Chapter XVII: The Manchu Bible--Targum--The Talisman

The Bible Society wanted the Bible to be set up in the Manchu language, the official language of the Chinese Court and Government. A Russian scholar named Lipóftsof, who had spent twenty years in China, undertook in 1821 to translate the New Testament into Manchu for £560. Lipóftsof had done his work in 1826, and had sent two manuscript copies to London. In 1832 the Rev. William Swan of the London Missionary Society in passing through St. Petersburg discovered a transcript of a large part of the Old and New Testament in Manchu, made by one Pierot, a French Jesuit, many years before. This transcript was unavailable, but a second was soon afterwards forthcoming for free publication if a qualified Manchu scholar could be found to see it through the Press. Mr. Swan's communication of these facts to the Bible Society in London gave Borrow his opportunity. It was his task to find the printers, buy the paper, and hire the qualified compositors for setting the type. It must be admitted Borrow worked hard for his £200 a year. First he had to ask the diplomatists for permission from the Russian Government, not now so friendly to British Missionary zeal. The Russian Bible Society had been suppressed in 1826. He succeeded here. Then he had to continue his studies in the Manchu language. He had written from Norwich to Mr. Jowett on 9th June 1833, 'I have mastered Manchu,' but on 20th January 1834 we find him writing to the same correspondent: 'I pay about six shillings, English, for each lesson, which I grudge not, for the perfect acquirement of Manchu is one of my most ardent wishes.'[103] Then he found the printers--a German firm, Schultz and Beneze--who probably printed the two little books of Borrow's own for him as a 'make weight.' He purchased paper for his Manchu translation with an ability that would have done credit to a modern newspaper manager. Every detail of these transactions is given in his letters to the Bible Society, and one cannot but be amused at Borrow's explanation to the Reverend Secretary of the little subterfuges by which he proposed to 'best' the godless for the benefit of the godly:

Knowing but too well that it is the general opinion of the
people of this country that Englishmen are made of gold, and
that it is only necessary to ask the most extravagant price for
any article in order to obtain it, I told no person, to whom I
applied, who I was, or of what country; and I believe I was
supposed to be a German.[104]

Then came the composing or setting up of the type of the book. When Borrow was called to account by his London employers, who were not sure whether he was wasting time, he replied: 'I have been working in the printing-office, as a common compositor, between ten and thirteen hours every day.' In another letter Borrow records further difficulties with the printers after the composition had been effected. Several of the working printers, it appears, 'went away in disgust,' Then he adds:

I was resolved 'to do or die,' and, instead of distressing and
perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write nothing
until I could write something perfectly satisfactory, as I now
can; and to bring about that result I have spared neither
myself nor my own money. I have toiled in a close
printing-office the whole day, during ninety degrees of heat,
for the purpose of setting an example, and have bribed people
to work whom nothing but bribes would induce so to do. I am
obliged to say all this in self-justification. No member of the
Bible Society would ever have heard a syllable respecting what
I have undergone but for the question, 'What has Mr. Borrow
been about?'[105]

It is not my intention to add materially to the letters of Borrow from Russia and from Spain that have already been published, although many are in my possession. They reveal an aspect of the life of Borrow that has been amply dealt with by other biographers, and it is an aspect that interests me but little. Here, however, is one hitherto unpublished letter that throws much light upon Borrow's work at this time:

