“Wild Wales” having been written from a tourist’s note books is less flowing than “The Bible in Spain” and less delicate than “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.” A man is often called an “individual,” the sun is called “the candle of God.” A book just bought is “my late literary acquisition.” Facts such as “I returned to Llangollen by nearly the same way by which I had come,” abound. Sentences straight from his note book, lacking either in subject or predicate, occur here and there. At times a clause with no sort of value is admitted, as when, forgetting the name of Kilvey Hill, he says that Swansea town and harbour “are overhung on the side of the east by a lofty green mountain with a Welsh name, no doubt exceedingly appropriate, but which I regret to say has escaped my memory.”

The Dolaucothy Arms. Photo: A. & G. Taylor, Swansea

More than once his direct simplicity slips into what could hardly have been supposed to be within the power of such a pen, as in this conclusion to a chapter:

“How one enjoys one’s supper at one’s inn, after a good day’s walk, provided one has the proud and glorious consciousness of being able to pay one’s reckoning on the morrow!”

Nor is the reader ever allowed to forget that a massive unfeeling Victorianism is the basis of Borrow’s style. Thus he tells the story of the Treachery of the Long Knives:

“Hengist, wishing to become paramount in Southern Britain, thought that the easiest way to accomplish his wish would be by destroying the South British chieftains. Not believing that he should be able to make away with them by open force, he determined to see what he could do by treachery. Accordingly he invited the chieftains to a banquet, to be held near Stonehenge, or the Hanging Stones, on Salisbury Plain. The unsuspecting chieftains accepted the invitation, and on the appointed day repaired to the banquet, which was held in a huge tent. Hengist received them with a smiling countenance, and every appearance of hospitality, and caused them to sit down to table, placing by the side of every Briton one of his own people. The banquet commenced and all seemingly was mirth and hilarity. Now Hengist had commanded his people that, when he should get up and cry ‘nemet eoure saxes,’ that is, take your knives, each Saxon should draw his long sax, or knife, which he wore at his side, and should plunge it into the throat of his neighbour. The banquet went on, and in the midst of it, when the unsuspecting Britons were revelling on the good cheer which had been provided for them, and half-drunken with the mead and beer which flowed in torrents, uprose Hengist, and with a voice of thunder uttered the fatal words, ‘nemet eoure saxes’; the cry was obeyed, each Saxon grasped his knife, and struck with it at the throat of his defenceless neighbour. Almost every blow took effect; only three British chieftains escaping from the banquet of blood. This infernal carnage the Welsh have appropriately denominated the treachery of the long knives. It will be as well to observe that the Saxons derived their name from the saxes, or long knives, which they wore at their sides, and at the use of which they were terribly proficient.”

Even so, Borrow’s personal vitality triumphs, as it does over his many mistakes, such as Lledach for Clydach, in Welsh orthography. There is perhaps hardly such a thing as prose which shall be accounted perfect by every different age: but what is most important of all, the harmony of style which gradually steals upon the reader and subjects him to incalculable minor effects, is not the property of any one age, but of every age; and Victorian prose in general, and Borrow’s in particular, attains it. “Wild Wales” is rough in grain; it can be long-winded, slovenly and dull: but it can also be read; and if the whole, or any large portion, be read continuously it will give a lively and true impression of a beautiful, diverse country, of a distinctive people, and of a number of vivid men and women, including Borrow himself. It is less rich than “The Bible in Spain,” less atmospheric than “Lavengro.” It is Borrow’s for reasons which lie open to the view, not on account of any hidden pervasive quality. Thus what exaggeration there is may easily be seen, as when a fallow deer is described as equal to a bull in size, or when carn-lleidyr is said to be one “who, being without house and home, was more desperate than other thieves, and as savage and brutish as the wolves and foxes with whom he occasionally shared his pillow, the earn.” As a rule he keeps us upon an everyday normal plane. The bard of Anglesey and the man who attends upon him come through no ivory gate:

“They saluted me; I returned their salutation, and then we all three stood still looking at one another. One of the men was rather a tall figure, about forty, dressed in grey, or pepper-and-salt, with a cap of some kind on his head, his face was long and rather good-looking, though slightly pock-broken. There was a peculiar gravity upon it. The other person was somewhat about sixty—he was much shorter than his companion, and much worse dressed—he wore a hat that had several holes in it, a dusty, rusty black coat, much too large for him; ragged yellow velveteen breeches, indifferent fustian gaiters, and shoes, cobbled here and there, one of which had rather an ugly bulge by the side near the toes. His mouth was exceedingly wide, and his nose remarkably long; its extremity of a deep purple; upon his features was a half-simple smile or leer; in his hand was a long stick.”

Dolaucothy House. (From a photograph by Lady Pretyman, by whose kind permission it is reproduced.)

My last example shall be the house of Dolau Cothi, near Pumpsaint, in Caermarthenshire:

“After breakfast I departed for Llandovery. Presently I came to a lodge on the left-hand beside an ornamental gate at the bottom of an avenue leading seemingly to a gentleman’s seat. On inquiring of a woman who sat at the door of the lodge to whom the grounds belonged, she said to Mr. Johnes, and that if I pleased I was welcome to see them. I went in and advanced along the avenue, which consisted of very noble oaks; on the right was a vale in which a beautiful brook was running north and south. Beyond the vale to the east were fine wooded hills. I thought I had never seen a more pleasing locality, though I saw it to great disadvantage, the day being dull, and the season the latter fall. Presently, on the avenue making a slight turn, I saw the house, a plain but comfortable gentleman’s seat with wings. It looked to the south down the dale. ‘With what satisfaction I could live in that house,’ said I to myself, ‘if backed by a couple of thousands a-year. With what gravity could I sign a warrant in its library, and with what dreamy comfort translate an ode of Lewis Glyn Cothi, my tankard of rich ale beside me. I wonder whether the proprietor is fond of the old bard and keeps good ale. Were I an Irishman instead of a Norfolk man I would go in and ask him.’”

To the merit of this the whole book, perhaps the whole of Borrow’s work, contributes. Simple-looking tranquil successes of this kind are the privilege of a master, and when they occur they proclaim the master with a voice which, though gentle, will find but few confessing to be deaf to it. They are not frequent in “Wild Wales.” Borrow had set himself too difficult a task to succeed altogether with his methods and at his age. Wales was not unknown land; De Quincey, Shelley, and Peacock, had been there in his own time; and Borrow had not sufficient impulse or opportunity to transfigure it as he had done Spain; nor had he the time behind him, if he had the power still, to treat it as he had done the country of his youth in “Lavengro” and “The Romany Rye.”