V.
It is a long jump from Samuel Pepys to George Borrow--from one pole
of the human character to the other--and yet they are in contact on
the shelf of my favourite authors. There is something wonderful, I
think, about the land of Cornwall. That long peninsula extending out
into the ocean has caught all sorts of strange floating things, and
has held them there in isolation until they have woven themselves
into the texture of the Cornish race. What is this strange strain
which lurks down yonder and every now and then throws up a great
man with singular un-English ways and features for all the world to
marvel at? It is not Celtic, nor is it the dark old Iberian. Further
and deeper lie the springs. Is it not Semitic, Phoenician, the roving
men of Tyre, with noble Southern faces and Oriental imaginations,
who have in far-off days forgotten their blue Mediterranean and
settled on the granite shores of the Northern Sea?
Whence came the wonderful face and great personality of Henry
Irving? How strong, how beautiful, how un-Saxon it was! I only know
that his mother was a Cornish woman. Whence came the intense glowing
imagination of the Brontes--so unlike the Miss-Austen-like calm
of their predecessors? Again, I only know that their mother was a
Cornish woman. Whence came this huge elfin creature, George Borrow,
with his eagle head perched on his rocklike shoulders, brown-faced,
white-headed, a king among men? Where did he get that remarkable
face, those strange mental gifts, which place him by himself in
literature? Once more, his father was a Cornishman. Yes, there is
something strange, and weird, and great, lurking down yonder in the
great peninsula which juts into the western sea. Borrow may, if he
so pleases, call himself an East Anglian--"an English Englishman,"
as he loved to term it--but is it a coincidence that the one East
Anglian born of Cornish blood was the one who showed these strange
qualities? The birth was accidental. The qualities throw back to the
twilight of the world.
There are some authors from whom I shrink because they are so
voluminous that I feel that, do what I may, I can never hope to be
well read in their works. Therefore, and very weakly, I avoid them
altogether. There is Balzac, for example, with his hundred odd
volumes. I am told that some of them are masterpieces and the rest
pot-boilers, but that no one is agreed which is which. Such an
author makes an undue claim upon the little span of mortal years.
Because he asks too much one is inclined to give him nothing at all.
Dumas, too! I stand on the edge of him, and look at that huge crop,
and content myself with a sample here and there. But no one could
raise this objection to Borrow. A month's reading--even for a
leisurely reader--will master all that he has written. There are
"Lavengro," "The Bible in Spain," "Romany Rye," and, finally, if you
wish to go further, "Wild Wales." Only four books--not much to
found a great reputation upon--but, then, there are no other four
books quite like them in the language.
He was a very strange man, bigoted, prejudiced, obstinate, inclined
to be sulky, as wayward as a man could be. So far his catalogue of
qualities does not seem to pick him as a winner. But he had one
great and rare gift. He preserved through all his days a sense of
the great wonder and mystery of life--the child sense which is so
quickly dulled. Not only did he retain it himself, but he was
word-master enough to make other people hark back to it also. As he
writes you cannot help seeing through his eyes, and nothing which
his eyes saw or his ear heard was ever dull or commonplace. It was
all strange, mystic, with some deeper meaning struggling always to
the light. If he chronicled his conversation with a washer-woman
there was something arresting in the words he said, something
singular in her reply. If he met a man in a public-house one felt,
after reading his account, that one would wish to know more of
that man. If he approached a town he saw and made you see--not a
collection of commonplace houses or frowsy streets, but something
very strange and wonderful, the winding river, the noble bridge,
the old castle, the shadows of the dead. Every human being, every
object, was not so much a thing in itself, as a symbol and reminder
of the past. He looked through a man at that which the man
represented. Was his name Welsh? Then in an instant the individual
is forgotten and he is off, dragging you in his train, to ancient
Britons, intrusive Saxons, unheard-of bards, Owen Glendower,
mountain raiders and a thousand fascinating things. Or is it a
Danish name? He leaves the individual in all his modern commonplace
while he flies off to huge skulls at Hythe (in parenthesis I may
remark that I have examined the said skulls with some care, and they
seemed to me to be rather below the human average), to Vikings,
Berserkers, Varangians, Harald Haardraada, and the innate wickedness
of the Pope. To Borrow all roads lead to Rome.
But, my word, what English the fellow could write! What an
organ-roll he could get into his sentences! How nervous and vital
and vivid it all is!
