George Borrow: The Man and His BooksThomas, Edward
General
George Borrow: The Man and His Books
Thomas, Edward
Borrow, George, 1803-1881
friend." But whatever Bowring's help, Borrow was "drifting on the sea of
the world, and likely to be so," and especially hurt because of the
figure he must cut in the eyes of his own people. Was it now, or when he
was bookkeeper at the inn in 1825, that he saw so much of the ways of
commercial travellers? {114}
It is not necessary to quote from the metrical translations, probably of
this period, "selections from a huge, undigested mass of translation,
accumulated during several years devoted to philological pursuits,"
published in "The Targum" of 1835. They were made from originals in the
Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Tartar, Tibetian, Chinese, Mandchou,
Russian, Malo-Russian, Polish, Finnish, Anglo-Saxon, Ancient Norse,
Suabian, German, Dutch, Danish, Ancient Danish, Swedish, Ancient Irish,
Irish, Gaelic, Ancient British, Cambrian British, Greek, Modern Greek,
Latin, Provencal, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Rommany.
I will, however, quote from "The Sleeping Bard, or Visions of the World,
Death and Hell," his translation of Elis Wyn's "Y Bardd Cwsg." The book
would please Borrow, because in the City of Perdition Rome stands at the
gate of Pride, and the Pope has palaces in the streets of Pleasure and of
Lucre; because the Church of England is the fairest part of the Catholic
Church, surmounted by "Queen Anne on the pinnacle of the building, with a
sword in each hand"; and because the Papist is turned away from the
Catholic Church by a porter with "an exceedingly large Bible." "One fair
morning," he begins:
"One fair morning of genial April, when the earth was green and pregnant,
and Britain, like a paradise, was wearing splendid liveries, tokens of
the smile of the summer sun, I was walking upon the bank of the Severn,
in the midst of the sweet notes of the little songsters of the wood, who
appeared to be striving to break through all the measures of music,
whilst pouring forth praise to the Creator. I, too, occasionally raised
my voice and warbled with the feathered choir, though in a manner
somewhat more restrained than that in which they sang; and occasionally
read a portion of the book of 'The Practice of Godliness.'"
And in his vision he saw fiends drive men and women through the foul
river of the Fiend to their eternal damnation, where
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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