“that’s a strange man!” said i to myself, after i had left the house, “he is evidently very clever; but i cannot say that i like him much with his oxford reviews and dairyman’s daughters.”—lavengro.
borrow lost his father on the 28th february, 1824. he reached london on the 2nd april of the same year, and this was the beginning of his many wanderings. he was armed with introductions from william taylor, and with some translations in manuscript from danish and welsh poetry. the principal introduction was to sir richard phillips, a person of some importance in his day, who has so far received but inadequate treatment in our own. phillips was active in the cause of reform at a certain period in his life, and would seem to have had many sterling qualities before he was spoiled by success. he was born in the neighbourhood of leicester, and his father was “in the farming line,” and wanted him to work on the farm, but he determined to seek his fortune in london. after a short absence, during which he clearly proved to himself that he was not at present qualified to capture london, young phillips returned to the farm. borrow refers to his patron’s vegetarianism, and on this point we have an amusing story from his own pen! he had been, when previously on the farm, in the habit of attending to a favourite heifer:
during his sojournment in london this animal had been killed; and on the very day of his return to his father’s house, he partook of part of his favourite at dinner, without his being made acquainted with the circumstance of its having been slaughtered during his absence. on learning this, however, he experienced a sudden indisposition; and declared that so great an effect had the idea of his having eaten part of his slaughtered favourite upon him, that he would never again taste animal food; a vow to which he has hitherto firmly adhered.
farming not being congenial, phillips hired a small room in leicester, and opened a school for instruction in the three p. 56r’s, a large blue flag on a pole being his “sign” or signal to the inhabitants of leicester, who seem to have sent their children in considerable numbers to the young schoolmaster. but little money was to be made out of schooling, and a year later phillips was, by the kindness of friends, started in a small hosiery shop in leicester. throwing himself into politics on the side of reform, phillips now founded the leicester herald, to which dr. priestley became a contributor. the first number was issued gratis in may, 1792. his memoir informs us that it was an article in this newspaper that secured for its proprietor and editor eighteen months’ imprisonment in leicester gaol, but he was really charged with selling paine’s rights of man. the worthy knight had probably grown ashamed of the rights of man in the intervening years, and hence the reticence of the memoir. phillips’s gaoler was the once famous daniel lambert, the notorious “fat man” of his day. in gaol phillips was visited by lord moira and the duke of norfolk. it was this lord moira who said in the house of lords in 1797 that “he had seen in ireland the most absurd, as well as the most disgusting tyranny that any nation ever groaned under.” moira became governor-general of bengal and commander-in-chief of the army in india. the duke of norfolk, a stanch whig, distinguished himself in 1798 by a famous toast at the crown and anchor tavern, arundel street, strand:—“our sovereign’s health—the majesty of the people!” which greatly offended george iii., who removed norfolk from his lord-lieutenancy. phillips seems to have had a very lax imprisonment, as he conducted the herald from gaol, contributing in particular a weekly letter. soon after his release he disposed of the herald, or permitted it to die. it was revived a few years later as an organ of toryism. he had started in gaol another journal, the museum, and he combined this with his hosiery business for some time longer, when an opportune fire relieved him of an apparently uncongenial burden, and with the insurance money in his pocket he set out for london once more. here he started as a hosier in st. paul’s churchyard, lodging meantime in the house of a milliner, where he fell in love with one of the apprentices, miss griffiths, “a native of wales.” his affections were won, we are naïvely informed in the memoir, by the young woman’s talent in the preparation of a vegetable p. 57pie. this is our first glimpse of lady phillips—“a quiet, respectable woman,” whom borrow was to meet at dinner long years afterwards. inspired, it would seem, by the kindly exhortation of dr. priestley, he now transformed his hosiery business in st. paul’s churchyard into a “literary repository,” and started a singularly successful career as a publisher. there he produced his long-lived periodical, the monthly magazine, which attained to so considerable a fame.
