George Borrow and His Circle Part 3

To the Right Hon. The Secretary at War

NORWICH, _Novr. 24, 1831._

SIR,--Not having been favoured with an answer to the letter which I last addressed to you concerning the arrears of disembodied allowance due to Lieut. John Borrow of the West Norfolk Militia, I again take the liberty of submitting this matter to your consideration. More than six months have elapsed since by virtue of a power of attorney granted to me by Lieut.

Borrow, I made demand at the army Pay Office for a portion of those arrears, being the amount of two affidavits which were produced, but owing to the much unnecessary demur which ensued, chiefly with respect to the power of Attorney, since declared to be valid, that demand has not hitherto been satisfied. I therefore am compelled to beg that an order may be issued to the Pay Office for the payment to me of the sums specified in the said affidavits, that the amount may be remitted to Lieut.

Borrow, he being at present in great need thereof. If it be answered that Lieut. Borrow was absent at the last training of his regiment, and that he is not ent.i.tled to any arrears of pay, I must beg leave to observe that the demand was legally made many months previous to the said training, and cannot now be set aside by his non-appearance, which arose from unavoidable necessity; he having for the last year been lying sick in one of the provinces of New Spain. And now, Sir, I will make bold to inquire whether Lieut. Borrow, the son of an Officer, who served his country abroad and at home, for upwards of fifty years, is to lose his commission for being incapable, from a natural visitation, of attending at the training; if it be replied in the affirmative, I have only to add that his case will be a cruelly hard one. But I hope and trust, Sir, that taking all these circ.u.mstances into consideration you will not _yet_ cause his name to be stricken off the list, and that you will permit him to retain his commission in the event of his arriving in England with all the speed which his health of body will permit, and that to enable him so to do his arrears[21]

you will forthwith give an order for the payment of his arrears. I have the honor to be, Sir, your very humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

IV

To the Rt. Hon. The Secretary at War

NORWICH, _Decr. 13, 1831._

SIR,--I have just received a letter from my brother Lieutenant J. Borrow, from which it appears he has had leave of absence from his Colonel, the Earl of Orford, up to the present year.

He says 'in a letter dated Wolterton, 21st June 1828, Lord Orford writes: "should you want a further leave I will not object to it." 20th May 1829 says: "I am much obliged to you for a letter of the 18th March, and shall be glad to allow you leave of absence for a twelvemonth." I enclose his last letter from Brussels, August 6, 1829. At the end it gives very evident proof that my remaining in Mexico _was not only by his Lords.h.i.+p's permission, but even by his advice_. Sir, if you should require it I will transmit this last letter of the Earl of Orford's, which my brother has sent to me, but beg leave to observe that no blame can be attached to his Lords.h.i.+p in this case, he having from a multiplicity of important business doubtless forgotten these minor matters. I hope now, Sir, that you will have no further objection to issue an order for the payment of that portion of my brother's arrears specified in the two affidavits in the possession of the Paymaster General.

By the unnecessary obstacles which have been flung in my brother's way in obtaining his arrears he has been subjected to great inconvenience and distress. An early answer on this point will much oblige, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

V

To the Rt. Hon. The Secretary at War

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _May 24, 1833._

SIR,--I take the liberty of addressing you for the purpose of requesting that an order be given to the Paymaster General for the issue of the arrears of pay of my brother Lieutenant John Borrow of the West Norfolk Militia, whose agent I am by virtue of certain powers of Attorney, and also for the continuance of the payment of his disembodied allowance. Lieutenant Borrow was not present at the last training of his Regiment, being in Mexico at the time, and knowing nothing of the matter. I beg leave to observe that no official nor other letter was dispatched to him by the adjutant to give him notice of the event, nor was I, his agent, informed of it, he therefore cannot have forfeited his arrears and disembodied allowance. He was moreover for twelve months previous to the training, and still is, so much indisposed from the effects of an attack of the yellow fever, that his return would be attended with great danger, which can be proved by the certificate of a Medical Gentleman practising in Norwich, who was consulted from Mexico.

Lieutenants Harper and Williams, of the same Regiment, have recovered their pay and arrears, although absent at the last training, therefore it is clear and manifest that no objection can be made to Lieut. Borrow's claim, who went abroad with his Commanding Officer's permission, which those Gentlemen did not.

In conclusion I have to add that I have stated nothing which I cannot substantiate, and that I court the most minute scrutiny into the matter. I have the honor to be, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

GEORGE BORROW.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE BORROW

From a portrait by his brother John Thomas Borrow taken in early youth when his hair was black. This portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery, London.]

The last of these letters is in another handwriting than that of Borrow, who by this time had started for St. Petersburg for the Bible Society.

The officials were adamant. To one letter the War Office replied that they could not consider any claims until Lieutenant Borrow of the West Norfolk Militia should have arrived in England to attend the training of his regiment. These five letters are, as we have said, in the Rolls Office, although the indefatigable Professor Knapp seems to have dropped across only two of them there. Their chief interest is in that they are the earliest in order of date of the hitherto known letters of Borrow.

