BORROW.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 9

BORROW.

When Dr. Knapp wrote his monumental biography of (he author of "Lavcngro" . tho series of letters sent by Borrow to tho'Bible Society during his employment by them in Kiissin and Spain was lying lost and unavailable among the arcli'ves of that body. The energy of the Into Mr. Gordon Watt and the editorial dilicenco of Mr. T. 11. Darlow now present these documents to the public. Of course they aro valuable; they show a sido of their author which his other writings leave to bo divined only very dimly, if at sill; from these effusions of one whom w* have come to regard as nbovo all things a Bohemian, a wanderer upon the face of the earth, thero emanntes an impression of steady purpose and of distinct practical ability. For all that, we confess to a feeling of disappointment. On Iho cup hand,' about a third of the letters and,

reports" contained in the'volume ("Letters of George- Borrow to the British and l> oreigu Bible Society") were, worked up by Borrow himself for liis "Bible in Spain. On tho other," thcro is throughout tho enliro correspondence a senso of constrniiu, ns of a man revealing only a part of jus mind and personality, and that not the most characteristic. In fact, tho cssentiallv Borroviau flavour is missing- One recalls those other records of his voyagings—records coloured not a little by imagination and unconscious fiction, it may be—and one feels that these journeys of delinito purpose, these goings to and fro under the command of a London committee, arc a unor exchange for Ihe aimless following "of the open road, the romance of casual friencl.-Oiip with vagabonds, and tho wind upon the heath. Tint Horrow s zeal for the faith, that was in him was strong and disinterested no one will deny, but wo have come, in the last fifty yews, to recognise ever more ami more clearly that for tho Latin races the Catholic form of Christianity is the only one- possible. To Uornnv the older view was doubtless natural enoujjh, but his expression of it had a pleasanter savoursomeness in his satire of tho. man in black who, came to the famous dingle to mix his theological arguments with potation* of gin and water, 'i'hero is nothing in the present volume to equal, or even to recall, the tournament with the Flaming Tinman, the jeekev's story of his life, the account of the old gentleman wiio solaced a wounded spirit by tho acquirement of Chinese. Naturally enough, there is no such interest as is aroused in us by Isopel Bcrners. They were happy years, no doubt, those years of service in the cause of his fnith; they wero useful years, too; but the Lest literary inspiration of them passed into tho-"Bible in Spain," and the "Biblo in Spain" is incomparably inferior to "Lavengro" or "The Hominy Kye." Still this book is one all good lovers of Borrow will read, even if a sense of duty conduct them to the end rather than a feeling or pleasure. Wero it not from Bcrrow s pen it would-probably hold us a great deal more strongly, but tho old Adam in us revolts against the substitution cf the man of affairs for the man of the road. We prefer the Borrow who looked back and saw the past in a golden haze that blended fact and fancy to the Borrow who deals in accounts of moneys disbursed and explains why he is seven shillings to the bad on his voyage frim Hamburg.— A. F. 8., in the "Manchester Guardian."