The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Lires,gro. toe Sholar, the Gypsy, the Priest. By (femme
Billieow, author of the " Bible in Spain", and "The
idyrsies ~f Spain." Three sob. Murray.
That I.avengro--the Word Master—i's one per-
son with the author of " Metrical Translations from
Thirty Langnages;" that the scholar and gyry is he
who so learnedly talked to us of the Zincali in Spain,
is one of the first impressions received on the perusal
of this book. Is it then the literal autobiography
of George Barrow? By no means: the writer has
r,..nmiscd uo such history. To thaw who have eyes
to ace, the writer reveals just so much as he plows
of his own experience; against all who would hold
him responsible for every passage in the story of his
hero, he can still plead the freedom of imaginative
writing.
Mr. Borrow has chosen to call his descriptions a
dream of study and adventure; to recall the glow of
young desire. the charm of beauty, the excitement of
enterprise. and the remembrance of strange scenes,
rather us past states of mind than us parts of the
gnat universe of fact. The reader who can under-
stand the author's confidence• and respect his freedom
will confess in these narratives the truthfulness of
autobiographical writing with more than the fascina-
tion of wan:lnce.
Lavengro, as his Often* friends called him, was the
sots of a Col isish gentleman, who served Hing George
with hi., ....emit. llis mother WWI descended from a
Wally of Norman Ilugnenots. Of his exterior man
he has said nothing, except that by it he has been
claimed wort' thUll ones as kindred by gypsy and Jew.
Without some account of his mind and its qualities,
boat vet% RUM/ s.f his experiences would he inseam-
prehensitile. Ile who, standing high on the side of
some inount.iin in an Alpine country, has seen far
below u dello dark lagoon, slumbering in the shade
of black pines, cypresses, and yews, and watched
in that wild, savage spot the ravens hovering
about the pines, filling the air with their uncouth
note s, while the cry of an eagle has been
hewed horn sonic neighbouring petik,—he who
has marked the surface of that solitary and
almost inacesssible Inke,assuming shapes occasionally
numstrous, under the gusts of wind, while gloomy
shadows were constantly changing its aspect -he has
seen an emblem of the youth of Lavengro. Slow,
Sensitive, retiring, mid haunted by strange fears, the
boy was generally disliked. No precocious love of
books and reading could account fur this habitual
pensiveness. for his letters were a bore to him after
other boys of his age had begun their Latin grammar.
lie was without wishes and without hopes. The
few tibia ts in which he took pleasure- the hedge-
rows, the sunshine, and the chirping of binds, were
tanfortunattly all within the sphere of his enjoyment,
and amnion: tolled forth no effort. But the
time was at hand when the ice which had
benumlall the child's mind was to be thawed,
and is world of sensations awakened to which
it had hitherto been an entire stranger. The hand
that struck the true chord was that of Ite Foe.
Est iteal ut first by the engraving in that immortal
and truly English book, " 'birdman Crusoe," he
braeci up his energies, and acquired at once, the art
of reading and a spirit of adventure. this progress,
slow enough at first, hutame by degrees more' nipid,
till at length he found himself cantering before a
steady breeze, and, under a shoulder-of-mutton sail,
over Ihe mean of enchantment.
A. laavengra's father was required to accompany
the militia regiment in which he served, and always
took his family with him, the lad had ample oppor-
tunities of seeing the country. Ile remembers, Norman-
crows and itsIII4JTIIIOUS French prison. l'rowlingabout
the tiehls one slay, he met an old riper-
hunter, with a hog ordure reptiles thrown over h;aa
sholleter. fat of the adder taus in those days a
rieourite unguent fur rheumatism. This old man
tells how he had men the king of the vipers, and
never properly recovered from his fright. !From the
viper-hunter ressived a reptile, which had been
tamed mail rendered harmless by the removal of the
fangs, and used to tarry the creature about with him in
hiswalks. ith thisst range contpunion lying concealed
in his la-,era hcone day, enticed by boyish curiosity,
entered the tent of a gipoy, which, as IS still Con,-
was pitched in a nook of a green lane. The
(iitanw. are the lust people in the world to submit to
any such intrusion from a µsavior und, after a brief
alterc aation. tie arm of a sturdy gipsy was raised to
crush the daring boy, when the following scene took
place, in which
LAVENIIIIII /RIMINI:NA Tits Gypsies.
I mak a motion whieh the viper understood ; and now,
punt) disengaging itself from in %moon, where it hail lain
perdu, it raised it. heal to a 11,41 with my face, and stared
upon toy enemy with it. glittering (yes.
ni in stood like one transtiscil, and the ladle., w ith
which ho loot aim.,l a blow at me, now hung in the air
like tlo hand w lint, ho bl it • his mouth war r‘tvit.l.ll. and
his 41.0, Is came of a )yellow, alone that plan.
whishl..re the mark %shish I hare already described, and
this sht, sew portecioadv, like tire. Ile stenal in this
mann. r tor moue time; at Lot the Lune fell (non his hand,
sad it. falling appear. d to rouse him fiom his stupor.
conversation was here intenupted by the
rude!' ii appearance of a gypsy horseman, who cum
to warn the tribe to iinnwthate Hight, a deed of blued
by 1111/ ltr the hand having just been discovered. The
camp was soon ietru.k. and the gypsies departed, but
often to Bill t las ettgro again.
Enita Norman•croos and the fen country Lavengro
nissatipanied his father to Edinburgh. Having
cute r, -.l the High School, the boy wan neon to learn
that these islands arc nut entirely inhabited by a
angle rave.
a. ‘,1.N61:-. aE, TINIA A T.T.AMON TT111401.01:1-.
" Scotland is a better rountry than England," said an
ugly, blear-eyed lad, uhout a head and shoulders taller than
myself, the lead, r gang of varlet. who surrounded me-
in the play-ground, 011 the tirct day, as soon as the morning
was over. " Scotland is a far better country than
Enchant. in every respect.'
•
"I.it ?" said 1. " Then Tllll night to be very thankful
for .... having been born in England."
'flint's just what I rem. ye tam; and every morning,
when I say my pniyer., I thank God for not being an Eng-
• The SI "trh are a much better and braver people
than the English."
" It may he a.," said I, " for what I knnw- indeed, till
MAW h. re, I never heard a word either about the Scotch or
their country."
" Are re making fun of a.. ye English puppy mist the
hicar-evi•sl lad ; " take that r. and 1- was presently beaten
black and blue. And thus did I fent become aware of the
ditTennt races art their antipathy to each other.
" Bow to the storm, cud it shall pa.. over you." I held
my pans, and silently oilmiiited to the superiority of the
numbcra. 'ihi, as, enough; from au object of
per.evation I soon berame one of patronage, espe.!lalle
amonzst the champions the class. " the English. said
the blear-, veil Lid. though a wee bit behind the Scotch in
atrength and fortitude, are oar to be sneezed at, being far
alit ail or the Irish, to say nothing of the French, a tuck of
cowardly scoundrel.. And with regard to the English
country. it is nu Scotland. it is true. but it has its guile
rzsergsrt;.,ral.n tuhoughraw titZtiverti:
Itisownicattr hd
.irri.s
rta,' the
t
Entel mil. for I have an auntie married there."
While at this school I.avengro saw more fighting
in one month than he had ever previously witnessed
in England. But. utter all, little harm was alone.
What harm could conic of a few short chopping
blows, a hug, and a tumble? A sounding whack. a
little blood drawn, anal a "bluer," but nothing like
tlw mischief ealtieli the mild pacific English boys
make when, shooting the ann horizontal'y out trim,
the shoultkr, they phalli the fist in the jugular.
The High School education must have somewhat
changed the pensive boy before the performance of
the teat (aluminum:did in the subjoined passage :
LAYENURO lattlIMEA AN AVLD TOONSIL
Ono day t was standing on the ramparts of the nestle, on
the worth-western side, which overhangs the groin brae,
wh. re it dopes down into what was in those (lays the peen
swan; or nioras., cared be the natives of Auld Iterkie the
Nor Loch; it was a dark ;Timmy day and a thin veil of
mist was to settle down • upon the brae and the
morass. I could peteeiye, however, that there was a skirmish
taking place in the latter spot. I had .111 indistinct lie. of
two parties -apparently of urchins-and I heant whoop.
and shrill cries. Eager to know the cause of this disturb-
one:. I lett the rank, and, descending the brae, reached the
borders of the morass, where was a runnel of water and the
remain, of an old wall, cot the other side of which a narrow
path 11•11 411.1004 the swamp. Upon this path• at a little
tau". me, there wa. a "bicker." I pushed forward,
but, had scarcely the ruined wall and runnel, when
the party nearest to m ..ave way, and in great confusion
came running in my dinstion. As they drew nigh, one of
them shouted to me, %V ha are ye, man ? are ye u' the auld
• toot, )" I made nu answer. '• Ha! ye are o' the new
tom ; tak yr. we'll moorder ye ;" and the next mo-
ment a huge stmt. sung pmt my had. "Let me be, ye (ale
hisai,.." -aid I, " I'm no of either of ye, I aye youder abeam
in the c Ah! ye live in the castle; then ye're an
come gir us your help man, and lima stand
there staring like a dunnot, we want help sair eneugh.
Ben• an. stains."
For my own part I wished for nothing better, and,
rushing itiward,l placed myself at the head of my new