There is one further letter on the subject written somewhat later by old Mrs. Borrow. She also appeals to the War Office for her son's allowance.[22] It would seem clear that the arrears were never paid.

To the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Orford

WILLOW LANE, NORWICH, _26 May 1834._

MY LORD,--I a few days since received the distressing intelligence of the death of my dear son John, a lieutenant in your Lords.h.i.+p's West Norfolk Regiment of Militia, after the sufferings of a protracted and painful illness; the melancholy event took place on the 22nd November last at Guanajuato in Mexico. Having on the former irreparable loss of my dear husband experienced your Lords.h.i.+p's kindness, I am induced to trespa.s.s on your goodness in a like case of heavy affliction, by requesting that you will be pleased to make the necessary application to the Secretary at War to authorise me to receive the arrears of pay due to my late son, viz.: ten months to the period of the training, and from that time to the day of his decease, for which I am informed it is requisite to have your Lords.h.i.+p's certificate of leave of absence from the said training. The amount is a matter of great importance to me in my very limited circ.u.mstances, having been at considerable expense in fitting him out, which, though at the time it occasioned me much pecuniary inconvenience, I thought it my duty to exert all my means to accomplish, my present distress of mind is the greater having to struggle with my feelings without the consolation and advice of my son George, who is at this time at St. Petersburg. Your Lords.h.i.+p will, I trust, pardon the liberty I am taking, and the trouble I am giving, and allow for the feelings of an afflicted mother. I have the honor to be your Lords.h.i.+p's most obedient servant,

ANN BORROW.

I have said that there are letters of John Borrow's extant. Fragments of these will be found in Dr. Knapp's book. These show a keen intelligence, great practicality, and common sense. George--in 1829--had asked his brother as to joining him in Mexico. 'If the country is soon settled I shall say "yes,"' John answers. With equal wisdom he says to his brother, 'Do not enter the army; it is a bad spec.' In this same year, 1829, John writes to ask whether his mother and brother are 'still living in that windy house of old King's; it gives me the rheumatism to think of it.' In 1830 he writes to his mother that he wishes his brother were making money. 'Neither he nor I have any luck, he works hard and remains poor.' In February of 1831 John writes to George suggesting that he should endeavour to procure a commission in the regiment, and in July of the same year to try the law again:

I am convinced that your want of success in life is more owing to your being unlike other people than to any other cause.

John, as we have seen, died in Mexico of fever. George was at St.

Petersburg working for the Bible Society when his mother writes from Norwich to tell him the news. John had died on 22nd November 1833. 'You are now my only hope,' she writes, '... do not grieve, my dear George.

I trust we shall all meet in heaven. Put a c.r.a.pe on your hat for some time.' Had George Borrow's brother lived it might have meant very much in his life. There might have been nephews and nieces to soften the asperity of his later years. Who can say? Meanwhile, _Lavengro_ contains no happier pages than those concerned with this dearly loved brother.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE BORROW'S BIRTHPLACE AT DUMPLING GREEN

_From a drawing by Fortunino Matania_]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] I am not able to trace more than three of John Borrow's pictures: firstly, a portrait of George Borrow, reproduced in this book, which was long in the possession of Mr. William Jarrold, the well-known publisher of Norwich, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London, having been purchased by the Director in 1912; secondly, the portrait of Borrow's father in the possession of a lady at Leamington; and thirdly, _The Judgment of Solomon_, which for a long time hung as an overmantel in the Borrow Home in Willow Lane, Norwich. Dr. Knapp also saw in Norwich 'A Portrait of a Gentleman,' by John Borrow. A second portrait of George Borrow by his brother was taken by the latter to Mexico, and has not since been heard of.

[16] _Lavengro_, ch. xxv.

[17] _Life of B. R. Haydon_, by Tom Taylor, 1853, vol. ii. p. 21.

[18] Or perhaps the experience contained in a letter to Miss Mitford in 1824 (_Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table Talk_, 2 vols., 1876):

'I have had a horrid week with a mother and eight daughters! Mamma _remembering_ herself a beauty; Sally and Betsey, etc., see her a matron. They say, "Oh! this is more suitable to mamma's age," and "that fits mamma's time of life!" But mamma does not agree. Betsey, and Sally, and Eliza, and Patty want "mamma"! Mamma wants herself as she looked when she was Betsey's age, and papa fell in love with her. So I am distracted to death. I have a great mind to paint her with a long beard like Salvator, and say, "That's _my_ idea of a fit accompaniment."'

[19] _Benjamin Robert Haydon: Correspondence and Table Talk_, with a Memoir by his son Frederic Wordsworth Haydon, vol. i. pp. 360-61.

[20] From what are called the 'War Office Weeded Papers, Old Series, No.

