The Project Gutenberg eBook, George Borrow, by Thomas Seccombe, Edited by
James Thursfield

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Title: George Borrow
Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903

Author: Thomas Seccombe

Editor: James Thursfield

Release Date: January 7, 2010 [eBook #30887]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE BORROW***

Transcribed from the July 10th, 1903, Times Literary Supplement by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

GEORGE BORROW. {213a}

It is a singular coincidence, perhaps, that during one and the same
summer we should be celebrating centenaries of Samuel Pepys and George
Borrow. Pepys died in the early summer of 1703; Borrow was born in July,
1803. Unlike each other in almost every respect, they are _dui palor_,
{213b} as Borrow would say, in one very material point. The reputation
of each of them has risen to such a point that, except for injudicious
and exaggerated praise, it can have little to fear in the future; and in
each case this reputation is based primarily upon autobiography. Among
the world's autobiographers the author of "Lavengro" is entitled, we feel
sure, to rank with St. Augustine, Cellini, Pepys, Rousseau, Franklin;
and, for truthfulness, it is very probable, if we could only estimate it
properly, that he would have to be put at the top of the class. His
nearest competitor in this respect would undoubtedly be Pepys, and the
veracity in both cases not the result of a double share of innate
truthfulness, but very largely an accident, due to lack of invention and
an absence of that powerful literary style which in the case of a Leigh
Hunt or a Stevenson distorts everything that passes through it. In Pepys
the malignity of the literary fairy is more than compensated by the
worthy secretary's insatiable appetite for life; in Borrow by the
_wanderlust_ or extraordinary passion and faculty for adventure, which
makes his best books such an ambrosial hash of sorcery, Jews, Gentiles,
gipsies, prisons, half-in-halves, _cosas de Espana_--what you will.

George Henry Borrow, to give him for once his full baptismal name, was
bo