The Romany Rye: A sequel to "Lavengro"Borrow, George
General
The Romany Rye: A sequel to "Lavengro"
Borrow, George
Adventure stories; England -- Fiction; Romanies -- Fiction
gentleman, and that if he is a hack author, he is likewise a scholar. It
shows him doing no dishonourable jobs, and proves that if he occasionally
associates with low characters, he does so chiefly to gratify the
curiosity of a scholar. In his conversations with the apple-woman of
London Bridge, the scholar is ever apparent, so again in his acquaintance
with the man of the table; for the book is no raker up of the uncleanness
of London, and if it gives what at first sight appears refuse, it
invariably shows that a pearl of some kind, generally a philological one,
is contained amongst it; it shows its hero always accompanied by his love
of independence, scorning in the greatest poverty to receive favours from
anybody, and describes him finally rescuing himself from peculiarly
miserable circumstances by writing a book, an original book, within a
week, even as Johnson is said to have written his _Rasselas_, and
Beckford his _Vathek_, and tells how, leaving London, he betakes himself
to the roads and fields.
In the country it shows him leading a life of roving adventure, becoming
tinker, gypsy, postillion, ostler; associating with various kinds of
people, chiefly of the lower classes, whose ways and habits are
described; but, though leading this erratic life, we gather from the book
that his habits are neither vulgar nor vicious, that he still follows to
a certain extent his favourite pursuits, hunting after strange
characters, or analysing strange words and names. At the conclusion of
the fifth volume, which terminates the first part of the history, it
hints that he is about to quit his native land on a grand philological
expedition.
Those who read this book with attention—and the author begs to observe
that it would be of little utility to read it hurriedly—may derive much
information with respect to matters of philology and literature; it will
be found treating of most of the principal languages from Ireland to
China, and of the literature which they contain; and it is particularly
minute with regard to the ways, manners and speech of the English section
of the most extraordinary and mysterious clan or tribe of people to be
found in the whole world—the children of Roma. But it contains matters
of much more importance than anything in connection with philology, and
the literature and manners of nations. Perhaps no work was ever offered
to the public in which the kindness and providence of God have been set
forth by more striking examples, or the machinations of priestcraft been
more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which result to a nation
when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel and
fashionable, than the present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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