George Borrow and His Circle Part 8

FOOTNOTES:

[44] _Norvicensian_, 1888, p. 177.

[45] _Lavengro_, ch. xix.

[46] The _Britannia_ newspaper, 26th June 1851.

[47] This letter is in the possession of Mr. J. C. Gould, Trap Hill House, Loughton, Ess.e.x.

[48] Mr. C. F. Martelli of Staple Inn, London, who has so generously placed this information at my disposal. Mr. Martelli writes:

'Old memories brought him to our office for professional advice, and there I saw something of him, and a very striking personality he was, and a rather difficult client to do business with. One peculiarity I remember was that he believed himself to be plagued by autograph hunters, and was reluctant to trust our firm with his signature in any shape or form, and that we in consequence had some trouble in inducing him to sign his will. I have seen him sitting over my fire in my room at that office for hours, half asleep, and crooning out Romany songs while waiting for my chief.'

CHAPTER IX

SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS

_'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 ma.n.u.script from Danish and Welsh poetry. The princ.i.p.al 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.[49] 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 circ.u.mstance 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. .h.i.therto firmly adhered.[50]

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 started 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 navely 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. Dr. Aikin, a friend of Priestley's, was its editor, but with him Phillips had a quarrel--the first of his many literary quarrels--and they separated. This Dr. Aikin was the father of the better-known Lucy Aikin, and was a Nonconformist who suffered for his opinions in these closing years of the eighteenth century, even as Priestley did. He was the author of many works, including the once famous _Evenings at Home_, written in conjunction with his sister, Mrs. Barbauld;[51] and after his quarrel with Phillips he founded a new publication issued by the house of Longman, and ent.i.tled _The Athenaeum_. Hereupon he and Phillips quarrelled again, because Dr. Aikin described himself in advertis.e.m.e.nts of _The Athenaeum_ as 'J. Aikin, M.D., late editor of _The Monthly Magazine_.' Aikin's contributors to _The Monthly_ included Capell Lofft, of whom we know too little, and Dr. Wolcot, of whom we know too much.

Meanwhile Phillips's publis.h.i.+ng business grew apace, and he removed to larger premises in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, an address which we find upon many famous publications of his period. A catalogue of his books lies before me dated 'January 1805.' It includes many works still upon our shelves. Almon's _Memoirs and Correspondence of John Wilkes_, Samuel Richardson's _Life and Correspondence_, for example, several of the works of Maria Edgeworth, including her _Moral Tales_, many of the works of William G.o.dwin, including _Caleb Williams_, and the earlier books of that still interesting woman and once popular novelist, Lady Morgan, whose _Poems_ as Sydney Owenson bears Phillips's name on its t.i.tle-page, as does also her first successful novel _The Wild Irish Girl_, and other of her stories. My own interest in Phillips commenced when I met him in the pages of Lady Morgan's _Memoirs_.[52] Thomas Moore, Lady Morgan tells us,

had come back to Dublin from London, where he had been 'the guest of princes, the friend of peers, the translator of Anacreon!' From royal palaces and n.o.ble manors, he had returned to his family seat--a grocer's shop at the corner of Little Longford Street, Angier Street.

Here, in a little room over the shop, Sydney heard him sing two of his songs, and was inspired thereby to write her first novels, _St. Clair_ and _The Novice of St. Dominick_. The first was published in Dublin; over the second she corresponded with Phillips, and his letters to her commence with one dated from Bridge Street, 6th April 1805, in which he wishes her to send the ma.n.u.script of _The Novice_ to him as one 'often (undeservedly) complimented as the most liberal of my trade!' She determined, fresh from a governess situation, to bring the ma.n.u.script herself. Phillips was charmed with his new author, and really seems to have treated her very liberally. He insisted, however, on having _The Novice_ cut down from six volumes to four, and she was wont to say that nothing but regard for her feelings prevented him from reducing it to three.[53] _The Novice of St. Dominick_ was a favourite book with the younger Pitt, who read it over again in his last illness. Then followed--in 1806--Sydney Owenson's new novel, _The Wild Irish Girl_, and it led to an amusing correspondence with its author on the part of Phillips on the one side, and Johnson, who, it will be remembered, was Cowper's publisher, on the other. Phillips was indignant that, having first brought Sydney into fame, she should dare to ask more money on that account. As is the case with every novelist to-day who scores one success, Miss Owenson had formed a good idea of her value, and there is a letter to Johnson in which she admitted that Phillips's offer was a generous one. Johnson had offered her 300 for the copyright of _The Wild Irish Girl_. Phillips had offered only 200 down and 50 each for the second and third editions. When Phillips heard that Johnson had outbidden him, he described the offer as 'monstrous,' and that it was 'inspired by a spirit of revenge.' He would not, he declared, increase his offer, but a little later he writes from Bridge Street to Sydney Owenson as his 'dear, bewitching, and deluding Syren,' and promises the 300. A few months later he gave her a hundred pounds for a slight volume of poems, which certainly never paid for its publication, although Scott and Moore and many another were making much money out of poetry in those days. In any case Phillips did not accept Miss Owenson's next story with alacrity, in spite of the undoubted success of _The Wild Irish Girl_. She no doubt asked too much for _Ida of Athens_. Phillips probably thought, after reading the first volume in type, that it was very inferior work, as indeed it was. Athens was described without the author ever having seen the city. After much wrangling, in which the lady said that her 'prince of publishers,' as she had once called him, had 'treated her barbarously,' the novel went into the hands of the Longmans, who published it, not without some remonstrance as to certain of its sentiments. The successful Lady Morgan afterwards described _Ida_ as a bad book, so perhaps here, as usually, Phillips was not far wrong in his judgment. A similar quarrel seems to have taken place over the next novel, _The Missionary_. Here Phillips again received the ma.n.u.script, discussed terms with its author, and returned it. The firm of Stockdale and Miller were his successful rivals. Later and more prosperous novels, _O'Donnel_ in particular, were issued by Henry Colburn, and Phillips now disappears from Lady Morgan's life. I have told the story of Phillips's relation with Lady Morgan at length because at no other point do we come into so near a contact with him. In Fell's _Memoir_ Phillips is described--in 1808--as 'certainly now the first publisher in London,' but while he may have been this in the volume of his trade--and school-books made an important part of it--he was not in mere 'names.' Most of his successful writers--Sydney Owenson, Thomas Skinner Surr, Dr. Gregory, and the rest--have now fallen into oblivion.

