The Bible in Spain by George Borrow (1842)

I typified Borrow on summing up his first book as a 'Baby Byron'. He seemed somehow to have the quality of braggadocio, and continent-traversing vigour, which lent that mood. If anything, that feeling has intensified with this book. But the issue of where his heart is has now to take up some of the story. Where Byron was a delighted debunker of convention and flab, Borrow was not. Or rather, Borrow expends his Byronic energy on chasing down evil Papism and 'superstition', while he undertakes the main task recorded here - spreading the good word via selling copies of a Spanish translation of the New Testament. The Catholic system regarded the Bible as a priestly book, which needed the interpretation of the clergy to have its 'true' intentions made clear. Thus the laity were not allowed access, and copies of it were banned. The idea of making a translation into their own language, in order to popularise it even further, was tantamount to sacrilege. To Borrow's 'enlightened' Protestantism, of course, this was not to be countenanced, and his warrior missionary-spirit was thoroughly engaged. He entered Spain in 1837 under the auspices of the Bible Society with an edition, the aim to spread it far and wide. The country he encountered was in a parlous state, riven with vying factions according to whom one supported as monarch, and with national governments and local regimes coming and going with extraordinary regularity. The atmosphere of civil war obtained. So, dangerous political quagmire, religious maelstrom invited - what could go wrong? And much does; the main part of this book is the story of shipments of New Testaments being quarantined through the actions of clergy on petty officials, traipsing through all sorts of country with retainers ranging from the saintly to the satanic, discussion of spiritual and temporal architecture, of nationality through language and custom. But there's no way of avoiding the tone of the great majority of Borrow's extemporizing (it often has that quality): it's jingoistic, prejudiced, and nakedly self-inflating. Races or regionalities are 'known' to have certain negative qualities, both physical and spiritual; these are reflected in their dirty homes, dull minds, evil propensities; the English, exemplified in their soldiers, are somehow all apple-cheeked, beautiful young bucks who couldn't be more admirable, et cetera ad infinitum. It's stupefyingly grim, and belies his superior tone all too readily. And it was 'par for the course' at the time, undoubtedly - it's not special to Borrow. This drabness is counterbalanced to a degree by a modicum of colour in relating adventures battling banditti, rangy discussions with vociferous hotel-keepers, exotic locales illustrated, and some interesting background information on language and customs tucked amongst all the bigotry. The strange mixture in him of warrior evangelist and attenuated mentality is quite a bilious concoction. That this is housed in an unvarnished braggart pretty well does it in.