Chapter XXXIII: Life in London, 1860-1874

George Borrow's earlier visits to London are duly recorded, with that glamour of which he was a master, in the pages of _Lavengro_. Who can cross London Bridge even to-day without thinking of the apple-woman and her copy of _Moll Flanders_; and many passages of Borrow's great book make a very special appeal to the lover of London. Then there was that visit to the Bible Society's office made on foot from Norwich, and the expedition a few months later to pass an examination in the Manchu language. When he became a country squire and the author of the very successful _Bible in Spain_ Borrow frequently visited London, and his various residences may be traced from his letters. Take, for example, these five notes to his wife, the first apparently written in 1848, but all undated:

To Mrs. George Borrow

_Tuesday afternoon._

MY DEAR WIFE,--I just write you a line to tell you that I am
tolerably well as I hope you are. Every thing is in confusion
abroad. The French King has disappeared and will probably never
be heard of, though they are expecting him in England. Funds
are down nearly to eighty. The Government have given up the
income tax and people are very glad of it. _I am not._ With
respect to the funds, if I were to sell out I should not know
what to do with the money. J. says they will rise. I do not
think they will, they may, however, fluctuate a little.--Keep
up your spirits, my heart's dearest, and kiss old Hen. for me.

G. B.

To Mrs. George Borrow

53_a_, PALL MALL.

DEAR WIFE CARRETA,--I write you a line as I suppose you will be
glad to have one. I dine to-night with Murray and Cooke, and we
are going to talk over about _The Sleeping Bard_; both are very
civil. I have been reading hard at the Museum and have lost no
time. Yesterday I went to Greenwich to see the Leviathan. It is
almost terrible to look at, and seems too large for the river.
It resembles a floating town--the paddle is 60 feet high. A
tall man can stand up in the funnel as it lies down. 'Tis sad,
however, that money is rather scarce. I walked over Blackheath
and thought of poor dear Mrs. Watson. I have just had a note
from FitzGerald. We have had some rain but not very much.
London is very gloomy in rainy weather. I was hoping that I
should have a letter from you this morning. I hope you and Hen.
have been well.--God bless you,

GEORGE BORROW.

To Mrs. George Borrow

PALL MALL, _53a, Saturday._

DEAR CARRETA,--I am thinking of coming to you on Thursday. I do
not know that I can do anything more here, and the dulness of
the weather and the mists are making me ill. Please to send
another five pound note by Tuesday morning. I have spent
scarcely anything of that which you sent except what I owe to
Mrs. W., but I wish to have money in my pocket, and Murray and
Cooke are going to dine with me on Tuesday; I shall be glad to
be with you again, for I am very much in want of your society.
I miss very much my walks at Llangollen by the quiet canal; but
what's to be done? Everything seems nearly at a standstill in
London, on account of this wretched war, at which it appears to
me the English are getting the worst, notwithstanding their
boasting. They thought to settle it in an autumn's day; they
little knew the Russians, and they did not reflect that just
after autumn comes winter, which has ever been the Russians'
friend. Have you heard anything about the rent of the Cottage?
I should have been glad to hear from you this morning. Give my
love to Hen. and may God bless you, dear.

(Keep this.)

GEORGE BORROW.

To Mrs. George Borrow

No. 53_a_ PALL MALL.

DEAR CARRETA,--I hope you received my last letter written on
Tuesday. I am glad that I came to London. I find myself much
the better for having done so. I was going on in a very
spiritless manner. Everybody I have met seems very kind and
glad to see me. Murray seems to be thoroughly staunch. Cooke,
to whom I mentioned the F.T., says that Murray was delighted
with the idea, and will be very glad of the 4th of _Lavengro_.
I am going to dine with Murray to-day, Thursday. W. called upon
me to-day. I wish you would send me a blank cheque, in a letter
so that if I want money I may be able to draw for a little. I
shall not be long from home, but now I am here I wish to do all
that's necessary. If you send me a blank cheque, I suppose W.
or Murray would give me the money. I hope you got my last
letter. I received yours, and Cooke has just sent the two
copies of _Lavengro_ you wrote for, and I believe some
engravings of the picture. I shall wish to return by the packet
if possible, and will let you know when I am coming. I hope to
write again shortly to tell you some more news. How is mother
and Hen., and how are all the creatures? I hope all well. I
trust you like all I propose--now I am here I want to get two
or three things, to go to the Museum, and to arrange matters.
God bless you. Love to mother and Hen.

GEORGE BORROW.

To Mrs. George Borrow

No. 58 JERMYN STREET, ST. JAMES.

