The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
And this work is no other than the remarkable antecedent of the
"Zincali,"--the translation of St. Luke's Gospel into the Gipsy
dialect of Spain.[A] Of the Bible in Spain it is unnecessary to
speak; there can be no better evidence of the estimation it is
held in than the fact of its having been translated into French
and German, while it has run through at least thirty thousand
copies at home. But it is on the "Zincali" that Borrow's
reputation will maintain its firm footing; the originality and
research involved in its production, the labors and dangers it
entailed, are duly appreciated at home and abroad. During the
past year a highly interesting account of the Gipsies and other
wandering people of Norway, written in Danish, was published at
Christiana; it is entitled "Beretning om Fante--eller
Landstrygerfolket i Norge" (Account of the Fant, or Wandering
People of Norway), by Eilert Sundt. At the twenty-third page of
this work, the Danish author, in allusion to the subject of
this notice, says: "This Borrow is a remarkable man. As agent
for the British Bible Society he has undertaken journeys into
remote lands, and acquainted from his early youth, not only
with many European languages, but likewise with the Rommani of
the English Gipsies, he sought up with zest the Gipsies every
where, and became their faithful missionary. He has made
himself so thoroughly master of their ways and customs that he
soon passed for one of their blood. He slept in their tents in
the forests of Russia and Hungary, visited them in their robber
caves in the mountainous _pass_ regions of Italy, lived with
them five entire years (towards 1840) in Spain, where he, for
his endeavors to distribute the Gospel in that Catholic land,
was imprisoned with the very worst of them for a time in the
dungeons of Madrid. He at last went over to North Africa, and
sought after his Tartars even there. It is true, no one has
taken equal pains with Borrow to introduce himself among this
rude and barbarous people, but on that account he has been
enabled better than any other to depict the many mysteries of
this race; and the frequent impressions which his book has
undergone within a short period, show with what interest the
English public have received his graphic descriptions."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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