George Borrow and His Circle Part 39

FOOTNOTES:

[230] The frontispiece to the present volume is from the replica in the possession of Borrow's executor, who has kindly permitted me to have it photographed for the purpose. There are slight and interesting variations from Mr. Murray's portrait. Phillips (1820-1868), the artist of these pictures, is often confused with his father, Thomas (1770-1845), the Royal Academician and a much superior painter, who, by the way, painted many portraits of authors for Mr. John Murray. Henry Phillips was never an R.A. A letter from Phillips to Borrow in my possession shows that he visited the latter at Oulton. The portrait of Borrow is p.r.o.nounced by Henry Dalrymple, his schoolfellow, from whose ma.n.u.script we have already quoted, to be 'very like him.' This fact is the more remarkable as the only photograph of Borrow that is known, one taken in a group with Mrs. Simms Reeve of Norwich in 1848--five years later--has many points of difference. The reader will here be able to compare the two portraits in this book. A third portrait of Borrow--a crude painting by his brother John taken in his early years, is now in the London National Portrait Gallery.

[231] _Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by Herself_. With Additions by the Writer and Introduction by Blanche Atkinson. 2 vols., 1904.

Frances Power Cobbe was born in Dublin in 1822, and died at Hengwrt in 1904.

[232] Miss Lloyd, who was a Welshwoman. Miss Cobbe lived with her and was doubtless a jealous woman. There are many kindly letters from Miss Lloyd to Borrow in my collection. She seems always to be anxious to invite him to her house.

[233] About three months before her death Miss Cobbe replied to an inquiry made by Mr. James Hooper of Norwich concerning her estimate of Borrow. As it is all but certain that Borrow was never intoxicated in his life, we may find the letter of interest only as giving a point of view:

'HENGWRT, DOLGELLEY, N. WALES, _Jan_. 26, 1904.

'I can have no objection to your asking me if my little sketch of George Borrow in my _Life_ is my _dernier mot_ about him. If I were to give my _dernier mot_, it would be much more to his disadvantage than anything I liked to insert in my biography. I see his American biographer has accused me of 'bitterness.' I do not think that what is contained in my book is 'bitter' at all. But if I were to have told my last interview with him,--when I was driven practically to drive him out of our house, more or less drunk, or mad with some opiate--the charge might have had some colour. He was not a good man, and not a true or honourable one, by any manner of means.'

Here a.s.suredly we miss the fine charity which led Goethe's friend, the d.u.c.h.ess of Weimar, to urge that there was a special moral law for poets.

Not for one moment does it occur to Miss Cobbe that her neighbour was a man of genius who had written four imperishable contributions to English literature. To her he was merely a conceited, brusque old man.

Concerning the adage that 'no man is a hero to his valet,' well may Carlyle remark that that is more often the fault of the valet than of the hero.

[234] _Personal and Family Glimpses of Remarkable People_. By Edward W.

Whately. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1889.

[235] London _Daily Chronicle_, July 9, 1913.

[236] There is an interview between Borrow and his wife's medical attendant, Dr. Playfair, recorded in Herbert Jenkins's _Life_, that is full of poignancy.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

FRIENDS OF LATER YEARS

We should know little enough of George Borrow's later years, were it not for his friends.h.i.+p with Thomas Gordon Hake and Theodore Watts-Dunton.

Hake was born in 1809 and died in 1895. In 1839 he settled at Bury St.

Edmunds as a physician, and he resided there until 1853. Here he was frequently visited by the Borrows. We have already quoted his prophecy concerning _Lavengro_ that 'its roots will strike deep into the soil of English letters.' In 1853 Dr. Hake and his family left Bury for the United States, where they resided for some years. Returning to England they lived at Roehampton and met Borrow occasionally in London. During these years Hake was, according to Mr. W. M. Rossetti, 'the earthly Providence of the Rossetti family,' but he was not, as his _Memoirs_ show, equally devoted to Borrow. In 1872, however, he went to live in Germany and Italy for a considerable period. Concerning the relations.h.i.+p between Borrow and Hake, Mr. Watts-Dunton has written:

