The Life of George Borrow [146]
see John Murray, and this time he was successful. He submitted the manuscript of The Zincali, which Murray sent to Richard Ford {335b} that he might pronounce upon it and its possibilities. "I have made acquaintance," Ford wrote to H. U. Addington, 14th Jan. 1841, "with an extraordinary fellow, George Borrow, who went out to Spain to convert the gypsies. He is about to publish his failure, and a curious book it will be. It was submitted to my perusal by the hesitating Murray." {335c} On Ford's advice the book was accepted for publication, it being arranged that author and publisher should share the profits equally between them.
On 17th April 1841 there appeared in two volumes The Zincali; {336a} or, An Account of the Gypsies in Spain. With an original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and a copious Dictionary of their Language. By George Borrow, late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain. It was dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon, G.C.B. (Sir George Villiers), in "remembrance of the many obligations under which your Lordship has placed me, by your energetic and effectual interference in time of need." The first edition of 750 copies sufficed to meet the demand of two years. Ford, however, wrote to Murray: "The book has created a great sensation far and wide. I was sure it would, and I hope you think that when I read the MS. my opinion and advice were sound." {336b}
The Zincali had been begun at Badajos with the Romany songs or rhymes copied down as recited by his gypsy friends. To these he had subsequently added, being assisted by a French courier, Juan Antonio Bailly, who translated the songs into Spanish. These translations were originally intended to be published in a separate work, as was the Vocabulary, which forms part of The Zincali. Had Borrow sought to make two separate works of the "Songs" and "Vocabulary," there is very considerable doubt if they would have fared any better than the everlasting Ab Gwilym; but either with inspiration, or acting on some one's wise counsel, he determined to subordinate them to an account of the Spanish Gypsies.
As a piece of bookmaking The Zincali is by no means notable. Borrow himself refers to it (page 354) as "this strange wandering book of mine." In construction it savours rather of the method by which it was originally inspired; but for all that it is fascinating reading, saturated with the atmosphere of vagabondage and the gypsy encampment. It was not necessarily a book for the scholar and the philologist, many of whom scorned it on account of its rather obvious carelessnesses and inaccuracies. Borrow was not a writer of academic books. He lacked the instinct for research which alone insures accuracy.
It was particularly appropriate that Borrow's first book should be about the Gypsies, who had always exercised so strange an attraction for him that he could not remember the time "when the very name of Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described." {337a} His was not merely an interest in their strange language, their traditions, their folk-lore; it was something nearer and closer to the people themselves. They excited his curiosity, he envied their mode of life, admired their clannishness, delighted in their primitive customs. Their persistence in warring against the gentile appealed strongly to his instinctive hatred of "gentility nonsense"; and perhaps more than anything else, he envied them the stars and the sun and the wind on the heath.
"Romany matters have always had a peculiar interest for me," {337b} he affirms over and over again in different words, and he never lost an opportunity of joining a party of gypsies round their camp-fire. His knowledge of the Romany people was not acquired from books. Apparently he had read very few of the many works dealing with the mysterious race he had singled out for his particular attention. With characteristic assurance he makes the sweeping assertion that "all the books which have been published concerning them [the Gypsies] have been written by those who
On 17th April 1841 there appeared in two volumes The Zincali; {336a} or, An Account of the Gypsies in Spain. With an original Collection of their Songs and Poetry, and a copious Dictionary of their Language. By George Borrow, late Agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in Spain. It was dedicated to the Earl of Clarendon, G.C.B. (Sir George Villiers), in "remembrance of the many obligations under which your Lordship has placed me, by your energetic and effectual interference in time of need." The first edition of 750 copies sufficed to meet the demand of two years. Ford, however, wrote to Murray: "The book has created a great sensation far and wide. I was sure it would, and I hope you think that when I read the MS. my opinion and advice were sound." {336b}
The Zincali had been begun at Badajos with the Romany songs or rhymes copied down as recited by his gypsy friends. To these he had subsequently added, being assisted by a French courier, Juan Antonio Bailly, who translated the songs into Spanish. These translations were originally intended to be published in a separate work, as was the Vocabulary, which forms part of The Zincali. Had Borrow sought to make two separate works of the "Songs" and "Vocabulary," there is very considerable doubt if they would have fared any better than the everlasting Ab Gwilym; but either with inspiration, or acting on some one's wise counsel, he determined to subordinate them to an account of the Spanish Gypsies.
As a piece of bookmaking The Zincali is by no means notable. Borrow himself refers to it (page 354) as "this strange wandering book of mine." In construction it savours rather of the method by which it was originally inspired; but for all that it is fascinating reading, saturated with the atmosphere of vagabondage and the gypsy encampment. It was not necessarily a book for the scholar and the philologist, many of whom scorned it on account of its rather obvious carelessnesses and inaccuracies. Borrow was not a writer of academic books. He lacked the instinct for research which alone insures accuracy.
It was particularly appropriate that Borrow's first book should be about the Gypsies, who had always exercised so strange an attraction for him that he could not remember the time "when the very name of Gypsy did not awaken within me feelings hard to be described." {337a} His was not merely an interest in their strange language, their traditions, their folk-lore; it was something nearer and closer to the people themselves. They excited his curiosity, he envied their mode of life, admired their clannishness, delighted in their primitive customs. Their persistence in warring against the gentile appealed strongly to his instinctive hatred of "gentility nonsense"; and perhaps more than anything else, he envied them the stars and the sun and the wind on the heath.
"Romany matters have always had a peculiar interest for me," {337b} he affirms over and over again in different words, and he never lost an opportunity of joining a party of gypsies round their camp-fire. His knowledge of the Romany people was not acquired from books. Apparently he had read very few of the many works dealing with the mysterious race he had singled out for his particular attention. With characteristic assurance he makes the sweeping assertion that "all the books which have been published concerning them [the Gypsies] have been written by those who