The Life of George Borrow [161]
it as "a RUM book and has queer stuff in it, although much expurgated for the sake of Spain." Ford was very anxious that Borrow should keep the promise that he had given two years previously to review the Hand-Book when it appeared. "You will do it MAGNIFICENTLY. 'Thou art the man,'" Ford had written with the greatest enthusiasm. On 2nd June an article of thirty-seven folio pages was despatched by Borrow to John Murray for The Quarterly Review, with the following from Mrs Borrow:-
"With regard to the article, it must not be received as a specimen of what Mr Borrow would have produced had he been well, but he considered his promise to Mr Ford sacred--and it is only to be wished that it had been written under more favourable circumstances." Borrow was ill at the time, having been "very unwell for the last month," as Mrs Borrow explains, "and particularly so lately. Shivering fits have been succeeded by burning fever, till his strength was much reduced; and he at present remains in a low, and weak state, and what is worse, we are by no means sure that the disease is subdued."
Ford saw in Borrow "a crack reviewer." " . . . You have," he assured him in 1843, "only to write a LONG LETTER, having read the book carefully and thought over the subject." Ford also wrote to Borrow (26th Oct. 1843): "I have written several letters to Murray recommending them to BAG you forthwith, unless they are demented." There was no doubt in his, Ford's, mind as to the acceptance of Borrow's article.
"If insanity does not rule the Q. R. camp, they will embrace the offer with open arms in their present Erebus state of dullness," he tells Borrow, then, with a burst of confidence continues, "But, barring politics, I confidentially tell you that the Ed[inburgh] Rev. does business in a more liberal and more business-like manner than the Q[uarterly] Rev. I am always dunning this into Murray's head. More flies are caught with honey than vinegar. Soft sawder, especially if plenty of GOLD goes into the composition, cements a party and keeps earnest pens together. I grieve, for my heart is entirely with the Q. R., its views and objects."
The article turned out to be, not a review of the Hand-Book, but a bitter attack on Spain and her rulers. The second part was to some extent germane to the subject, but it appears to have been more concerned with Borrow's view of Spain and things Spanish than with Ford's book. Lockhart saw that it would not do. In a letter to John Murray he explains very clearly and very justly the objections to using the article as it stood.
"I am very sorry," he writes (13th June), "after Borrow has so kindly exerted himself during illness, that I must return his paper. I read the MS. with much pleasure; but clever and brilliant as he is sure always to be, it was very evident that he had not done such an article as Ford's merits required; and I therefore intended to adopt Mr Borrow's lively diatribe, but interweave with his matter and add to it, such observations and extracts as might, I thought, complete the paper in a REVIEW SENSE.
"But it appears that Mr B. won't allow anybody to tamper with his paper; therefore here it is. It will be highly ornamental as it stands to any Magazine, and I have no doubt either Blackwood or Fraser or Colburn will be [only] too happy to insert it next month, if applied to now.
"Mr Borrow would not have liked that, when his Bible in Spain came out, we should have printed a brilliant essay by Ford on some point of Spanish interest, but including hardly anything calculated to make the public feel that a new author of high consequence had made his appearance among us--one bearing the name, not of Richard Ford, but of George Borrow."
Lockhart was right and Borrow was wrong. There is no room for equivocation. Borrow should have sunk his pride in favour of his friendship for Ford, who had, even if occasionally a little tedious in his epistolary enthusiasm, always been a loyal friend; but Borrow was ill and excuses must be made for him. Lockhart wrote also to Ford
"With regard to the article, it must not be received as a specimen of what Mr Borrow would have produced had he been well, but he considered his promise to Mr Ford sacred--and it is only to be wished that it had been written under more favourable circumstances." Borrow was ill at the time, having been "very unwell for the last month," as Mrs Borrow explains, "and particularly so lately. Shivering fits have been succeeded by burning fever, till his strength was much reduced; and he at present remains in a low, and weak state, and what is worse, we are by no means sure that the disease is subdued."
Ford saw in Borrow "a crack reviewer." " . . . You have," he assured him in 1843, "only to write a LONG LETTER, having read the book carefully and thought over the subject." Ford also wrote to Borrow (26th Oct. 1843): "I have written several letters to Murray recommending them to BAG you forthwith, unless they are demented." There was no doubt in his, Ford's, mind as to the acceptance of Borrow's article.
"If insanity does not rule the Q. R. camp, they will embrace the offer with open arms in their present Erebus state of dullness," he tells Borrow, then, with a burst of confidence continues, "But, barring politics, I confidentially tell you that the Ed[inburgh] Rev. does business in a more liberal and more business-like manner than the Q[uarterly] Rev. I am always dunning this into Murray's head. More flies are caught with honey than vinegar. Soft sawder, especially if plenty of GOLD goes into the composition, cements a party and keeps earnest pens together. I grieve, for my heart is entirely with the Q. R., its views and objects."
The article turned out to be, not a review of the Hand-Book, but a bitter attack on Spain and her rulers. The second part was to some extent germane to the subject, but it appears to have been more concerned with Borrow's view of Spain and things Spanish than with Ford's book. Lockhart saw that it would not do. In a letter to John Murray he explains very clearly and very justly the objections to using the article as it stood.
"I am very sorry," he writes (13th June), "after Borrow has so kindly exerted himself during illness, that I must return his paper. I read the MS. with much pleasure; but clever and brilliant as he is sure always to be, it was very evident that he had not done such an article as Ford's merits required; and I therefore intended to adopt Mr Borrow's lively diatribe, but interweave with his matter and add to it, such observations and extracts as might, I thought, complete the paper in a REVIEW SENSE.
"But it appears that Mr B. won't allow anybody to tamper with his paper; therefore here it is. It will be highly ornamental as it stands to any Magazine, and I have no doubt either Blackwood or Fraser or Colburn will be [only] too happy to insert it next month, if applied to now.
"Mr Borrow would not have liked that, when his Bible in Spain came out, we should have printed a brilliant essay by Ford on some point of Spanish interest, but including hardly anything calculated to make the public feel that a new author of high consequence had made his appearance among us--one bearing the name, not of Richard Ford, but of George Borrow."
Lockhart was right and Borrow was wrong. There is no room for equivocation. Borrow should have sunk his pride in favour of his friendship for Ford, who had, even if occasionally a little tedious in his epistolary enthusiasm, always been a loyal friend; but Borrow was ill and excuses must be made for him. Lockhart wrote also to Ford