Part 4

“In this pamphlet Mr. James Simson, editor of _Simson’s History of the Gipsies_, states his grounds for believing that John Bunyan was a Gipsy, and invokes the assistance of the Universities to investigate the matter and put it beyond the possibility of doubt. It may not matter much whether or not the ‘immortal dreamer’ was a Gipsy; and we do not think Mr. Simson attaches any great importance to the circumstance _per se_. What he aims at, we believe, is to stir up some interest in the Gipsy race, and this he thinks may be done were the public to have their sympathies awakened by the fact that John Bunyan was a descendant of it. By way of supplement, Mr. Simson criticises some statements made in an article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, on the Gipsies. The curious in the subject of Gipsy lore will doubtless find in the pamphlet matter that will interest them.”—_Perthshire Advertiser_, _October_ 28, 1880.

“Mr. Simson suggests, and supports, on arguments that have the highest bearing on anthropological questions, the theory that John Bunyan was a Gipsy. The great secret that civilised Europe has even now amongst it a few individuals who are descended from a Hindoo race, and are capable, by reason of the fact that they have a particularly original soul of their own, to reconcile some of the difficulties between the eastern and the western schools of thought, may be the real future fact of modern anthropology. The difficulty is, of course, where and how to find the Gipsies. We have been much pleased with Mr. Simson’s pamphlet. It is not every writer who has treated the subject in his philosophical manner; and we are glad to perceive that he strongly accents the fact that a person may be a Gipsy and yet be entirely ignorant [not absolutely so] of the Gipsy language. Evidently Mr. Simson has studied anthropological problems at first hand, and apart from the speculators who have regarded language as the first key to the science of man.”—_Public Opinion_, _October_ 15, 1880.

CHARLES WATERTON, NATURALIST.

“That Mr. Simson had a duty—to himself as well as to the public—to perform in justifying his previous remarks about Charles Waterton, by writing this monograph, is unquestionable. Although it is a somewhat difficult task unsparingly to point out the mistakes and shortcomings of a man, when he can no longer defend himself, without seeming to be guilty of an offence against the old rule—_Nil nisi bonum de mortuis_—Mr. Simson may fairly claim credit for having adhered to the Shakespearian advice in regard to fault-finding; for, if he has extenuated nothing, he has set down naught in malice. The example of Charles Waterton, country gentleman and naturalist, may serve as a useful warning to students of natural history, by teaching them that only the most patient investigation and careful reflection can produce results that will be of real and permanent value to science. They have here the example of a man who had most excellent opportunities for such investigations, as well as the strongest taste for their pursuit, and who, by an exact and systematic method of study, might have made most important additions to our knowledge of natural history. But by inaccurate observation, by a certain looseness of statement, and by taking things for granted instead of personally verifying them, he has greatly diminished the value of his labours. Mr. Simson, though his task is to set right the unduly high estimate in which the squire of Walton Hall has been held as a man of science, shows an appreciation of the strong points of his character that completely takes away any appearance of censoriousness; and his work incidentally affords an interesting study of the man himself, who, in his personal life and his enthusiastic devotion to natural history, showed a strong individuality that is quite refreshing in this age of conventionalities.”—_Aberdeen Journal_, _August_ 30, 1880.

* * * * *

AMERICAN EDITION OF 1878, WITH APPENDIX.

210 _Pages_, _Octavo_, _Cloth_. _Price_, $1.25.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATURAL HISTORY, AND PAPERS ON OTHER SUBJECTS. BY JAMES SIMSON, EDITOR OF SIMSON’S “HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES.”

NOTICES OF THE BRITISH PRESS.

Dublin University Magazine, July, 1875.

“The principal articles in this volume that have reference to natural history originally appeared in _Land and Water_, and are, in many respects, highly interesting. Concerning vipers and snakes, we are presented with a good deal of information that is instructive, not only as regards their habits generally, but also with respect to points that are in dispute among naturalists.” “For instance, it is a vexed question whether, under any circumstances, the young retreat into the stomach [inside] of the mother snake. A great authority, [?] Mr. Frank Buckland, affirms that they do not; while our author is as positive that they do. And he certainly, with reason, contends that the question is entirely one of evidence, and, therefore, should be settled ‘as a fact is proved in a court of justice; difficulties, suppositions, or theories not being allowed to form part of the testimony. In support of his own views, Mr. Simson has collected a large body of evidence that undoubtedly appears authentic and conclusive.” “Of the miscellaneous papers in this volume, the best is a critical study of the late John Stuart Mill. Taken altogether, the volume is very entertaining, and affords pleasing and instructive reading.”

Evening Standard, June 8, 1875.

