Chapter VIII: George Borrow's Norwich--The Lawyer's Office

Doubts were very frequently expressed in Borrow's lifetime as to his having really been articled to a solicitor, but the indefatigable Dr. Knapp set that point at rest by reference to the Record Office. Borrow was articled to Simpson and Rackham of Tuck's Court, St. Giles's, Norwich, 'for the term of five years'--from March 1819 to March 1824--and these five years were spent in and about Norwich, and were full of adventure of a kind with which the law had nothing to do. If Borrow had had the makings of a lawyer he could not have entered the profession under happier auspices. The firm was an old established one even in his day. It had been established in Tuck's Court as Simpson and Rackham, then it became Rackham and Morse, Rackham, Cooke and Rackham, and Rackham and Cooke; finally, Tom Rackham, a famous Norwich man in his day, moved to another office, and the firm of lawyers who occupy the original offices in our day is called Leathes Prior and Sons. Borrow has told us frankly what a poor lawyer's clerk he made--he was always thinking of things remote from that profession, of gypsies, of prize-fighters, and of word-makers. Yet he loved the head of the firm, William Simpson, who must have been a kind and tolerant guide to the curious youth. Simpson was for a time Town Clerk of Norwich, and his portrait hangs in the Blackfriars Hall. Borrow went to live with Mr. Simpson in the Upper Close near the Grammar School. Archdeacon Groome recalled having seen Borrow 'reserved and solitary' haunting the precincts of the playground; another schoolboy, William Drake, remembered him as 'tall, spare, dark-complexioned.'[44] Here is Borrow's account of his master and of his work:

A more respectable-looking individual was never seen; he really
looked what he was, a gentleman of the law--there was nothing
of the pettifogger about him: somewhat under the middle size,
and somewhat rotund in person, he was always dressed in a full
suit of black, never worn long enough to become threadbare. His
face was rubicund, and not without keenness; but the most
remarkable thing about him was the crown of his head, which was
bald, and shone like polished ivory, nothing more white,
smooth, and lustrous. Some people have said that he wore false
calves, probably because his black silk stockings never
exhibited a wrinkle; they might just as well have said that he
waddled, because his boots creaked; for these last, which were
always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a
different hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot
say that I ever saw him walk fast.

He had a handsome practice, and might have died a very rich
man, much richer than he did, had he not been in the habit of
giving rather expensive dinners to certain great people, who
gave him nothing in return, except their company; I could never
discover his reasons for doing so, as he always appeared to me
a remarkably quiet man, by nature averse to noise and bustle;
but in all dispositions there are anomalies. I have already
said that he lived in a handsome house, and I may as well here
add that he had a very handsome wife, who both dressed and
talked exceedingly well.

So I sat behind the deal desk, engaged in copying documents of
various kinds; and in the apartment in which I sat, and in the
adjoining ones, there were others, some of whom likewise copied
documents, while some were engaged in the yet more difficult
task of drawing them up; and some of these, sons of nobody,
were paid for the work they did, whilst others, like myself,
sons of somebody, paid for being permitted to work, which, as
our principal observed, was but reasonable, forasmuch as we not
unfrequently utterly spoiled the greater part of the work
intrusted to our hands.[45]

From a portrait by Thomas Phillips, R.A.

Mr. Simpson was Chamberlain of the city of Norwich and Treasurer of the county of Norfolk. He was Town-Clerk of Norwich in 1826, and has an interest in connection with George Borrow in that Borrow was articled to him as a lawyer's clerk and describes him in _Wild Wales_ as 'the greatest solicitor in East Anglia--indeed I may say the prince of all English solicitors.'

The portrait hangs in the Black Friars Hall, Norwich.]

And he goes on to tell us that he studied the Welsh language and later the Danish; his master said that his inattention would assuredly make him a bankrupt, and his father sighed over his eccentric and impracticable son. The passion for languages had indeed caught hold of Borrow. Among my Borrow papers I find a memorandum in the handwriting of his stepdaughter in which she says:

I have often heard his mother say, that when a mere child of
eight or nine years, all his pocket-money was spent in
purchasing foreign Dictionaries and Grammars; he formed an
acquaintance with an old woman who kept a bookstall in the
market-place of Norwich, whose son went voyages to Holland with
cattle, and brought home Dutch books, which were eagerly bought
by little George. One day the old woman was crying, and told
him that her son was in prison. 'For doing what?' asked the
child. 'For taking a silk handkerchief out of a gentleman's
pocket.' 'Then,' said the boy, 'your son stole the pocket
handkerchief?' 'No dear, no, my son did not steal,--he only
glyfaked.'