To the Rev. Andrew Brandram

ST. PETERSBURG, _18th Oct. 1833._

REVEREND SIR,--Supposing that you will not be displeased to
hear how I am proceeding, I have taken the liberty to send a
few lines by a friend[106] who is leaving Russia for England.
Since my arrival in Petersburg I have been occupied eight hours
every day in transcribing a Manchu manuscript of the Old
Testament belonging to Baron Schilling, and I am happy to be
able to say that I have just completed the last of it, the Rev.
Mr. Swan, the Scottish missionary, having before my arrival
copied the previous part. Mr. Swan departs to his mission in
Siberia in about two months, during most part of which time I
shall be engaged in collating our transcripts with the
original. It is a great blessing that the Bible Society has now
prepared the whole of the Sacred Scriptures in Manchu, which
will doubtless, when printed, prove of incalculable benefit to
tens of millions who have hitherto been ignorant of the will of
God, putting their trust in idols of wood and stone instead of
in a crucified Saviour. I am sorry to say that this country in
respect to religion is in a state almost as lamentable as the
darkest regions of the East, and the blame of this rests
entirely upon the Greek hierarchy, who discountenance all
attempts to the spiritual improvement of the people, who, poor
things, are exceedingly willing to receive instruction, and,
notwithstanding the scantiness of their means in general for
the most part, eagerly buy the tracts which a few pious English
Christians cause to be printed and hawked in the neighbourhood.
But no one is better aware, Sir, than yourself that without the
Scriptures men can never be brought to a true sense of their
fallen and miserable state, and of the proper means to be
employed to free themselves from the thraldom of Satan. The
last few copies which remained of the New Testament in Russian
were purchased and distributed a few days ago, and it is
lamentable to be compelled to state that at the present there
appears no probability of another edition being permitted in
the modern language. It is true that there are near twenty
thousand copies of the Sclavonic bible in the shop which is
entrusted with the sale of the books of the late Russian Bible
Society, but the Sclavonian translation is upwards of a
thousand years old, having been made in the eighth century, and
differs from the dialect spoken at present in Russia as much as
the old Saxon does from the modern English. Therefore it cannot
be of the slightest utility to any but the learned, that is, to
about ten individuals in one thousand. I hope and trust that
the Almighty will see fit to open some door for the
illumination of this country, for it is not to be wondered if
vice and crime be very prevalent here when the people are
ignorant of the commandments of God. Is it to be wondered that
the people follow their every day pursuits on the Sabbath when
they know not the unlawfulness of so doing? Is it to be
wondered that they steal when only in dread of the laws of the
country, and are not deterred by the voice of conscience which
only exists in a few. This accounts for their profanation of
their Sabbath, their proneness to theft, etc. It is only
surprising that so much goodness is to be found in their nature
as is the case, for they are mild, polite, and obliging, and in
most of their faces is an expression of great kindness and
benignity. I find that the slight knowledge which I possess of
the Russian tongue is of the utmost service to me here, for the
common opinion in England that only French and German are
spoken by persons of any respectability in Petersburg is a
great and injurious error. The nobility, it is true, for the
most part speak French when necessity obliges them, that is,
when in company with foreigners who are ignorant of Russian,
but the affairs of most people who arrive in Petersburg do not
lie among the nobility, therefore a knowledge of the language
of the country, unless you associate solely with your own
countrymen, is indispensable. The servants speak no language
but their native tongue, and also nine out of ten of the middle
classes of Russians. I might as well address Mr. Lipóftsof, who
is to be my coadjutor in the edition of the New Testament (in
Manchu) in Hebrew as in either French or German, for though he
can read the first a little he cannot speak a word of it or
understand when spoken. I will now conclude by wishing you all
possible happiness. I have the honour to be, etc.,

GEORGE BORROW.

When the work was done at so great a cost of money,[107] and of energy and enthusiasm on the part of George Borrow, it was found that the books were useless. Most of these New Testaments were afterwards sent out to China, and copies distributed by the missionaries there as opportunities offered. It was found, however, that the Manchus in China were able to read Chinese, preferring it to their own language, which indeed had become almost confined to official use.[108] In the year 1859 editions of _St. Matthew_ and _St. Mark_ were published in Manchu and Chinese side by side, the Manchu text being a reprint of that edited by Borrow, and these books are still in use in Chinese Turkestan. But Borrow had here to suffer one of the many disappointments of his life. If not actually a gypsy he had all a gypsy's love of wandering. No impartial reader of the innumerable letters of this period can possibly claim that there was in Borrow any of the proselytising zeal or evangelical fervour which wins for the names of Henry Martyn and of David Livingstone so much honour and sympathy even among the least zealous. At the best Borrow's zeal for religion was of the order of Dr. Keate, the famous headmaster of Eton--'Blessed are the pure in heart ... if you are not pure in heart, by God, I'll flog you!' Borrow had got his New Testaments printed, and he wanted to distribute them because he wished to see still more of the world, and had no lack of courage to carry out any well defined scheme of the organisation which was employing him. Borrow had thrown out constant hints in his letters home. People had suggested to him, he said, that he was printing Testaments for which he would never find readers. If you wish for readers, they had said to him, 'you must seek them among the natives of Pekin and the fierce hordes of desert Tartary.' And it was this last most courageous thing that Borrow proposed. Let him, he said to Mr. Jowett, fix his headquarters at Kiachta upon the northern frontier of China. The Society should have an agent there:

I am a person of few words, and will therefore state without
circumlocution that I am willing to become that agent. I speak
Russ, Manchu, and the Tartar or broken Turkish of the Russian
steppes, and have also some knowledge of Chinese, which I
might easily improve at Kiachta, half of the inhabitants of
which town are Chinamen. I am therefore not altogether
unqualified for such an adventure.[109]

The Bible Committee considered this and other plans through the intervening months, and it seems clear that at the end they would have sanctioned some form of missionary work for Borrow in the Chinese Empire; but on 1st June 1835 he wrote to say that the Russian Government, solicitous of maintaining good relations with China, would not grant him a passport across Siberia except on the condition that he carried not one single Manchu Bible thither.[110] And so Borrow's dreams were left unfulfilled. He was never to see China or the farther East, although, because he was a dreamer and like his hero, Defoe, a bit of a liar, he often said he had. In September 1835 he was back in England awaiting in his mother's home in Norwich further commissions from his friends of the Bible Society.