“It is with real pleasure we see these Contributions to _Land and Water_ no longer limited to the columns of a newspaper, whatever may be its circulation. For the excellence and charm of these papers we must refer the reader to the volume before us, which cannot fail to interest and instruct its readers. Their variety and range may be gathered from the subjects treated:—Snakes, Vipers, English Snakes, Waterton as a Naturalist, John Stuart Mill, History of the Gipsies, and the Duke of Argyll on the Preservation of the Jews.”

London Courier, June, 1875.

“The Natural History Contributions, which are very interesting, though partaking largely of a controversial nature, deal chiefly with questions affecting snakes and vipers. Of the other Contributions, the most attractive and readable is the one which contests some of Mr. Borrow’s conclusions in his well-known account of the Gipsies. Mr. John Stuart Mill forms the subject of a slashing dissertation, which is not likely to find much favour with the friends of the departed philosopher.”

Rochdale Observer, June 19, 1875.

“The study of natural history has a peculiar charm for most people, but for Lancashire folk it seems to have a special interest. Perhaps the most striking feature of the book at the head of this notice is the variety of topics touched upon; topics which, although apparently incompatible and incongruous, are, nevertheless, both curious and interesting. The author certainly brings a large amount of special knowledge to the discussion of the questions he introduces, and the essays are undoubtedly well written. Our readers will see that the work is full of controversial matter, embracing natural history, theology, and biography, and consequently will suit the taste of those who like to enter into discussions which excite the feelings, and in which abundance of energy and ability is displayed. The book is certainly ably written, and the author shows himself to be a man of large accomplishments.”

Liverpool Albion, June 18, 1875.

“The articles are written in a very readable manner, and will be found interesting even by those who have no special knowledge of natural history or interest in it. The Gipsies are competitors with the snakes for Mr. Simson’s regards, and several papers are devoted to these mysterious nomadic tribes. Perhaps the most curious paper in the volume is written to prove that John Bunyan was a Gipsy, and a very fair case is certainly made out, principally from Bunyan’s own autobiographical statements. With the exception of the papers on John Stuart Mill, to which we have already alluded, and which are far worse than worthless, the book is one which we can recommend.”

Newcastle Courant, June 11, 1875.

“The bulk of these Contributions appeared in _Land and Water_. We think the author has done well to give them to the public in the more enduring form of a well got up volume. The book contains, also, a critical sketch of the career of John Stuart Mill; some gossip about Gipsies; and the Duke of Argyll’s notions about the preservation of the Jews. Altogether, the book is very readable.”

Northern Whig, June 17, 1875.

“This volume consists of Contributions to _Land and Water_ by a writer well-known as the author [editor] of a standard book on the Gipsies, and is evidently the production of a clear, intelligent, and most observant mind. Mr. Simson adds a number of miscellaneous papers, including a masterly, though severe, criticism of John Stuart Mill—‘his religion, his education, a crisis in his history, his wife, Mill and son,’—as well as several desultory papers on the Gipsies, elicited, for the most part, by criticisms on his work on that singular race.”

Western Times, June 29, 1875.

“The preface to this volume is dated from New York, and the contents bear marks of the free, racy style of transatlantic writers. The volume closes with a paper on the ‘Preservation of the Jews.’ The writer deals with his several subjects with marked ability, and his essays form a volume which will pay for reading, and therefore pay for purchasing.”

Daily Review, June 11, 1875.

“We need only mention the other subjects—Waterton as a Naturalist, Romanism, John Stuart Mill, Simson’s History of the Gipsies, Borrow on the Gipsies, the Scottish Churches and the Gipsies, Was John Bunyan a Gipsy? and, of course, the literary ubiquitous Duke of Argyll on the Preservation of the Jews. The only paper we have not ventured to look at is the last, in the dread that on this question the versatile Duke might be found, as in the matter of the Scottish Church, verifying the French proverb—_Il va chercher midi à quatorze heures_—a work in which the author of this volume is an adept, in quiet, quaint, and clever ways, however, which make it interesting.”

NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER.

CONTENTS.

PAGE. VIPERS AND SNAKES GENERALLY 7 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON THE VIPER 10 WHITE OF SELBORNE ON SNAKES 17 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG 23 SNAKES SWALLOWING THEIR YOUNG 25 SNAKES CHARMING BIRDS 30 MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON ENGLISH SNAKES 31 MR. GOSSE ON THE JAMAICA BOA SWALLOWING HER YOUNG 33 AMERICAN SNAKES 36 AMERICAN SCIENCE CONVENTION ON SNAKES 36 CHARLES WATERTON AS A NATURALIST 39 ROMANISM 49 JOHN STUART MILL: A STUDY. HIS RELIGION 69 HIS EDUCATION 82 A CRISIS IN HIS HISTORY 90 HIS WIFE 97 MILL AND SON 105 SIMSON’S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES 111 MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES 112 THE SCOTTISH CHURCHES AND THE SOCIAL EMANCIPATION 150 OF THE GIPSIES WAS JOHN BUNYAN A GIPSY? 157 THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE JEWS 161 INDEX 171 APPENDIX. I. JOHN BUNYAN AND THE GIPSIES 183 II. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND AND WHITE OF SELBORNE 187 III. MR. FRANK BUCKLAND ON THE VIPER 192 IV. THE ENDOWMENT OF RESEARCH 199

FOOTNOTES.