We have no difficulty in recognising here the heroine of the Moll Flanders episode in _Lavengro_. But it was not from casual meetings with Welsh grooms and Danes and Dutchmen that Borrow acquired even such command of various languages as was undoubtedly his. We have it on the authority of an old fellow-pupil at the Grammar School, Burcham, afterwards a London police-magistrate, that William Taylor gave him lessons in German,[46] but he acquired most of his varied knowledge in these impressionable years in the Corporation Library of Norwich. Dr. Knapp found, in his most laudable examination of some of the books, Borrow's neat pencil notes, the making of which was not laudable on the part of his hero. One book here marked was on ancient Danish literature, the author of which, Olaus Wormius, gave him the hint for calling himself Olaus Borrow for a time--a signature that we find in some of Borrow's published translations. Borrow at this time had aspirations of a literary kind, and Thomas Campbell accepted a translation of Schiller's _Diver_, which was signed 'O. B.' There were also translations from the German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish, in the _Monthly Magazine_. Clearly Borrow was becoming a formidable linguist, if not a very exact master of words. Still he remained a vagabond, and loved to wander over Mousehold Heath, to the gypsy encampment, and to make friends with the Romany folk; he loved also to haunt the horse fairs for which Norwich was so celebrated; and he was not averse from the companionship of wilder spirits who loved pugilism, if we may trust _Lavengro_, and if we may assume, as we justly may, that he many times cast youthful, sympathetic eyes on John Thurtell in these years, the to-be murderer of Weare, then actually living with his father in a house on the Ipswich Road, Thurtell, the father, being in no mean position in the city--an alderman, and a sheriff in 1815. Yes, there was plenty to do and to see in Norwich, and Borrow's memories of it were nearly always kindly:

A fine old city, truly, is that, view it from whatever side you
will; but it shows best from the east, where ground, bold and
elevated, overlooks the fair and fertile valley in which it
stands. Gazing from those heights, the eye beholds a scene
which cannot fail to awaken, even in the least sensitive bosom,
feelings of pleasure and admiration. At the foot of the heights
flows a narrow and deep river, with an antique bridge
communicating with a long and narrow suburb, flanked on either
side by rich meadows of the brightest green, beyond which
spreads the city; the fine old city, perhaps the most curious
specimen at present extant of the genuine old English town.
Yes, there it spreads from north to south, with its venerable
houses, its numerous gardens, its thrice twelve churches, its
mighty mound, which, if tradition speaks true, was raised by
human hands to serve as the grave-heap of an old heathen king,
who sits deep within it, with his sword in his hand, and his
gold and silver treasures about him. There is a grey old castle
upon the top of that mighty mound; and yonder, rising three
hundred feet above the soil, from among those noble forest
trees, behold that old Norman master-work, that cloud-encircled
cathedral spire, around which a garrulous army of rooks and
choughs continually wheel their flight. Now, who can wonder
that the children of that fine old city are proud of her, and
offer up prayers for her prosperity? I myself, who was not born
within her walls, offer up prayers for her prosperity, that
want may never visit her cottages, vice her palaces, and that
the abomination of idolatry may never pollute her temples.

But at the very centre of Borrow's Norwich life was William Taylor, concerning whom we have already written much. It was a Jew named Mousha, a quack it appears, who pretended to know German and Hebrew, and had but a smattering of either language, who first introduced Borrow to Taylor, and there is a fine dialogue between the two in _Lavengro_, of which this is the closing fragment:

'Are you happy?' said the young man.