this, then, was the man to whom george borrow presented himself in 1824. phillips was fifty-seven years of age. he had made a moderate fortune and lost it, and was now enjoying another perhaps less satisfying; it included the profits of the monthly magazine, repurchased after his bankruptcy, and some rights in many school-books. but the great publishing establishment in bridge street had long been broken up. borrow would have found taylor’s introduction to phillips quite useless had the worthy knight not at the moment been keen on a new magazine and seen the importance of a fresh “hack” to help to run it. moreover, had he not written a great book which only the germans could appreciate, twelve essays on the phenomena of nature? here, he thought, was the very man to produce this book in a german dress. taylor was a thorough german scholar, and he had vouched for the excellent german of his pupil and friend. hence a certain cordiality which did not win borrow’s regard, but was probably greater than many a young man would receive to-day from a publisher-prince upon whom he might call laden only with a bundle of translations from the danish and the welsh. here—in lavengro—is the interview between publisher and poet, with the editor’s factotum bartlett, whom borrow calls taggart, as witness:
“well, sir, what is your pleasure?” said the big man, in a rough tone, as i stood there, looking at him wistfully—as well i might—for upon that man, at the time of which i am speaking, my principal, i may say my only hopes, rested.
“sir,” said i, “my name is so-and-so, and i am the bearer of a letter to you from mr. so-and-so, an old friend and correspondent of yours.”
the countenance of the big man instantly lost the suspicious and lowering expression which it had hitherto exhibited; he strode forward and, seizing me by the hand, gave me a violent squeeze.
p. 58“my dear sir,” said he, “i am rejoiced to see you in london. i have been long anxious for the pleasure—we are old friends, though we have never before met. taggart,” said he to the man who sat at the desk, “this is our excellent correspondent, the friend and pupil of our excellent correspondent.”
phillips explains that he has given up publishing, except “under the rose,” had only the monthly magazine, here [58] called the magazine, but contemplated yet another monthly, the universal review, here called the oxford. he gave borrow much the same sound advice that a publisher would have given him to-day—that poetry is not a marketable commodity, and that if you want to succeed in prose you must, as a rule, write trash—the most acceptable trash of that day being the dairyman’s daughter, which has sold in hundreds of thousands, and is still much prized by the evangelical folk who buy the publications of the religious tract society. phillips, moreover, asked him to dine to meet his wife, his son, and his son’s wife, and we know what an amusing account of that dinner borrow gives in lavengro. moreover, he set borrow upon his first piece of hack-work, the celebrated trials, and gave him something to do upon the universal review and also upon the monthly. the universal lasted only for six numbers, dying in january, 1825. in that year appeared the six volumes of the celebrated trials, of which we have something to say in our next chapter. borrow found phillips most exacting, always suggesting the names of new criminals, and leaving it to the much sweated author to find the books from which to extract the necessary material. then came the final catastrophe. borrow could not translate phillips’s great masterpiece, twelve essays on the proximate causes, into german with any real effectiveness although the testimonial of the enthusiastic taylor had led phillips to assume that he could. borrow, as we shall see, knew many languages, and knew them well colloquially, but he was not a grammarian, and he could not write accurately in any one of the numerous tongues. his wonderful memory gave him the words, but not always any thoroughness of construction. he could make a good translation of a poem by schiller, because he brought his own poetic fancy to the venture, but he had no interest in phillips’s philosophy, and so he doubtless made a very bad p. 59translation, as german friends were soon able to assure phillips, who had at last to go to a german for a translation, and the book appeared at stuttgart in 1826. meanwhile, phillips’s new magazine, the universal review, went on its course. it lasted only for a few numbers, as we have said—from march, 1824, to january, 1825—and it was entirely devoted to reviews, many of them written by borrow, but without any distinction calling for comment to-day. dr. knapp thought that gifford was the editor, with phillips’s son and george borrow assisting. gifford translated juvenal, and it was for a long time assumed that borrow wished merely to disguise gifford’s identity when he referred to his editor as the translator of quintilian. but sir leslie stephen has pointed out in literature that john carey (1756–1826), who actually edited quintilian in 1822, was phillips’s editor. “all the poetry which i reviewed,” borrow tells us, “appeared to be published at the expense of the authors. all the publications which fell under my notice i treated in a gentlemanly . . . manner—no personalities, no vituperation, no shabby insinuations; decorum, decorum was the order of the day.” and one feels that borrow was not very much at home. but he went on with his newgate lives and trials, which, however, were to be published with another imprint, although at the instance of phillips. by that time he and that worthy publisher had parted company. probably phillips had set out for brighton, which was to be his home for the remainder of his life.
