Lavengro; the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest by George Henry Borrow
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Tartar, and published in 1835 his _Targum_; _or Metrical Translations
from Thirty Languages and Dialects_. In 1835 Borrow returned to London, and being already known to the Bible Society for his biblical labours in Russia, was offered, and accepted, the task of circulating the Scriptures in the Spanish Peninsula. As for his labours in this field, which occupied him so agreeably for four or five years, are they not narrated in _The Bible in Spain_, a book first published by 'Glorious John Murray' in three volumes in 1843? This is the book which made Borrow famous, though his earlier work, _The Zincali_; _or an Account of the Gypsies of Spain_ (two vols. 1841), had attracted a good deal of notice. But _The Bible in Spain_ took readers by storm, and no wonder! Sir Robert Peel named it in the House of Commons; its perusal imparted a new sensation, the sensation of literature, to many a pious subscriber to the Bible Society. The book, wherever it went,--and it went where such like books do not often go,--carried joy and rapture with it. Young people hailed it tumultuously and cherished it tenderly. There were four editions in three volumes in the year of publication. What was thought of the book by the Bible Society I do not know. Perhaps 'he of the countenance of a lion,' of whom we read in the forty-fifth chapter of _Lavengro_, scarcely knew what to say about it; but the precise-looking man with the ill-natured countenance, no doubt, forbade his family to read _The Bible in Spain_. In 1840 Borrow married the widow of a naval officer and settled in Norfolk, where his aged mother was still living. His house was in Oulton Broad; and here he became a notable, the hero of many stories, and the friend of man, provided he was neither literary nor genteel. Here also he finished _Lavengro_ (1851), and wrote _The Romany Rye_ (1857), _Wild Wales_ (1862), and _Romano Lavo-Lil_: _the Word-Book of the Romany_ (1874). For a time Borrow had a house in London in Hereford Square, |
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