Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

men in the world, on his discharging me he made me a donation of twenty pounds.

“And it was well that he made me this present, for without it I should have been penniless, having contracted rather expensive habits during the time that I lived with the young baronet. I now determined to visit my parents, whom I had not seen for years. I found them in good health, and, after staying with them for two months, I returned again in the direction of town, walking in order to see the country. On the second day of my journey, not being used to such fatigue, I fell ill at a great inn on the north road, and there I continued for some weeks till I recovered, but by that time my money was entirely spent. By living at the inn I had contracted an acquaintance with the master and the people, and become accustomed to inn life. As I thought that I might find some difficulty in procuring any desirable situation in London, owing to my late connection with literature, I determined to remain where I was, provided my services would be accepted. I offered them to the master, who, finding I knew something of horses, engaged me as a postillion. I have remained there since. You have now heard my story.

“Stay, you shan’t say that I told my tale without a per⁠—peroration. What shall it be? Oh, I remember something which will serve for one. As I was driving my chaise some weeks ago, on my return from L⁠⸺, I saw standing at the gate of an avenue, which led up to an old mansion, a figure which I thought I recognised. I looked at it attentively, and the figure, as I passed, looked at me; whether it remembered me I do not know, but I recognised the face it showed me full well.

“If it was not the identical face of the red-haired priest whom I had seen at Rome, may I catch cold!

“Young gentleman, I will now take a spell on your blanket⁠—young lady, good night.”

The Editor’s Postscript

Lavengro and The Romany Rye (properly Romanó Ráï) were terms applied to George Borrow in his youth by the Norfolk Gypsy, Ambrose Smith, better known in these volumes as Jasper Petulengro. The names signify respectively “Philologist” and “the Gypsy Gentleman.” The two works thus entitled constitute a more or less exact autobiography of the writer of them, from the date of his birth to the end of August, 1825. The author himself confesses in his Preface that “the time embraces nearly the first quarter of the present century.”

Lavengro was written at Oulton, in Suffolk, slowly and at intervals, between the years 1842 and 1851. The MSS. exist in three varieties: 1. The primitive draft of a portion, found scattered through sundry notebooks and on isolated scraps of paper, as described in the letter to Dawson Turner (Life, I, p. 394) 2. The definitive autograph text in one thick quarto volume. 3. The transcript for the printers, made by Mrs. Borrow, in one large folio volume, interlarded with the author’s additions and corrections.

The text of the present edition reproduces with fidelity the first issue of 1851. Occasionally a verbal alteration, introduced by the author himself into his second edition of 1872, has been adopted in this, whenever it seemed to improve the reading. In general, however, that reprint was in many respects a defective one. Not only words, but even whole sentences, which had escaped the printers, remained undetected by the editor, and, as a consequence, were lost to later impressions, based, as they all have been, on that issue. We should have preferred to alter, quietly and without remark, certain errors in the text, as we did in the documents published in the Life; but save in a single instance, we have left such inaccuracies intact, reserving all corrections for the place where we might be supposed to exercise a free hand.217

The insertion, with brackets of course, of the promised inedited episodes, caused in two cases some embarrassment. In removing them from the final form of his MS., Mr. Borrow closed up the gap with a few fitting lines which concealed the withdrawal. These words had to be suppressed on the restoration of the passages.

The insertions will be met with as follows:⁠—

The Poet Parkinson, pp. 119⁠–⁠25.

The Wake of Freya, pp. 128⁠–⁠33.

Cromwell’s Statue and the Dairyman’s Daughter, pp. 196⁠–⁠98.

Portobello or the Irish Patriot, pp. 231⁠–⁠39.

Thomas d’Éterville, in the Notes, pp. 558⁠–⁠59.

Thus we have made a full statement as regards the text of the present reprint. Anyone who takes up this edition will discover no visible name, or preface, or introduction, save only those of George Borrow, from the title to the close. The book is, therefore, “all Borrow,” and we have sought to render the helping hand as inconspicuous as possible. Should, however, the prejudiced stumble at the Notes, we can say in the language of the fairy smith of Loughmore: is agad an t-leigheas, you have the remedy in your own power.

Speaking of the Notes, they have been drawn up on the unimpeachable testimony of contemporaneous record. Especially have we sought the works which Mr. Borrow was accustomed to read in his younger days, and at times with curious results. [⁠ ⁠… ] What is not here explained can be easily looked up in our Life, Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow, London, 1899, which of itself furnishes a sufficient and unalterable exhibition of the facts concerning the man and his work.

W. I. Knapp.

High St., Oxford,
November, 1899.

Part II The Romany Rye Advertisement (1857)

It having been frequently stated in print that the book called Lavengro was got up expressly against the popish agitation in the years 1850⁠–⁠51, the author takes this opportunity of saying that the principal part of