AN OLD-TIME PUBLISHER
“_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 R’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 pie. 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.
“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 translation, 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.