{7} These two letters, dated the 5th and 19th of May, 1882, were in answer to a short one from a clergyman of the Church of England, acknowledging the receipt of a copy of my _Reminiscences of Childhood_, _etc._, which contained an Appendix on John Bunyan and the Gipsies.

{11a} The text represents the article as originally written.

{11b} I endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to get another reading of this book before saying that “no reference was made in it to mine.” I alluded, from memory, to _my_ part of it. On examination I find that the only indirect reference to it is the following:—“Mr. Simson, in his _History of the Gipsies_ [that is, in the _Disquisition on the Gipsies_] asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors-grinder in Great Britain that cannot talk this language; and my own experience agrees with his declaration, to this extent—that they all have some knowledge of it, or claim to have it, however slight it may be,” (p. 4). I did not express myself so absolutely as represented by Mr. Leland, who did not see fit to mention the double authorship of the book; the subject of which I took up from where it was left by Walter Simson. This double authorship may prove a little confusing to the reader when the book is alluded to.

{11c} See second note at page 19.

{12} In _The English Gipsies_, _etc._, Mr. Leland writes:—“I asked a Copt scribe if he were Muslim, and he replied, ‘_La_, _ana Gipti_’ (‘No, I am a Copt’) pronouncing the word _Gipti_, or Copt, so that it might readily be taken for ‘Gipsy.’ And learning that _romi_ is the Coptic for a man, I was again startled; and when I found _tema_ (tem, land) and other Romany words in ancient Egyptian (_vide_ Brugsch. _Grammaire_, _etc._) it seemed as if there were still many mysteries to solve in this strange language.” Of some Egyptian Gipsies Mr. Leland says that “they all resembled the one whom I have described . . . They all differed slightly, as I thought, from the ordinary Egyptians in their appearance” (p. 193).

{14} Tacitus makes Caius Cassius, in the time of Nero, say:—“At present we have in our service whole nations of slaves, the scum of mankind, collected from all quarters of the globe; a race of men who bring with them foreign rites, and the religion of their country, _or probably no religion at all_.”—_Murphy’s Translation_.

{15} Perhaps the most interesting scene connected with the Gipsy language in Scotland, given in the _History_, is that at St. Boswell’s (pp. 309–318). The word “Tinkler,” assumed by and applied to the Scotch Gipsies, seems to have been used from a desire to escape the legal responsibility attaching to the word “Gipsy.”

{16} It is not only puzzling, but provoking to decide how to treat a writer like Mr. Leland, for sometimes he shows a great deal of knowledge of his subject, and sometimes apparently nothing of it—one assertion contradicting another on the same question. What in reality has an antipathy between birds, or the idea of “people of self-conscious culture and the man and factory,” or the destiny of the American Indians to do with the destiny of the Gipsies? For he says, “Gipsies in England are passing away as rapidly as Indians in North America” (_The English Gipsies_, _Pref. X._). As a native of the United States, Mr. Leland must know that these Indians become extinct, and of the Gipsies in England that although there are comparatively few “dwellers in tents” of full blood, so called, there are many, many thousands of more or less mixed blood following various callings, or in various positions in life, as he has frequently admitted. The distinction between “old-fashioned” Gipsies and other members of the tribe is but trifling with the subject.

The following extracts from _The English Gipsies and their Language_ are interesting:—

“Other writers have had much to say of their incredible distrust of _Gorgios_ and unwillingness to impart their language, but I have always found them obliging and communicative” (Pref. V.).—“In every part of the world it is extremely difficult to get Romany words even from intelligent Gipsies, _although they may be willing with all their heart to communicate them_” (p. 17).—“Now the reader is possibly aware that of all difficult tasks, one of the most difficult is to induce a disguised Gipsy, or even a professed one, to utter a word of Romany to a man not of the blood” (p. 37).—“Be it remembered, reader, that in Germany, at the present day, the mere fact of being a Gipsy is still treated as a crime” (p. 74).—“Though the language of the Gipsies has been kept a great secret for centuries, still a few words have in England oozed out here and there from some unguarded crevice” (p. 78).—“The very fact that they hide as much as they can of their Gipsy life and nature from the _Gorgios_ would of itself indicate the depths of singularity concealed beneath their apparent life” (p. 153).—“Behind it all . . . . the fierce spirit of social exile from the world in which they lived . . . and the joyous consciousness of a secret tongue and hidden ways” (p. 156).—“A feeling of free-masonry, and of guarding a social secret, long after they leave the roads and become highly reputable members of society. But they have a secret, and no one can know them who has not penetrated it” (p. 174).

