Lavengro - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
{87} This practice is not so uncommon. Dr. Johnson had a very similar habit in his "sort of magical movement" (Life by Boswell, end of year 1764); and a member of my own college at Oxford, nearly thirty years ago, touched just like the man in _Lavengro_. Once in the Schools he remembered he had pa.s.sed by a pebble which he had noticed in the High Street: he tore up his papers, and went and picked up the pebble.
{88} Mr. William Bodham Donne, the examiner of plays 1857-74, was told by Borrow himself that this "Man who Touched" was drawn from the author of _Vathek_, William Beckford (1760-1844). There are difficulties in the way of accepting this statement, among them that Beckford had quitted Fonthill for Bath in 1822, three years before Borrow went a-gypsying.
Still, I believe there is something in it.
{114} A thing done oftener in books than in reality.
{121} Richard Hurrell Froude in a letter of 1831 brands Dissenters as "the promoters of d.a.m.nable heresy."
{139} A branch of the great Gypsy family of Boswell have contracted the surname to Boss.
{142} At Tamworth in May 1812 (Knapp, i. 105).
{156} The Gypsy la.s.s And the Gypsy lad Shall go to-morrow To poison the pig And bewitch the horse Of the farmer gentleman.
{160} The Gypsy la.s.s And the Gypsy lad Love stealing And fortune-telling, And lying, And every _-pen_ But goodness And truth.
{161} Dog. Better, _jukel_.
{165a} By my G.o.d; not Anglo-Romany.
{165b} Coppersmith.
{167} Grand-aunt's.
{168} Cake.
{169} Rod.
{170} Aunt.
{174a} Poisoned.
{174b} Fortune-telling spirit. I never met the English Gypsy that used _dook_.
{177} Gentile's coming.
{188} In my _Gypsy Folk-Tales_ (1899, pp. 293-95) I have discussed with some fulness Bunyan's possible Gypsy ancestry. The most interesting point is that in 1586 at Launceston a child was baptized "Nicholas, sonne of James Bownian, an Egiptian rogue."
{201} Ellis Wynn (_c._ 1671-1741). Borrow himself at last printed his translation of _The Sleeping Bard_ at Yarmouth in 1860, and himself next year reviewed it in the _Quarterly_.
{238} Rhys Prichard (1579-1644).
{246} Hat of beaver.
{247} Good day, brother.
{249a} Seems meant for "hang-woman," but there is no such word.
{249b} Gipsy-wise--an odd form.
{250a} Good old blood. Should be _rat_, not _rati_.
{250b} Horse.
{251} Brother, comrade.
{252a} Aunt.
{252b} Poisoning pigs.
{253a} Poisons; not Anglo-Romany.
{253b} Better, _nashado_, hanged.
{254a} Magistrate.
{254b} Runner, detective.
{255a} Woman. Rightly _juvel_.
{255b} No such word.
{256} Seemingly "gallows," but no such word.
{257a} Gypsy chap.
{257b} _Engro_ is a mere termination, like _-er_ in _runner_.
{259} Fool.
{260} Fists. Prizefighters' slang.
{263} Blacksmith.
{264a} Tell fortunes.
{264b} Hill Town, Norwich, but better, _Chumba Gav_.
{264c} "Go with G.o.d." Not English Romany.
{267} Horse-shoe.
{268a} Better, _yogesko chivs_.
{268b} Probably "brother," but not English Romany.
{268c} Unknown to English Gypsies.
{268d} Beating.