There is music in every line of it if you have been blessed with an
ear for the music of prose. Take the chapter in "Lavengro" of how
the screaming horror came upon his spirit when he was encamped
in the Dingle. The man who wrote that has caught the true mantle
of Bunyan and Defoe. And, observe the art of it, under all the
simplicity--notice, for example, the curious weird effect produced
by the studied repetition of the word "dingle" coming ever round and
round like the master-note in a chime. Or take the passage about
Britain towards the end of "The Bible in Spain." I hate quoting from
these masterpieces, if only for the very selfish reason that my poor
setting cannot afford to show up brilliants. None the less, cost
what it may, let me transcribe that one noble piece of impassioned
prose--
"O England! long, long may it be ere the sun of thy glory sink
beneath the wave of darkness! Though gloomy and portentous
clouds are now gathering rapidly around thee, still, still
may it please the Almighty to disperse them, and to grant thee
a futurity longer in duration and still brighter in renown
than thy past! Or, if thy doom be at hand, may that doom be
a noble one, and worthy of her who has been styled the Old
Queen of the waters! May thou sink, if thou dost sink, amidst
blood and flame, with a mighty noise, causing more than one
nation to participate in thy downfall! Of all fates, may it
please the Lord to preserve thee from a disgraceful and a
slow decay; becoming, ere extinct, a scorn and a mockery for
those self-same foes who now, though they envy and abhor thee,
still fear thee, nay even against their will, honour and
respect thee.... Remove from thee the false prophets, who
have seen vanity and divined lies; who have daubed thy wall
with untempered mortar, that it may fall; who see visions
of peace where there is no peace; who have strengthened the
hands of the wicked, and made the heart of the righteous sad.
Oh, do this, and fear not the result, for either shall
thy end be a majestic and an enviable one; or God shall
perpetuate thy reign upon the waters, thou Old Queen!"
Or take the fight with the Flaming Tinman. It's too long for
quotation--but read it, read every word of it. Where in the language
can you find a stronger, more condensed and more restrained
narrative? I have seen with my own eyes many a noble fight, more
than one international battle, where the best of two great countries
have been pitted against each other--yet the second-hand impression
of Borrow's description leaves a more vivid remembrance upon my mind
than any of them. This is the real witchcraft of letters.
He was a great fighter himself. He has left a secure reputation in
other than literary circles--circles which would have been amazed to
learn that he was a writer of books. With his natural advantages,
his six foot three of height and his staglike agility, he could
hardly fail to be formidable. But he was a scientific sparrer as
well, though he had, I have been told, a curious sprawling fashion
of his own. And how his heart was in it--how he loved the fighting
men! You remember his thumb-nail sketches of his heroes. If you
don't I must quote one, and if you do you will be glad to read
it again--
"There's Cribb, the Champion of England, and perhaps the best
man in England; there he is, with his huge, massive figure,
and face wonderfully like that of a lion. There is Belcher,
the younger, not the mighty one, who is gone to his place,
but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific pugilist that
ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be I won't say
what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did that
evening, with his white hat, white great coat, thin genteel
figure, springy step, and keen determined eye. Crosses him,
what a contrast! Grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word
for nobody, and a hard blow for anybody. Hard! One blow
given with the proper play of his athletic arm will unsense
a giant. Yonder individual, who strolls about with his hands
behind him, supporting his brown coat lappets, undersized,
and who looks anything but what he is, is the king of the
light-weights, so-called--Randall! The terrible Randall,
who has Irish blood in his veins; not the better for that,
nor the worse; and not far from him is his last antagonist,
Ned Turner, who, though beaten by him, still thinks himself
as good a man, in which he is, perhaps, right, for it was
a near thing. But how shall I name them all? They were
there by dozens, and all tremendous in their way. There
was Bulldog Hudson, and fearless Scroggins, who beat the
conqueror of Sam the Jew. There was Black Richmond--no,
he was not there, but I knew him well; he was the most
dangerous of blacks, even with a broken thigh. There was
Purcell, who could never conquer until all seemed over with
him. There was--what! shall I name thee last? Ay, why not?
I believe that thou art the last of all that strong family
still above the sod, where mayst thou long continue--true
piece of English stuff--Tom of Bedford. Hail to thee, Tom
of Bedford, or by whatever name it may please thee to be
called, Spring or Winter! Hail to thee, six-foot Englishman
of the brown eye, worthy to have carried a six-foot bow at
Flodden, where England's yeomen triumphed over Scotland's
King, his clans and chivalry. Hail to thee, last of English
bruisers, after all the many victories which thou hast
achieved--true English victories, unbought by yellow gold."