After Hake went to live in Germany, Borrow told me a good deal about their intimacy, and also about his own early life: for, reticent as he naturally was, he and I got to be confidential and intimate. His friends.h.i.+p with Hake began when Hake was practising as a physician in Norfolk. It lasted during the greater part of Borrow's later life. When Borrow was living in London his great delight was to walk over on Sundays from Hereford Square to Coombe End, call upon Hake, and take a stroll with him over Richmond Park. They both had a pa.s.sion for herons and for deer. At that time Hake was a very intimate friend of my own, and having had the good fortune to be introduced by him to Borrow I used to join the two in their walks. Afterwards, when Hake went to live in Germany, I used to take those walks with Borrow alone. Two more interesting men it would be impossible to meet. The remarkable thing was that there was between them no sort of intellectual sympathy. In style, in education, in experience, whatever Hake was, Borrow was not. Borrow knew almost nothing of Hake's writings, either in prose or in verse. His ideal poet was Pope, and when he read, or rather looked into, Hake's _World's Epitaph_, he thought he did Hake the greatest honour by saying, 'there are lines here and there that are nigh as good as Pope'!

On the other hand, Hake's acquaintance with Borrow's works was far behind that of some Borrovians who did not know Lavengro in the flesh, such as Saintsbury and Mr. Birrell. Borrow was shy, angular, eccentric, rustic in accent and in locution, but with a charm for me, at least, that was irresistible. Hake was polished, easy and urbane in everything, and, although not without prejudice and bias, ready to s.h.i.+ne generally in any society.

So far as Hake was concerned the sole link between them was that of reminiscence of earlier days and adventures in Borrow's beloved East Anglia. Among many proofs I would adduce of this I will give one. I am the possessor of the MS. of Borrow's _Gypsies of Spain_, written partly in a Spanish notebook as he moved about Spain in his colporteur days. It was my wish that Hake would leave behind him some memorial of Borrow more worthy of himself and his friend than those brief reminiscences contained in _Memoirs of Eighty Years_. I took to Hake this precious relic of _one of the most wonderful men of the nineteenth century_, in order to discuss with him differences between the MS. and the printed text. Hake was writing in his invalid chair,--writing verses. 'What does it all matter?' he said. 'I do not think you understand Lavengro,' I said. Hake replied, 'And yet Lavengro had an advantage over me, for _he_ understood _n.o.body_. Every individuality with which he was brought into contact had, as no one knows better than you, to be tinged with colours of his own before he could see it at all.' That, of course, was true enough; and Hake's asperities when speaking of Borrow in _Memoirs of Eighty Years_,--asperities which have vexed a good many Borrovians,--simply arose from the fact that it was impossible for two such men to understand each other. When I told him of Mr. Lang's angry onslaught upon Borrow in his notes to the _Waverley Novels_, on account of his attacks upon Scott, he said, 'Well, does he not deserve it?' When I told him of Miss Cobbe's description of Borrow as a _poseur_, he said to me, 'I told you the same scores of times. But I saw Borrow had bewitched you during that first walk under the rainbow in Richmond Park. It was that rainbow, I think, that befooled you.' Borrow's affection for Hake, however, was both strong and deep, as I saw after Hake had gone to Germany and in a way dropped out of Borrow's ken. Yet Hake was as good a man as ever Borrow was, and for certain others with whom he was brought in contact as full of a genuine affection as Borrow was himself.[237]

Mr. Watts-Dunton refers here to Hake's asperities when speaking of Borrow. They are very marked in the _Memoirs of Eighty Years_, and nearly all the stories of Borrow's eccentricities that have been served up to us by Borrow's biographers are due to Hake. It is here we read of his snub to Thackeray. 'Have you read my Sn.o.b Papers in _Punch_?'

Thackeray asked him. 'In _Punch_?' Borrow replied. 'It is a periodical I never look at.' He was equally rude, or shall we say Johnsonian, according to Hake, when Miss Agnes Strickland asked him if she might send him her _Queens of England_. He exclaimed, 'for G.o.d's sake don't, madam; I should not know where to put them or what to do with them.'