* * * * *

Work on the Manchu New Testament did not entirely absorb Borrow's activities in St. Petersburg. He seems to have made a proposition to another organisation, as the following letter indicates. The proposal does not appear to have borne any fruit:

PRAYER BOOK AND HOMILY SOCIETY,
NO. 4 EXETER HALL, LONDON, _January 16th, 1835._

SIR,--Your letters dated July and November 17, 1834, and
addressed to the Rev. F. Cunningham, have been laid before the
Committee of the Prayer Book and Homily Society, who have
agreed to print the translation of the first three Homilies
into the Russian language at St. Petersburg, under the
direction of Mr. and Mrs. Biller, so soon as they shall have
caused the translation to undergo a thorough revision, and
shall have certified the same to this Society. I write by this
post to Mrs. Biller on the subject. In respect to the second
Homily in Manchu, if we rightly understand your statement, an
edition of five hundred copies may be sent forth, the whole
expense of which, including paper and printing, will amount to
about £12. If we are correct in this the Committee are willing
to bear the expense of five hundred copies, by way of trial,
their wish being this, viz.: that printed copies should be put
into the hands of the most competent persons, who shall be
invited to offer such remarks on the translation as shall seem
desirable; especially that Dr. Morrison of Canton should be
requested to submit copies to the inspection of Manchu scholars
as he shall think fit. When the translation has been thoroughly
revised the Committee will consider the propriety of printing a
larger edition. They think that the plan of submitting copies
in letters of gold to the inspection of the highest personages
in China should probably be deferred till the translation has
been thus revised. We hope that this resolution will be
satisfactory to you; but the Committee, not wishing to
prescribe a narrower limit than such as is strictly necessary,
have directed me to say, that should the expense of an edition
of five hundred copies of the Homily in Manchu exceed £12, they
will still be willing to meet it, but not beyond the sum of
£15.

Should you print this edition be pleased to furnish us with
twenty-five copies, and send twenty-five copies at the least to
Rev. Dr. Morrison, at Canton, if you have the means of doing
so; if not, we should wish to receive fifty copies, that _we_
may send twenty-five to Canton. In this case you will be at
liberty to draw a bill upon us for the money, within the limits
specified above, in such manner as is most convenient. Possibly
Mr. and Mrs. Biller may be able to assist you in this matter.
Believe me, dear Sir, yours most sincerely,

C. R. PRITCHETT.

Mr. G. Borrow.

I am not aware whether I am addressing a clergyman or a layman,
and therefore shall direct as above. Will you be so kind as to
send the MS. of the Russian Homilies to Mrs. Biller?

During Borrow's last month or two in St. Petersburg he printed two thin octavo volumes of translations--some of them verses which, undeterred by the disheartening reception of earlier efforts, he had continued to make from each language in succession that he had the happiness to acquire, although most of the poems are from his old portfolios. These little books were named _Targum_ and _The Talisman_. Dr. Knapp calls the latter an appendix to the former. They are absolutely separate volumes of verse, and I reproduce their title-pages from the only copies that Borrow seems to have reserved for himself out of the hundred printed of each. The publishers, it will be seen, are the German firm that printed the Manchu New Testament, Schultz and Beneze. Borrow's preface to _Targum_ is dated 'St. Petersburg, June 1, 1835.' Here in _Targum_ we find the trial poem which in competition with a rival candidate had won him the privilege of going to Russia for the Bible Society--_The Mountain Chase_. Here also among new verses are some from the Arabic, the Persian, and the Turkish. If it be true, as his friend Hasfeld said, that here was a poet who was able to render another without robbing the garland of a single leaf--that would but prove that the poetry which Borrow rendered was not of the first order. Nor, taking another standard--the capacity to render the ballad with a force that captures 'the common people,'--can we agree with William Bodham Donne, who was delighted with _Targum_ and said that 'the language and rhythm are vastly superior to Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_.' In _The Talisman_ we have four little poems from the Russian of Pushkin followed by another poem, _The Mermaid_, by the same author. Three other poems in Russian and Polish complete the booklet. Borrow left behind him in St. Petersburg with his friend, Hasfeld, a presentation copy for Pushkin, who, when he received it, expressed regret that he had not met his translator while Borrow was in St. Petersburg.

FOOTNOTES:

[103] Darlow, _Letters to the Bible Society_, p. 32.

[104] _Ibid._ p. 47.

[105] Darlow, _Letters to the Bible Society_, pp. 60, 61.

[106] Mr. Glen.

[107] The Manchu version--_i.e._ the transcript of Pierot's MS. of the Old Testament and 1000 copies of Lipóftsof's translation of the New--cost the Society in all £2600. Canton: _History of the Bible Society_, vol. ii. p. 239.

[108] Darlow; _Letters to the Bible Society_, p. 96.

[109] Darlow: _Letters to the Bible Society_, p. 65.

[110] _Ibid._, p. 81.