DEAR CARRETA,--I got here safe, and upon the whole had not so
bad a journey as might be expected. I put up at the Spread
Eagle for the night for I was tired and _hungry_; have got into
my old lodgings as you see, those on the second floor, they are
very nice ones, with every convenience; they are expensive, it
is true, but they are _cheerful_, which is a grand
consideration for me. I have as yet seen nobody, for it is only
now a little past eleven. I can scarcely at present tell you
what my plans are, perhaps to-morrow I shall write again. Kiss
Hen., and God bless you.

G. B.

It was in the year 1843 that Borrow, on a visit to London following upon the success of _The Bible in Spain_, sat to Henry Wyndham Phillips for his portrait at the instigation of Mr. Murray, who gave Borrow a replica, retaining for himself Phillips's more finished picture, which has been reproduced again and again in the present Mr. Murray's Borrow productions.[230]

Borrow was in London in 1845 and again in 1848. There must have been other occasional visits on the way to this or that starting point of his annual holiday, but in 1860 Borrow took a house in London, and he resided there until 1874, when he returned to Oulton. In a letter to Mr. John Murray, written from Ireland in November 1859, Mrs. Borrow writes to the effect that in the spring of the following year she will wish to look round 'and select a pleasant holiday residence within three to ten miles of London.' There is no doubt that a succession of winters on Oulton Broad had been very detrimental to Mrs. Borrow's health, although they had no effect upon Borrow, who bathed there with equal indifference in winter as in summer, having, as he tells us in _Wild Wales_, 'always had the health of an elephant.' And so Borrow and his wife arrived in London in June, and took temporary lodgings at 21 Montagu Street, Portman Square. In September they went into occupation of a house in Brompton--22 Hereford Square, which is now commemorated by a County Council tablet. Here Borrow resided for fourteen years, and here his wife died on January 30, 1869. She was buried in Brompton Cemetery, where Borrow was laid beside her twelve years later. For neighbour, on the one side, the Borrows had Mr. Robert Collinson and, on the other, Miss Frances Power Cobbe and her companion, Miss M. C. Lloyd. From Miss Cobbe we have occasional glimpses of Borrow, all of them unkindly. She was of Irish extraction, her father having been grandson of Charles Cobbe, Archbishop of Dublin. Miss Cobbe was an active woman in all kinds of journalistic and philanthropic enterprises in the London of the 'seventies and 'eighties of the last century, writing in particular in the now defunct newspaper, the _Echo_, and she wrote dozens of books and pamphlets, all of them forgotten except her _Autobiography_,[231] in which she devoted several pages to her neighbour in Hereford Square. Borrow had no sympathy with fanatical women with many 'isms,' and the pair did not agree, although many neighbourly courtesies passed between them for a time. Here is an extract from Miss Cobbe's _Autobiography_:

George Borrow, who, if he were not a gypsy by blood, _ought_ to
have been one, was for some years our near neighbour in
Hereford Square. My friend[232] was amused by his quaint
stories and his (real or sham) enthusiasm for Wales, and
cultivated his acquaintance. I never liked him, thinking him
more or less of a hypocrite. His missions, recorded in _The
Bible in Spain_, and his translations of the Scriptures into
the out-of-the-way tongues, for which he had a gift, were by no
means consonant with his real opinions concerning the veracity
of the said Bible.

One only needs to quote this by the light of the story as told so far in these pages to see how entirely Miss Cobbe misunderstood Borrow, or rather how little insight she was able to bring to a study of his curious character. The rest of her attempt at interpretation is largely taken up to demonstrate how much more clever and more learned she was than Borrow. Altogether it is a sorry spectacle this of the pseudo-philanthropist relating her conversations with a man broken by misfortune and the death of his wife. Many of Miss Cobbe's statements have passed into current biographies and have doubtless found acceptance.[233] I do not find them convincing. Archdeacon Whately on the other hand tells us that he always found Borrow 'most civil and hospitable,' and his sister gives us the following 'impression':

When Mr. Borrow returned from this Spanish journey, which had
been full, as we all know, of most entertaining adventures,
related with much liveliness and spirit by himself, he was
regarded as a kind of 'lion' in the literary circles of London.
When we first saw him it was at the house of a lady who took
great pleasure in gathering 'celebrities' in various ways
around her, and our party was struck with the appearance of
this renowned traveller--a tall, thin, spare man with
prematurely white hair and intensely dark eyes, as he stood
upright against the wall of one of the drawing-rooms and
received the homage of lion-hunting guests, and listened in
silence to their unsuccessful attempts to make him talk.'[234]

Another reminiscence of Borrow in London is furnished by Mr. A. T. Story, who writes:[235]

I had the pleasure of meeting Borrow on several occasions in
London some forty years ago. I cannot be quite certain of the
year, but I think it was either in 1872 or '73. I saw him first
in James Burns's publishing office in Southampton Row. I
happened to call just as a tall, strongly-built man with an
unforgettable face was leaving. When he had gone, Mr. Burns
asked: 'Do you know who that gentleman was?' and when I said I
did not, he said: 'He is the man whose book, _The Bible in
Spain_, I saw you take down from the shelf there the other day
and read.' 'What, George Borrow?' I exclaimed. He nodded, and
then said Borrow had called several times.