With all that has been said, the words which I have put in italics have a curious meaning—that the Gipsies in giving their language to “strangers” “may be willing with all their heart to communicate them”! I have explained this subject at length in the Disquisition (pp. 281 and 282) in reference to Mr. Borrow and others, not in regard to the willingness and stupidity, but the shuffling of the Gipsy in giving the meaning of words, although isolated and abstract ideas might occasionally puzzle some of them; for they translated to Mr. Borrow the Apostles’ Creed, sentence by sentence. The Lord’s Prayer, given by Mr. Borrow, Mr. Leland admits to be “pure English Gipsy” (p. 70). I do not think Mr. Leland states, with what stock of words and how acquired, he first approached the Gipsies, and how he used them, to get inside of the guard of the tribe.

{18} In the Preface to _The English Gipsies and their Language_, Mr. Leland says that all that it contains “was gathered directly from the Gipsies themselves” (v.); that he did not take “anything from Simson, Hoyland, or any other writer on the Romany race in England”; and that nothing is a “re-warming of that which was gathered by others” (x.). All that appears strictly true; yet he says nothing of how he was “put on the track for repeating or illustrating an ‘oft-told tale.’” But he says:—

“If I have not given in this book a sketch of the history of the Gipsies, or statistics of their numbers, or accounts of their social condition in different countries, it is because nearly everything of the kind may be found in the works of George Borrow and Walter Simson” (xi.).

He did not find much of the kind mentioned in Mr. Borrow’s books, so far as I remember, and omitted to say that I had written very fully on the points stated. It would have been interesting to have been told by Mr. Leland about his being “puzzled and muddled” at what he saw at Cobham Fair, how he came to write, nine years before that, as follows:—

“There have been thousands of _swell_ Romany chals who have moved in sporting circles of a higher class than they are to be found in at the present day” (p. 92).—“It may be worth while to state, in this connection, that Gipsy blood intermingled with Anglo-Saxon, when educated, generally results in intellectual and physical vigour” (p. 174).—And where was it that he found the idea that John Bunyan was a member of the Gipsy race (p. 63), if it was not as elaborately given in my Disquisition?

{19a} One of Mr. Leland’s “confident assertions” is that “the English Gipsy cares not a farthing ‘to know anything about his race as it exists in foreign countries, or whence it came’”; which is not a fact. He seems to have misinterpreted the _English Gipsy_ peculiarity which assimilates _in appearance_ to the _native English_ one, as I have written thus in the _History of the Gipsies_:—“Though Gipsies everywhere, they differ in some respects in the various countries which they inhabit. For example, an English Gipsy of pugilistic tendencies will, in a vapouring way, engage to _thrash_ a dozen of his Hungarian brethren” (p. 359). And of the more mixed kind of Gipsies, I have said:—“In Great Britain the Gipsies are entitled, in one respect at least, to be called Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen; for their general ideas as men, as distinguished from their being Gipsies, and their language indicate them at once to be such, nearly as much as the common natives of these countries” (p. 372).—What is described very fully throughout the _History_, and especially in the note at pp. 342 and 343, about the different colours or castes of the Gipsies, meets Mr. Leland’s remarks about those who left India. Thus:—“What are full-blood Gipsies, to commence with? The idea itself is intangible; for, by adopting, more or less, wherever they have been, others into their body, during their singular history, a pure Gipsy, like the pure Gipsy language, is doubtless nowhere to be found” (p. 342).

{19b} With the limited space at his disposal for his cyclopædia article, Mr. Leland could not be expected to tell us much in it about the Gipsies. In it he says that “their hair seldom turns gray, even in advanced age, unless there be ‘white’ blood in their veins”; that, “like North American Indians, the Gipsies all walk with their feet straight”; and that “there are nearly 100 English Gipsy family names, most of which are represented in America.” And further:—“At the present day the Romany is the life of the entire vagabond population of the roads in England, it being almost impossible to find a tinker or petty hawker who is not part Gipsy. There are now but a few hundred full-blooded _tent_ Gipsy persons in England (1874), but of . . . house-dwellers, who keep their Gipsy blood a secret, and of half-breeds . . . or of those affiliated by blood, all of whom possess the great secret of the Romany language to a greater or less degree, there are perhaps 20,000.” “The tinkers in England are all Gipsies.”

Including _all_ of “the blood” in _various_ positions in life, there are doubtless _vastly_ more of the tribe in England than 20,000, considering the time they have been in the country, and the healthy and prolific nature of the race.

{21} The same remark applies to _The English Gipsies and their Language_.