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

quietly prepared a stratagem, by means of which he could at any time exhibit them, powerless and helpless, in his hand. Critics, when they review books, ought to have a competent knowledge of the subjects which those books discuss.

Lavengro is a philological book, a poem if you choose to call it so. Now what a fine triumph it would have been for those who wished to vilify the book and its author, provided they could have detected the latter tripping in his philology⁠—they might have instantly said that he was an ignorant pretender to philology⁠—they laughed at the idea of his taking up a viper by its tail, a trick which hundreds of country urchins do every September, but they were silent about the really wonderful part of the book, the philological matter⁠—they thought philology was his stronghold, and that it would be useless to attack him there; they of course would give him no credit as a philologist, for anything like fair treatment towards him was not to be expected at their hands, but they were afraid to attack his philology⁠—yet that was the point, and the only point in which they might have attacked him successfully; he was vulnerable there. How was this? Why, in order to have an opportunity of holding up pseudo-critics by the tails, he wilfully spelt various foreign words wrong⁠—Welsh words, and even Italian words⁠—did they detect these misspellings? not one of them, even as he knew they would not, and he now taunts them with ignorance; and the power of taunting them with ignorance is the punishment which he designed for them⁠—a power which they might but for their ignorance have used against him. The writer besides knowing something of Italian and Welsh, knows a little of Armenian language and literature; but who knowing anything of the Armenian language, unless he had an end in view, would say, that the word for sea in Armenian is anything like the word tide in English? The word for sea in Armenian is dzow, a word connected with the Tibetian word for water, and the Chinese shuy, and the Turkish su, signifying the same thing; but where is the resemblance between dzow and tide? Again, the word for bread in ancient Armenian is hats; yet the Armenian on London Bridge is made to say zhats, which is not the nominative of the Armenian noun for bread, but the accusative: now, critics, ravening against a man because he is a gentleman and a scholar, and has not only the power but also the courage to write original works, why did not you discover that weak point? Why, because you were ignorant, so here ye are held up! Moreover, who with a name commencing with Z, ever wrote fables in Armenian? There are two writers of fables in Armenian⁠—Varthan and Koscht, and illustrious writers they are, one in the simple, and the other in the ornate style of Armenian composition, but neither of their names begins with a Z. Oh, what a precious opportunity ye lost, ye ravening crew, of convicting the poor, half-starved, friendless boy of the book, of ignorance or misrepresentation, by asking who with a name beginning with Z ever wrote fables in Armenian; but ye couldn’t help yourselves, ye are duncie. “We duncie!” Ay, duncie. So here ye are held up by the tails, blood and foam streaming from your jaws.

The writer wishes to ask here, what do you think of all this, Messieurs les Critiques? Were ye ever served so before? But don’t you richly deserve it? Haven’t you been for years past bullying and insulting everybody whom you deemed weak, and currying favour with everybody whom you thought strong? “We approve of this. We disapprove of that. Oh, this will never do. These are fine lines!” The lines perhaps some horrid sycophantic rubbish addressed to Wellington, or Lord So-and-so. To have your ignorance thus exposed, to be shown up in this manner, and by whom? A gypsy! Ay, a gypsy was the very right person to do it. But is it not galling, after all?

Ah, but we don’t understand Armenian, it cannot be expected that we should understand Armenian, or Welsh, or ⸻. Hey, what’s this? The mighty we not understand Armenian or Welsh, or ⸻. Then why does the mighty we pretend to review a book like Lavengro? From the arrogance with which it continually delivers itself, one would think that the mighty we is omniscient; that it understands every language; is versed in every literature; yet the mighty we does not even know the word for bread in Armenian. It knows bread well enough by name in English, and frequently bread in England only by its name, but the truth is, that the mighty we, with all its pretension, is in general a very sorry creature, who, instead of saying nous disons, should rather say nous dis: Parny in his Guerre des Dieux, very profanely makes the three in one say, Je faisons; now, Lavengro, who is anything but profane, would suggest that critics, especially magazine and Sunday newspaper critics, should commence with nous dis, as the first word would be significant of the conceit and assumption of the critic, and the second of the extent of the critic’s information. The we says its say, but when fawning sycophancy or vulgar abuse are taken from that say, what remains? Why a blank, a void, like Ginnúngagap.387

As the writer, of his own accord, has exposed some of the blemishes of his book⁠—a task, which a competent critic ought to have done⁠—he will now point out two or three of its merits, which any critic, not altogether blinded with ignorance, might have done, or not replete with gall and envy would have been glad to do. The book has the merit of