leave to say something on a very principal point. You talk about conditions of publishing. Mr. Borrow has not the slightest wish to publish the book Romany Rye. The MS. was left with you because you wished to see it, and when left you were particularly requested not to let it pass out of your own hands. But it seems you have shown it to various individuals whose opinions you repeat. What those opinions are worth may be gathered from the following fact. The book is one of the most learned works ever written; yet in the summary of the opinions which you give, not one single allusion is made to the learning which pervades the book, no more than if it contained none at all. It is treated just as if all the philological and historical facts were mere inventions, and the book a common novel. With regard to Lavengro it is necessary to observe that if ever a book experienced infamous and undeserved treatment it was that book. It was (assailed by every trumpery creature who hated Mr. Borrow on account of his reputation and acquirements)' attacked in every form that envy and malice could suggest, on account of Mr. Borrow's acquirements and the success of the Bible in Spain, and it was deserted by those whose duty it was, in some degree, to have protected it. No attempt was ever made to refute the vile calumny that it was a book got up against the Popish agitation of '51. It was written years previous to that period -a fact of which none is better aware than the Publisher. band's dictation, partly by Borrow himself, but was signed by Mrs. Borrow. It accounts for the delay in the publication of Romany Rye, which did not take place until 1857, although promised since the appearance of Lavengro in 1851. 1 The portion in parenthesis was erased, Mr. Borrow writing over it what follows with his own hand. MR. AND MRS. GEORGE BORROW 135 Is that calumny to be still permitted to go unanswered? 1 (The following in Borrow's handwriting.) If these suggestions are attended to, well and good; if not Mr. Borrow can bide his time. He is independent of the public and of everybody. Say no more on that Russian subject. Mr. Borrow has had quite enough of the Press. If he wrote a book on Russia, it would be said to be like the Bible in Spain, or it would be said to be unlike the Bible in Spain, and would be blamed in either case. He has written a book in connexion with England such as no other body could have written, and he now rests from his labours. He has found England an ungrateful country. It owes much to him, and he owes nothing to it. If he had been a low ignorant impostor, like a person he could name, he would have been employed and honoured. (In the handwriting of Mrs. B.)—I remain-Yours sincerely, MARY BORROW. 1 No calumny at all (writes Dr. Knapp), but a natural inference, and one which Mr. Murray and Mr. Woodfall both noted in their letters to Borrow, before the reviewers proclaimed it. The general intention of "The Faëry Queen." Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599) “The chief end I propose to myself in all my labours, is to vex the world." An author's contempt for contemporary authors. He believes in himself. Dean Swift (1667-1745) Horace Walpole (1717-1797) William Blake (1757-1827) Sir Walter Scott (1771-1882) How he came to write "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." Elia paints for a Quaker friend the joys of living by literature. The pleasures of literature and state-craft compared. Agonising over Cromwell's letters. Lord Macaulay (1800-1859) Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) How Athens taught her historians to write. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) What it means to be a painter. James Smetham (1821-1889) He is content to watch the Galley of Fame go by.-But why is not Dante Gabriel Rossetti aboard? James Smetham 71821-1889) Uttering his heart about the public-and some other things beside. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) |