Hake is responsible also for that other story about the woman who, desirous of pleasing him, said, 'Oh, Mr. Borrow, I have read your books with so much pleasure!' On which he exclaimed, 'Pray, what books do you mean, madam? Do you mean my account books?'[238] Dr. Johnson was guilty of many such vagaries, and the readers of Boswell have forgiven him everything because they are conveyed to them through the medium of a hero-wors.h.i.+pper. Borrow never had a Boswell, and despised the literary cla.s.s so much that he never found anything in the shape of an apologist until he had been long dead. The most competent of these, because writing from personal knowledge, was Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton, who is known in literature as Theodore Watts, the author of _Aylwin_ and _The Coming of Love_, and the writer of many acute and picturesque criticisms. Mr. Watts-Dunton--who added his mother's name of Dunton to his own in later life--was the son of a solicitor of St. Ives in Huntingdons.h.i.+re. In early life he was himself a solicitor, which profession he happily abandoned for literature. His friends.h.i.+p with Algernon Charles Swinburne is one of the romances of the Victorian era.

His affectionate solicitude doubtless kept that great poet alive for many a year beyond what would otherwise have been his lot. Watts-Dunton was, as we have seen, introduced to Borrow by Hake. He has written a romance which, if he could be persuaded to publish it, would doubtless command the same attention as _Aylwin_, in which Borrow is introduced as 'Dereham' and Hake as 'Gordon,' and here he tells the story of that introduction:

One day when I was sitting with him in his delightful home, near Roehampton, whose windows at the back looked over Richmond Park, and in front over the wildest part of Wimbledon Common, one of his sons came in and said that he had seen Dereham striding across the common, evidently bound for the house.

'Dereham,' I said, 'is there a man in the world I should so like to see as Dereham?'

And then I told Gordon how I had seen him years before swimming in the sea off Yarmouth, but had never spoken to him.

'Why do you want so much to see him?' asked Gordon.

'Well, among other things, I want to see if he is a true Child of the Open Air.'[239]

I find no letter from Hake to Borrow among my papers, but three to his wife:

BURY ST. EDMUNDS, _Jan. 27, '48. Evening._

MY DEAR MRS. BORROW,--It gave me great pleasure, as it always does, to see your handwriting; and as respects the subject of your note you may make yourself quite easy, for I believe the idea has crossed no other mind than your own. How sorry I am to learn that you have been so unwell since your visit to us. I hope that by care you will get strong during this bracing weather. I wish that you were already nearer to us, and cannot resign the hope that we shall yet enjoy the happiness of having you as our neighbours. I have felt a strong friends.h.i.+p for Mr.

Borrow's mind for many years, and have ardently wished from time to time to know him, and to have realised my desire I consider one of the most happy events of my life. Until lately, dear Mrs. Borrow, I have had no opportunity of knowing you and your sweet simple-hearted child; but now I hope nothing will occur to interrupt a regard and friends.h.i.+p which I and Mrs.

Hake feel most truly towards you all. Tell Mr. Borrow how much we should like to be his Sinbad. I wish he would bring you all and his papers and come again to look about him. There is an old hall at Tostock, which, I hear to-day, is quite dry; if so it is worthy of your attention. It is a mile from the Elmswell station, which is ten minutes' time from Bury. This hall has got a bad name from having been long vacant, but some friends of mine have been over it and they tell me there is not a damp spot on the premises. It is seven miles from Bury. Mrs. Hake has written about a house at Rougham, but had no answer. The cottage at Farnham is to let again. I know not whether Mr.

