George Borrow and His Circle | Page 8

favourite
hooks were the Bible and the Newgate Calendar. We know that he
specialised on the Bible and Prize-Fighting in no ordinary fashion--and
here we see his father on his death-bed struggling between the religious
sentiments of his maturity and the one great worldly escapade of his
early manhood.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] In the year 1870 Borrow was asked for material for a biography by
the editor of Men of the Time, a publication which many years later was
incorporated in the present Who's Who. He drew up two drafts in his
own handwriting, which are so interesting, and yet vary so much in
certain particulars, that we are tempted to print both here, or at least
that part of the second draft that differs from the first. The concluding
passages of both drafts are alike. The biography as it stands in the 1871
edition of Men of the Time appears to have been compiled from the
earlier of these drafts. It must have been another copy of Draft No. 1
that was forwarded to the editor:
DRAFT I.--George Henry Borrow, born at East Dereham in the county
of Norfolk in the early part of the present century. His father was a
military officer, with whom he travelled about most parts of the United
Kingdom. He was at some of the best schools in England, and also for

about two years at the High School at Edinburgh. In 1818 he was
articled to an eminent solicitor at Norwich, with whom he continued
five years. He did not, however, devote himself much to his profession,
his mind being much engrossed by philology, for which at a very early
period he had shown a decided inclination, having when in Ireland
acquired the Irish language. At the age of twenty he knew little of the
law, but was well versed in languages, being not only a good classical
scholar but acquainted with French, Italian, Spanish, all the Celtic and
Gothic dialects, and also with the peculiar language of the English
Romany Chals or Gypsies. This speech, which, though broken and
scanty, exhibits evident signs of high antiquity, he had picked up
amongst the wandering tribes with whom he had formed acquaintance
on a wild heath near Norwich, where they were in the habit of
encamping. At the expiration of his clerkship, which occurred shortly
after the death of his father, he betook himself to London, and
endeavoured to get a livelihood by literature. For some time he was a
hack author. His health failing he left London, and for a considerable
time lived a life of roving adventure. In the year 1833 he entered the
service of he British and Foreign Bible Society, and being sent to
Russia edited at Saint Petersburg the New Testament in the Manchu or
Chinese Tartar. Whilst at Saint Petersburg he published a book called
Targum, consisting of metrical translations from thirty languages. He
was subsequently for some years agent of the Bible Society in Spain,
where he was twice imprisoned for endeavouring to circulate the
Gospel. In Spain he mingled much with the Calóre or Zincali, called by
the Spaniards Gitanos or Gypsies, whose language he found to be much
the same as that of the English Romany. At Madrid he edited the New
Testament in Spanish, and translated the Gospel of Saint Luke into the
language of the Zincali. Leaving the service of the Bible Society he
returned to England in 1839, and shortly afterwards married a Suffolk
lady. In 1841 he published The Zincali, or an account of the Gypsies of
Spain, with a vocabulary of their language, which he proved to be
closely connected with the Sanskrit. This work obtained almost
immediately a European celebrity, and was the cause of many learned
works being published on the continent on the subject of the Gypsies.
In 1842 he gave to the world The Bible in Spain, or an account of an
attempt to circulate the Gospel in the peninsula, a work which received

a warm and eloquent eulogium from Sir Robert Peel in the House of
Commons. In 1844 he was wandering amongst the Gypsies of Hungary,
Walachia, and Turkey, gathering up the words of their respective
dialects of the Romany, and making a collection of their songs. In 1851
he published Lavengro, in which he gives an account of his early life,
and in 1857 The Romany Rye, a sequel to the same. His latest
publication is Wild Wales. He has written many other works, some of
which are not yet published. He has an estate in Suffolk, but spends the
greater part of his time in wandering on foot through various countries.
* * * * *
DRAFT II.--George Henry Borrow was born at East Dereham in the
county of Norfolk on the 5th July 1803.