Those are words from the heart. Long may it be before we lose the
fighting blood which has come to us from of old! In a world of peace
we shall at last be able to root it from our natures. In a world
which is armed to the teeth it is the last and only guarantee of our
future. Neither our numbers, nor our wealth, nor the waters which
guard us can hold us safe if once the old iron passes from our
spirit. Barbarous, perhaps--but there are possibilities for
barbarism, and none in this wide world for effeminacy.
Borrow's views of literature and of literary men were curious.
Publisher and brother author, he hated them with a fine
comprehensive hatred. In all his books I cannot recall a word of
commendation to any living writer, nor has he posthumous praise for
those of the generation immediately preceding. Southey, indeed, he
commends with what most would regard as exaggerated warmth, but for
the rest he who lived when Dickens, Thackeray, and Tennyson were all
in their glorious prime, looks fixedly past them at some obscure
Dane or forgotten Welshman. The reason was, I expect, that his
proud soul was bitterly wounded by his own early failures and slow
recognition. He knew himself to be a chief in the clan, and when the
clan heeded him not he withdrew in haughty disdain. Look at his
proud, sensitive face and you hold the key to his life.
Harking back and talking of pugilism, I recall an incident which
gave me pleasure. A friend of mine read a pugilistic novel called
"Rodney Stone" to a famous Australian prize-fighter, stretched upon
a bed of mortal sickness. The dying gladiator listened with intent
interest but keen, professional criticism to the combats of the
novel. The reader had got to the point where the young amateur
fights the brutal Berks. Berks is winded, but holds his adversary
off with a stiff left arm. The amateur's second in the story, an old
prize-fighter, shouts some advice to him as to how to deal with the
situation. "That's right. By --- he's got him!" yelled the stricken
man in the bed. Who cares for critics after that?
You can see my own devotion to the ring in that trio of brown
volumes which stand, appropriately enough, upon the flank of Borrow.
They are the three volumes of "Pugilistica," given me years ago by
my old friend, Robert Barr, a mine in which you can never pick for
half an hour without striking it rich. Alas! for the horrible slang
of those days, the vapid witless Corinthian talk, with its ogles and
its fogles, its pointless jokes, its maddening habit of italicizing
a word or two in every sentence. Even these stern and desperate
encounters, fit sports for the men of Albuera and Waterloo, become
dull and vulgar, in that dreadful jargon. You have to tum to
Hazlitt's account of the encounter between the Gasman and the
Bristol Bull, to feel the savage strength of it all. It is a
hardened reader who does not wince even in print before that
frightful right-hander which felled the giant, and left him in "red
ruin" from eyebrow to jaw. But even if there be no Hazlitt present
to describe such a combat it is a poor imagination which is not
fired by the deeds of the humble heroes who lived once so vividly
upon earth, and now only appeal to faithful ones in these
little-read pages. They were picturesque creatures, men of great
force of character and will, who reached the limits of human bravery
and endurance. There is Jackson on the cover, gold upon brown,
"gentleman Jackson," Jackson of the balustrade calf and the noble
head, who wrote his name with an 88-pound weight dangling from his
little finger.
Here is a pen-portrait of him by one who knew him well--
"I can see him now as I saw him in '84 walking down Holborn
Hill, towards Smithfield. He had on a scarlet coat worked
in gold at the buttonholes, ruffles and frill of fine lace,
a small white stock, no collar (they were not then invented),
a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches
and long silk strings, striped white silk stockings, pumps
and paste buckles; his waistcoat was pale blue satin,
sprigged with white. It was impossible to look on his fine
ample chest, his noble shoulders, his waist (if anything
too small), his large but not too large hips, his balustrade
calf and beautifully turned but not over delicate ankle,
his firm foot and peculiarly small hand, without thinking
that nature had sent him on earth as a model. On he went
at a good five miles and a half an hour, the envy of all
men and the admiration of all women."
Now, that is a discriminating portrait--a portrait which really
helps you to see that which the writer sets out to describe. After
reading it one can understand why even in reminiscent sporting
descriptions of those old days, amid all the Tonis and Bills
and Jacks, it is always Mr. John Jackson. He was the friend and
instructor of Byron and of half the bloods in town. Jackson it was
who, in the heat of combat, seized the Jew Mendoza by the hair,
and so ensured that the pugs for ever afterwards should be a
close-cropped race. Inside you see the square face of old Broughton,
the supreme fighting man of the eighteenth century, the man whose
humble ambition it was to begin with the pivot man of the Prussian
Guard, and work his way through the regiment. He had a chronicler,
the good Captain Godfrey, who has written some English which would
take some beating. How about this passage?--
"He stops as regularly as the swordsman, and carries his blows
truly in the line; he steps not back distrusting of himself,
to stop a blow, and puddle in the return, with an arm unaided
by his body, producing but fly-flap blows. No! Broughton steps
boldly and firmly in, bids a welcome to the coming blow;
receives it with his guardian arm; then, with a general
summons of his swelling muscles, and his firm body seconding
his arm, and supplying it with all its weight, pours the
pile-driving force upon his man."