A few days later I had an opportunity of making the good man's
acquaintance and hearing a conversation between him and Mr.
Burns. They talked about Spiritualism, with which Borrow had
very little patience, though, after some talk he consented to
attend a séance to be held that evening in Burns's
drawing-room. We sat together, and I had the pleasure of
hearing from time to time his grunts of disapproval. When the
discourse--'in trance'--was over, he asked me if I believed in
'this sort of thing,' and when I said I was simply an
investigator he remarked, 'That's all right, I, too, am an
investigator--of things in general--and it would not take me
long to sum up that little man (the medium) as a humbug, but a
very clever humbug.'

That evening I had a long walk and a talk with him, and after
that several other opportunities of talk, the last being one
night when I chanced upon him on Westminster Bridge. It was a
superb starlight night, and he was standing about midway over
the bridge gazing down into the river. When I approached him he
said: 'I have been standing here for twenty minutes looking
round and meditating. There is not another city like this in
the world, nor another bridge like this, nor a river, nor a
Parliament House like that--with its little men making little
laws--which the Lawgiver that made yonder stars--look at
them!--is continually confounding--and will confound. O, we
little men! How long before we are dust? And the stars there,
how they smile at our puny lives and tricks--here to-day, gone
to-morrow. And yet to-night how glorious it is to be here!'

So he rhapsodised. And then it was, 'Where can we get a bite
and sup? I've been footing it all day among the hills
there--the Surrey Hills--for a breath of fresh air.'

In appearance, at the time I knew him, Borrow was neither thin
nor stout, but well proportioned and apparently of great
strength.

During this sojourn in London, which was undertaken because Oulton and Yarmouth did not agree with his wife, Borrow suffered the tragedy of her loss. Borrow dragged on his existence in London for another five years, a much broken man. It is extraordinary how little we know of Borrow during that fourteen years' sojourn in London; how rarely we meet him in the literary memoirs of this period. Happily one or two pleasant friendships relieved the sadness of his days; and in particular the reminiscences of Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton assist us to a more correct appreciation of the Borrow of these last years of London life. Of Mr. Watts-Dunton's 'memories,' we shall write in our next chapter. Here it remains only to note that Borrow still continued to interest himself in his various efforts at translation, and in 1861 and 1862 the editor of _Once a Week_ printed various ballads and stories from his pen. The volumes of this periodical are before me, and I find illustrations by Sir John Millais, Sir E. J. Poynter, Simeon Solomon and George Du Maurier; stories by Mrs. Henry Wood and Harriet Martineau, and articles by Walter Thornbury.

In 1862 _Wild Wales_ was published, as we have seen. In 1865 Henrietta married William MacOubrey, and in the following year, Borrow and his wife went to visit the pair in their Belfast home. In the beginning of the year 1869 Mrs. Borrow died, aged seventy-three. There are few records of the tragedy that are worth perpetuating.[236] Borrow consumed his own smoke. With his wife's death his life was indeed a wreck. No wonder he was so 'rude' to that least perceptive of women, Miss Cobbe. Some four or five years more Borrow lingered on in London, cheered at times by walks and talks with Gordon Hake and Watts-Dunton, and he then returned to Oulton--a most friendless man:--

What land has let the dreamer from its gates,
What face belovèd hides from him away?
A dreamer outcast from some world of dreams,
He goes for ever lonely on his way.

Like a great pine upon some Alpine height,
Torn by the winds and bent beneath the snow
Half overthrown by icy avalanche,
The lone of soul throughout the world must go.

Alone among his kind he stands alone,
Torn by the passions of his own strange heart,
Stoned by continual wreckage of his dreams,
He in the crowd for ever is apart.

Like the great pine that, rocking no sweet rest,
Swings no young birds to sleep upon the bough,
But where the raven only comes to croak--
'There lives no man more desolate than thou!'

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 pronounced by Henry Dalrymple, his schoolfellow, from whose manuscript 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 assuredly we miss the fine charity which led Goethe's friend, the Duchess 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.