Harvey will make an effort for it. A little change would do you all good, and we can receive Miss Clarke without any difficulty. Give our kindest regards to your party, and believe me, dear Mrs. Borrow, sincerely yours,

T. G. HAKE.

BURY ST. EDMUNDS, _January 19th, '49._

MY DEAR MRS. BORROW,--The sight of your handwriting is always a luxury--but you say nothing about coming to see us. We are pleased to get good accounts of your party, and only wish you could report better of yourself. I must take you fairly in hand when you come again to the ancient quarters, for such they are becoming now from your long absence. You might try bis.m.u.th and extract of hop, which is often very strengthening to the stomach. Five grains of extract of hop and five grains of trisnitrate of bis.m.u.th made into two pills, which are to be taken at eleven and repeated at four--daily. I am so pleased to learn that Miss Clarke is better, as well as Mr. Borrow. I hope that on some occasion, the morphia may be of great comfort to him should his night watchings return. It is good news that the proofs are advancing--I hope towards a speedy end. Messrs.

Oakes and Co.'s Bank is as safe as any in the kingdom and more substantial than any in this county. It must be safe, for the partners are men of large property, and of careful habits. I am happy to say we are all well here, but my brother's house in town is a scene of sad trouble. He is himself laid up with bad scarlet fever as well as five children, all severely attacked.

One they have lost of this fearful complaint.

Give our kindest regards to Mr. Borrow and accept them yourselves. Ever, dear Mrs. Borrow, sincerely yours,

T. G. HAKE.

I send Beethoven's epitaph for Miss Clarke's alb.u.m according to promise. It is _not_ by Wordsworth.

BURY ST. EDMUNDS, _June 24, '51._

MY DEAR MRS. BORROW,--I am very sorry to hear that you are not feeling strong, and that these flushes of heat are so frequent and troublesome. I will prescribe a medicine for you which I hope may prove serviceable. Let me hear again about your health, and be a.s.sured you cannot possibly give me any trouble.

I am also glad to hear of Mr. Borrow. I envy him his bath. I am looking out anxiously for the new quarterly reviews. I wonder whether the _Quarterly_ will contain anything. Is there a prospect of vol. iv.? I really look to pa.s.sing a day and two half days with you, and to bringing Mrs. Hake to your cla.s.sic soil some time in August--if we are not inconveniencing you in your charming and snug cottage. I hope Miss Clarke is well. Our united kind regards to you all. George is quite brisk and saucy--Lucy and the infant have not been well. Mrs. Hake has better accounts from Bath. Believe me, dear Mrs. Borrow, very sincerely yours,

T. G. HAKE.

Mr. Donne was pleased that Mr. Borrow liked his notice in _Tait_. You can take a little cold sherry and water after your dinner.

Mr. A. Egmont Hake, one of Dr. Hake's sons, has also given us an interesting reminiscence of Borrow:[240]

Though he was a friend of my family before he wrote _Lavengro_, few men have ever made so deep an impression on me as George Borrow. His tall, broad figure, his stately bearing, his fine brown eyes, so bright yet soft, his thick white hair, his oval, beardless face, his loud rich voice, and bold heroic air, were such as to impress the most indifferent of lookers-on. Added to this there was something not easily forgotten in the manner in which he would unexpectedly come to our gates, singing some gipsy song, and as suddenly depart. His conversation, too, was unlike that of any other man; whether he told a long story or only commented on some ordinary topic, he was always quaint, often humorous.... It was at Oulton that the author of _The Bible in Spain_ spent his happiest days. The _menage_ in his Suffolk home was conducted with great simplicity, but he always had for his friends a bottle or two of wine of rare vintage, and no man was more hearty than he over the gla.s.s. He pa.s.sed his mornings in his summer-house, writing on small sc.r.a.ps of paper, and these he handed to his wife who copied them on foolscap. It was in this way and in this retreat that the ma.n.u.script of _Lavengro_ as well as of _The Bible in Spain_ was prepared, the place of which he says, 'I hastened to my summer-house by the side of the lake and there I thought and wrote, and every day I repaired to the same place and thought and wrote until I had finished _The Bible in Spain_.' In this outdoor studio, hung behind the door, were a soldier's coat and a sword which belonged to his father; these were household G.o.ds on which he would often gaze while composing.

To Mr. Watts-Dunton we owe by far the best description of Borrow's personal appearance: