114 



MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES. 



existence the tent. This he does in 

 his Appendix to the Romany Rye ; and 

 it is nearly all that can be drawn from 

 his writings on the Gipsies, in regard to 

 their future history (Ed., p. 523). 



We have already seen how a writer 

 in Blackwood's Magazine gravely as- 

 serts, that, although "Billy Marshall 

 left descendants numberless, the race, of 

 which he was one, was in danger of be- 

 coming extinct ;" when, in fact, it had 

 only passed from its first stage of exist- 

 ence the tent, into its second tramp- 

 ing, without the tent; and after that, 

 into its ultimate stage a settled life. 

 We have likewise seen how Sir Walter 

 Scott imagines that the Scottish Gipsies 

 have decreased, since the time of 

 Fletcher, of Saltoun, about the year 

 1680, from 100,000 to 500, by " the pro- 

 gress of time, and increase in the means 

 of life, and the power of the laws." Mr. 

 Borrow has not gone one step ahead of 

 these writers ; and, although I naturally 

 enough excuse them, I am not inclined 

 to let him go scot-free, since he has set 

 himself forward so prominently as an 

 authority on the Gipsy question (Ed., p. 

 447). It would be a treat to have a 

 treatise from Mr. Borrow upon the 

 Gipsy race " dying out " by " changing 

 its habits," or by the acts of any gov- 

 ernment, or by ideas of "gentility" 

 (Ed., p. 45o)- 



If there is little reason for thinking 

 that the Gipsies left India owing to the 

 cruelties of Timour, there is less for 

 supposing, as Mr. Borrow supposes, that 

 their being called Egyptians originated, 

 not with themselves, but with others ; 

 for he says that the tale of their be- 

 ing Egyptians "probably originated 

 amongst the priests and learned men of 

 the East of Europe, who, startled by 

 the sudden apparition of bands of peo- 

 ple foreign in appearance and language, 

 skilled in divination and the occult arts, 

 endeavoured to find in Scripture a clue 

 to such a phenomenon ; the result oi 

 which was that the Romas (Gipsies) oi 

 Hindostan were suddenly transformed 

 into Egyptian penitents, a title which 

 they have ever since borne in various 

 parts of Europe." Why should the 

 priests and learned men of the East o 

 Europe go to the Bible to find the ori 

 gin of such a people as the Gipsies 

 What did priests and learned men knov 

 of the Bible at the beginning of the fif 

 teenth century? Did every priest 



that time, know there even was such a 

 book as the Bible in existence ? The 

 priests and learned men of the East of 

 Europe were more likely to turn to the 

 Eastern nations for the origin of the 

 Gipsies, than to Egypt, were the mere 

 matter of the skill of the Gipsies in 

 divination and the occult arts to lead 

 them to make any inquiry into their his- 

 tory. When the Gipsies entered Eu- 

 rope, they would feel under the neces- 

 sity of saying who they were. Having 

 committed themselves to that point, 

 how could they afterwards call them- 

 selves by that name which Mr. Borrow 

 supposes the priests and learned men to 

 have given them ? Or, I should rather 

 say, how could the priests and learned 

 men think of giving them a name after 

 hey themselves had said who they were ? 

 And did the priests and learned men in- 

 ent the idea of the Gipsies being pil- 

 grims, or bestow upon their leaders the 

 itles of dukes, earls, lords, counts and 

 mights of Little Egypt? Assuredly 

 not ; all these matters must have origi- 

 nated with the Gipsies themselves. The 

 truth is, Mr. Borrow has evidently had 

 no opportunities of learning, or at least 

 las not duly appreciated, the real 

 mental acquirements of the early Gip- 

 sies ; an idea of which will be found in 

 the history of the race on their first 

 general arrival in Scotland, about a hun- 

 dred years after they were first taken 

 notice of in Europe, during which time 

 they are not supposed to have made any 

 3-reat progress in mental condition. 

 What evidently leads Mr. Borrow and 

 others astray in the matter of the origin 

 of the Gipsies, is, that they conclude 

 that, because the language spoken by 

 the Gipsies is apparently, or for the 

 most part, Hindostanee, therefore the 

 people speaking it originated in Hindos- 

 tan ; as just a conclusion as it would be 

 to maintain that the Negroes in Liberia 

 originated in England because they 

 speak the English language ! (Ed., p. 



39). 



Mr. Borrow gives a very interest- 

 ing and, on the face of it, reliable 

 account of a visit he paid to Yeth- 

 olm, to " interview " the Queen of 

 the Scottish Gipsies. The first 

 woman he accosted denied the im- 

 peachment that she was a Gipsy, by 

 saying, " Na, na, sir ! I am the 



sayng 

 bairn of 



decent parents, and be- 