'Why, no! And, between ourselves, it is that which induces me
to doubt sometimes the truth of my opinions. My life, upon the
whole, I consider a failure; on which account, I would not
counsel you, or anyone, to follow my example too closely. It
is getting late, and you had better be going, especially as
your father, you say, is anxious about you. But, as we may
never meet again, I think there are three things which I may
safely venture to press upon you. The first is, that the
decencies and gentlenesses should never be lost sight of, as
the practice of the decencies and gentlenesses is at all times
compatible with independence of thought and action. The second
thing which I would wish to impress upon you is, that there is
always some eye upon us; and that it is impossible to keep
anything we do from the world, as it will assuredly be divulged
by somebody as soon as it is his interest to do so. The third
thing which I would wish to press upon you----'

'Yes,' said the youth, eagerly bending forward.

'Is'--and here the elderly individual laid down his pipe upon
the table--'that it will be as well to go on improving yourself
in German!'

Taylor it was who, when Borrow determined to try his fortunes in London with those bundles of unsaleable manuscripts, gave him introductions to Sir Richard Phillips and to Thomas Campbell. It was in the agnostic spirit that he had learned from Taylor that he wrote during this period to his one friend in London, Roger Kerrison. Kerrison was grandson of Sir Roger Kerrison, Mayor of Norwich in 1778, as his son Thomas was after him in 1806. Roger was articled, as was Borrow, to the firm of Simpson and Rackham, while his brother Allday was in a drapery store in Norwich, but with mind bent on commercial life in Mexico. George was teaching him Spanish in these years as a preparation for his great adventure. Roger had gone to London to continue his professional experience. He finally became a Norwich solicitor and died in 1882. Allday went to Zacatecas, Mexico, and acquired riches. John Borrow followed him there and met with an early death, as we have seen. Borrow and Roger Kerrison were great friends at this time; but when _Lavengro_ was written they had ceased to be this, and Roger is described merely as an 'acquaintance' who had found lodgings for him on his first visit to London. As a matter of fact that trip to London was made easy for Borrow by the opportunity given to him of sharing lodgings with Roger Kerrison at Milman Street, Bedford Row, where Borrow put in an appearance on 1st April 1824, some two months after the following letter was written:

To Mr. Roger Kerrison, 18 Milman Street, Bedford Row.

NORWICH, _Jany. 20, 1824._

DEAREST ROGER,--I did not imagine when we separated in the
street, on the day of your departure from Norwich, that we
should not have met again: I had intended to have come and seen
you off, but happening to dine at W. Barron's I got into
discourse, and the hour slipt past me unawares.

I have been again for the last fortnight laid up with that
detestable complaint which destroys my strength, impairs my
understanding, and will in all probability send me to the
grave, for I am now much worse than when you saw me last. But
_nil desperandum est_, if ever my health mends, and possibly it
may by the time my clerkship is expired, I intend to live in
London, write plays, poetry, etc., abuse religion and get
myself prosecuted, for I would not for an ocean of gold remain
any longer than I am forced in this dull and gloomy town.

I have no news to regale you with, for there is none abroad,
but I live in the expectation of shortly hearing from you, and
being informed of your plans and projects; fear not to be
prolix, for the slightest particular cannot fail of being
interesting to one who loves you far better than parent or
relation, or even than the God whom bigots would teach him to
adore, and who subscribes himself, Yours unalterably,

GEORGE BORROW.[47]

Borrow might improve his German--not sufficiently as we shall see in our next chapter--but he would certainly never make a lawyer. Long years afterwards, when, as an old man, he was frequently in Norwich, he not seldom called at that office in Tuck's Court, where five strange years of his life had been spent. A clerk in Rackham's office in these later years recalls him waiting for the principal as he in his youth had watched others waiting.[48]

FOOTNOTES:

[44] _Norvicensian_, 1888, p. 177.

[45] _Lavengro_, ch. xix.

[46] The _Britannia_ newspaper, 26th June 1851.

[47] This letter is in the possession of Mr. J. C. Gould, Trap Hill House, Loughton, Essex.

[48] Mr. C. F. Martelli of Staple Inn, London, who has so generously placed this information at my disposal. Mr. Martelli writes:

'Old memories brought him to our office for professional advice, and there I saw something of him, and a very striking personality he was, and a rather difficult client to do business with. One peculiarity I remember was that he believed himself to be plagued by autograph hunters, and was reluctant to trust our firm with his signature in any shape or form, and that we in consequence had some trouble in inducing him to sign his will. I have seen him sitting over my fire in my room at that office for hours, half asleep, and crooning out Romany songs while waiting for my chief.'