33,063/17,' and succeeding numbers.

[21] ('his arrears' are ruled out.) Note by War Office.

[22] This letter is from the original among the Borrow Papers in my possession.

CHAPTER IV

A WANDERING CHILDHOOD

We do not need to inquire too deeply as to Borrow's possible gypsy origin in order to account for his vagabond propensities. The lives of his parents before his birth, and the story of his own boyhood, sufficiently account for the dominant tendency in Borrow. His father and mother were married in 1793. Almost every year they changed their domicile. In 1801 a son was born to them--they still continued to change their domicile. Captain Borrow followed his regiment from place to place, and his family accompanied him on these journeys. Dover, Colchester, Sandgate, Canterbury, Chelmsford--these are some of the towns where the Borrows sojourned. It was the merest accident--the Peace of Amiens, to be explicit--that led them back to East Dereham in 1803, so that the second son was born in his grandfather's house. George was only a month old when he was carried off to Colchester; in 1804 he was in the barracks of Kent, in 1805 of Suss.e.x, in 1806 at Hastings, in 1807 at Canterbury, and so on. The indefatigable Dr. Knapp has recorded every detail for all who love the minute, the meticulous, in biography. The whole of the first thirteen years of Borrow's life is filled up in this way, until in 1816 he and his parents found a home of some permanence in Norwich. In 1809-10 they were at East Dereham, in 1810-11 at Norman Cross, in 1812 wandering from Harwich to Sheffield, and in 1813 wandering from Sheffield to Edinburgh; in 1814 they were in Norwich, and in 1815-16 in Ireland. In this last year they returned to Norwich, the father to retire on full pay, and to live in Willow Lane until his death. How could a boy, whose first twelve years of life had been made up of such continual wandering, have been other than a restless, nomad-loving man, envious of the free life of the gypsies, for whom alone in later life he seemed to have kindliness? Those twelve years are to most boys merely the making of a moral foundation for good or ill; to Borrow they were everything, and at least four personalities captured his imagination during that short span, as we see if we follow his juvenile wanderings more in detail to Dereham, Norman Cross, Edinburgh, and Clonmel, and the personalities are Lady Fenn, Ambrose Smith, David Haggart, and Murtagh. Let us deal with each in turn:

A. EAST DEREHAM AND LADY FENN.--In our opening chapter we referred to the lines in _Lavengro_, where Borrow recalls his early impressions of his native town, or at least the town in the neighbourhood of the hamlet in which he was born. Borrow, we may be sure, would have repudiated 'Dumpling Green' if he could. The name had a humorous suggestion. To this day they call boys from Norfolk 'Norfolk Dumplings' in the neighbouring s.h.i.+res. But East Dereham was something to be proud of. In it had died the writer who, through the greater part of Borrow's life, remained the favourite poet of that half of England which professed the Evangelical creed in which Borrow was brought up. Cowper was buried here by the side of Mary Unwin, and every Sunday little George would see his tomb just as Henry Kingsley was wont to see the tombs in Chelsea Old Church. The fervour of devotion to Cowper's memory that obtained in those early days must have been a stimulus to the boy, who from the first had ambitions far beyond anything that he was to achieve. Here was his first lesson. The second came from Lady Fenn--a more vivid impression for the child. Twenty years before Borrow was born Cowper had sung her merits in his verse. She and her golden-headed cane are commemorated in _Lavengro_. Dame Eleanor Fenn had made a reputation in her time. As 'Mrs. Teachwell' and 'Mrs. Lovechild' she had published books for the young of a most improving character, _The Child's Grammar_, _The Mother's Grammar_, _A Short History of Insects_, and _Cobwebs to Catch Flies_ being of the number. The forty-fourth edition of _The Child's Grammar_ by Mrs. Lovechild appeared in 1851, and the twenty-second edition of _The Mother's Grammar_ in 1849. But it is her husband that her name most recalls to us. Sir John Fenn gave us the delightful Paston Letters--of which Horace Walpole said that 'they make all other letters not worth reading.' Walpole described 'Mr. Fenn of East Dereham in Norfolk' as 'a smatterer in antiquity, but a very good sort of man.' Fenn, who held the original doc.u.ments of the Letters, sent his first two volumes, when published, to Buckingham Palace, and the King acknowledged the gifts by knighting the editor, who, however, died in 1794, before George Borrow was born. His widow survived until 1813, and Borrow was in his seventh or eighth year when he caught these notable glimpses of his 'Lady Bountiful,' who lived in 'the half-aristocratic mansion' of the town. But we know next to nothing of Borrow in East Dereham, from which indeed he departed in his eighth year. There are, however, interesting references to his memories of the place in _Lavengro_. The first is where he recalls to his author friend, who had offered him comet wine of 1811, his recollection of gazing at the comet from the market-place of 'pretty D----' in 1811.[23] The second reference is when he goes to church with the gypsies and dreams of an incident in his childhood: