Note 156 — Chapter XXII

Borrow had really written a great deal of the book in Spain. The 'notebook' contained many of his adventures, and moreover on August 20, 1836, the Athenæum, published two long letters from him under the title of 'The Gypsies in Russia and in Spain,' opening with the following preliminary announcement:

We have been obligingly favoured with the following extracts from letters of an intelligent gentleman, whose literary labours, the least important of his life, we not long since highly praised, but whose name we are not at liberty, on this occasion, to make public. They contain some curious and interesting facts relating to the condition of this peculiar people in very distant countries.

The first letter is dated September 23, 1835, and gives an account of his experiences with the gypsies in Russia. The whole of this account he incorporated in The Gypsies of Spain. Following this there are two columns, dated Madrid, July 19, 1836, in which he gives an account of the gypsies in Spain. All the episodes that he relates he incorporated in The Bible in Spain. The two letters so plainly indicate that all the time Borrow was in Spain his mind was more filled with the subject of the gypsies than with any other question. He did his work well for the Bible Society no doubt, and gave them their money's worth, but there is a humorous note in the fact that Borrow should have utilised his position as a missionary—for so we must count him—to make himself so thoroughly acquainted with gypsy folklore and gypsy songs and dances as these two fragments by an 'intelligent gentleman' imply. It is not strange that under the circumstances Borrow did not wish that his name should be made public.