Borrow allows these two sides of him, his private and his social sides, to appear together dramatically. For example, he more than half seriously advises Jasper to read the Scriptures and learn his duty to his fellow-creatures and his duty to his own soul, lest he should be ranked with those who are “outcast, despised and miserable.” Whereupon Jasper questions him and gets him to admit that the Gypsies are very much like the cuckoos, roguish, chaffing birds that everybody is glad to see again:

“‘You would wish to turn the cuckoos into barn-door fowls, wouldn’t you?’

“‘Can’t say I should, Jasper, whatever some people might wish.’

“‘And the chals and chies into radical weavers and factory wenches, hey, brother?’

“‘Can’t say that I should, Jasper. You are certainly a picturesque people, and in many respects an ornament both to town and country; painting and lil writing too are under great obligations to you. What pretty pictures are made out of your campings and groupings, and what pretty books have been written in which Gypsies, or at least creatures intended to represent Gypsies, have been the principal figures! I think if we were without you, we should begin to miss you.’

“‘Just as you would the cuckoos, if they were all converted into barn-door fowls. I tell you what, brother, frequently as I have sat under a hedge in spring or summer time, and heard the cuckoo, I have thought that we chals and cuckoos are alike in many respects, but especially in character. Everybody speaks ill of us both, and everybody is glad to see both of us again.’

“‘Yes, Jasper, but there is some difference between men and cuckoos; men have souls, Jasper!’

“‘And why not cuckoos, brother?’

“‘You should not talk so, Jasper; what you say is little short of blasphemy. How should a bird have a soul?’

“‘And how should a man?’

“‘Oh, we know very well that a man has a soul.’

“‘How do you know it?’

“‘We know very well.’

“‘Would you take your oath of it, brother—your bodily oath?’

“‘Why, I think I might, Jasper!’”

There is no doubt that Borrow liked a strong or an extraordinary man none the less for being a scoundrel. There is equally little doubt that he never demeaned himself with the lower orders. He never pretended, and was seldom taken, to be one of themselves. His attitude differed in degree, but not in kind, from that of a frank, free squire or parson towards keepers, fishermen or labourers. And if he did not drink and swear on an equality with them, neither did he crankily worship them as Fitzgerald did “Posh,” the fisherman. They respected him—at least so he tells us—and he never gives himself away to any other effect—because he was honest, courageous and fair. Thus he never gave cause for suspicion as a man does who throws off the cloak of class, and he was probably as interesting to them as they to him. Nor did his refusal to adopt their ways and manners out and out prevent a very genuine kind of equality from existing between him and some of them. A man or woman of equal character and force became his equal, as Jasper did, as Isopel and David Haggart did, and he accepted this equality without a trace of snobbishness.

He says himself that he has “no abstract love for what is low, or what the world calls low.” Certainly there is nothing low in his familiars, as he presents them, at least nothing sordid. It may be the result of unconscious idealisation, but his Gypsies have nothing more sordid about them than wild birds have. Mrs. Herne is diabolical, but in a manner that would not be unbecoming to a duchess. Leonora is treacherous, but as an elf is permitted to be. As for Jasper and Mrs. Petulengro, they are as radiant as Mercutio and Rosalind. They have all the sweetness of unimprisoned air: they would prefer, like Borrow, “the sound of the leaves and the tinkling of the waters” to the parson and the church; and the smell of the stable, which is strong in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye,” to the smell of the congregation and the tombs.