One would like a little more from the gallant Captain. Poor
Broughton! He fought once too often. "Why, damn you, you're beat!"
cried the Royal Duke. "Not beat, your highness, but I can't see my
man!" cried the blinded old hero. Alas, there is the tragedy of the
ring as it is of life! The wave of youth surges ever upwards, and
the wave that went before is swept sobbing on to the shingle. "Youth
will be served," said the terse old pugs. But what so sad as the
downfall of the old champion! Wise Tom Spring--Tom of Bedford, as
Borrow calls him--had the wit to leave the ring unconquered in
the prime of his fame. Cribb also stood out as a champion. But
Broughton, Slack, Belcher, and the rest--their end was one common
tragedy.
The latter days of the fighting men were often curious and
unexpected, though as a rule they were short-lived, for the
alternation of the excess of their normal existence and the
asceticism of their training undermined their constitution. Their
popularity among both men and women was their undoing, and the
king of the ring went down at last before that deadliest of
light-weights, the microbe of tubercle, or some equally fatal and
perhaps less reputable bacillus. The crockiest of spectators had a
better chance of life than the magnificent young athlete whom he
had come to admire. Jem Belcher died at 30, Hooper at 31, Pearce,
the Game Chicken, at 32, Turner at 35, Hudson at 38, Randall, the
Nonpareil, at 34. Occasionally, when they did reach mature age,
their lives took the strangest turns. Gully, as is well known,
became a wealthy man, and Member for Pontefract in the Reform
Parliament. Humphries developed into a successful coal merchant.
Jack Martin became a convinced teetotaller and vegetarian. Jem Ward,
the Black Diamond, developed considerable powers as an artist.
Cribb, Spring, Langan, and many others, were successful publicans.
Strangest of all, perhaps, was Broughton, who spent his old age
haunting every sale of old pictures and bric-a-brac. One who saw
him has recorded his impression of the silent old gentleman, clad in
old-fashioned garb, with his catalogue in his hand--Broughton, once
the terror of England, and now the harmless and gentle collector.
Many of them, as was but natural, died violent deaths, some by
accident and a few by their own hands. No man of the first class
ever died in the ring. The nearest approach to it was the singular
and mournful fate which befell Simon Byrne, the brave Irishman,
who had the misfortune to cause the death of his antagonist, Angus
Mackay, and afterwards met his own end at the hands of Deaf Burke.
Neither Byrne nor Mackay could, however, be said to be boxers of the
very first rank. It certainly would appear, if we may argue from the
prize-ring, that the human machine becomes more delicate and is more
sensitive to jar or shock. In the early days a fatal end to a fight
was exceedingly rare. Gradually such tragedies became rather more
common, until now even with the gloves they have shocked us by their
frequency, and we feel that the rude play of our forefathers is
indeed too rough for a more highly organized generation. Still, it
may help us to clear our minds of cant if we remember that within
two or three years the hunting-field and the steeple-chase claim
more victims than the prize-ring has done in two centuries.
Many of these men had served their country well with that strength
and courage which brought them fame. Cribb was, if I mistake not, in
the Royal Navy. So was the terrible dwarf Scroggins, all chest and
shoulders, whose springing hits for many a year carried all before
them until the canny Welshman, Ned Turner, stopped his career, only
to be stopped in turn by the brilliant Irishman, Jack Randall. Shaw,
who stood high among the heavy-weights, was cut to pieces by the
French Cuirassiers in the first charge at Waterloo. The brutal Berks
died greatly in the breach of Badajos. The lives of these men stood
for something, and that was just the one supreme thing which the
times called for--an unflinching endurance which could bear up
against a world in arms. Look at Jem Belcher--beautiful, heroic
Jem, a manlier Byron--but there, this is not an essay on the old
prize-ring, and one man's lore is another man's bore. Let us pass
those three low-down, unjustifiable, fascinating volumes, and on to
nobler topics beyond!