The school-books that he issued have lasted even to our own day, notably Dr. Mavor's _Spelling Book_. Dr. Mavor was a Scotsman from Aberdeen, who came to London and became Phillips's chief hack. There are no less than twenty of Mavor's school-books in the catalogue before me. They include Mavor's _History of England_, Mavor's _Universal History_, and Mavor's _History of Greece_. In the _Memoir_ of 1808 it is claimed that 'Mavor'

is but a pseudonym for Phillips, and the claim is also made, quite wrongfully, by John Timbs, who, before he became acting editor of the _Ill.u.s.trated London News_ under Herbert Ingram, and an indefatigable author, was Phillips's private secretary.[54] It seems clear, however, that in the case of Blair's _Catechism_ and Goldsmith's _Geography_, and many another book for schools, Phillips was 'Blair' and 'Goldsmith' and many another imaginary person, for the books in question numbered about two hundred in all. For these books there must have been quite an army of literary hacks employed during the twenty years prior to the appearance of George Borrow in that great army. On 9th November 1807, the Lord Mayor's procession through London included Richard Phillips among its sheriffs, and he was knighted by George III. in the following year. During his period of office he effected many reforms in the City prisons. John Timbs, in his _Walks and Talks about London_, tells us that Phillips's colleague in the shrievalty was one Smith, who afterwards became Lord Mayor:

The _personnel_ of the two sheriffs presented a sharp contrast.

Smith loved aldermanic cheer, but was pale and cadaverous in complexion; whilst Phillips, who never ate animal food, was rosy and healthful in appearance. One day, when the sheriffs were in full state, the procession was stopped by an obstruction in the street traffic; when droll were the mistakes of the mob: to Smith they cried, 'Here's Old Water-gruel!' to Phillips, 'Here's Roast Beef! something like an Englishman!'

Two volumes before me show Phillips as the precursor of many of the publishers of one-volume books of reference so plentiful in our day. _A Million of Facts_ is one of them, and _A Chronology of Public Events Within the Last Fifty Years from 1771 to 1821_ is another, while one of the earliest and most refres.h.i.+ng guides to London and its neighbourhood is afforded us in _A Morning Walk from London to Kew_, which first appeared in _The Monthly Magazine_, but was reprinted in 1817 with the name 'Sir Richard Phillips' as author on the t.i.tle-page. Phillips was now no longer a publisher. Here we have some pleasant glimpses of a bygone era, many trite reflections, but not enough topography to make the book one of permanent interest. It would not, in fact, be worth reprinting.[55]

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 Review_, repurchased after his bankruptcy, and some rights in many of the school-books. But the great publis.h.i.+ng 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 princ.i.p.al, 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.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR JOHN BOWRING in 1826

From a portrait by John King now in the National Portrait Gallery.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN P. HASFELD IN 1835

From a portrait by an Unknown Artist formerly belonging to George Borrow]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM TAYLOR

From a portrait by J. Thomson, printed in the year 1821, and engraved in Robberds's _Life of Taylor_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS

From a portrait by James Saxon, painted in 1828, now in the National Portrait Gallery.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRIENDS OF BORROW'S EARLY YEARS] [Transcriber's Note: This is the caption for the page of four portraits, each portrait's caption is shown above.]

Phillips explains that he has given up publis.h.i.+ng, except 'under the rose,' had only _The Monthly Magazine_, here[56] 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_,[57] 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,[58] 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:

In the compilation of my Lives and Trials I was exposed to incredible mortification, and ceaseless trouble, from this same rage for interference.... This was not all; when about a moiety of the first volume had been printed, he materially altered the plan of the work; it was no longer to be a collection of mere Newgate lives and trials, but of lives and trials of criminals in general, foreign as well as domestic.... 'Where is Brandt and Struensee?' cried the publisher. 'I am sure I don't know,'

I replied; whereupon the publisher falls to squealing like one of Joey's rats. 'Find me up Brandt and Struensee by next morning, or--' 'Have you found Brandt and Struensee?' cried the publisher, on my appearing before him next morning. 'No,' I reply, 'I can hear nothing about them'; whereupon the publisher falls to bellowing like Joey's bull. By dint of incredible diligence, I at length discover the dingy volume containing the lives and trials of the celebrated two who had brooded treason dangerous to the state of Denmark. I purchase the dingy volume, and bring it in triumph to the publisher, the perspiration running down my brow. The publisher takes the dingy volume in his hand, he examines it attentively, then puts it down; his countenance is calm for a moment, almost benign. Another moment and there is a gleam in the publisher's sinister eye; he s.n.a.t.c.hes up the paper containing the names of the worthies which I have intended shall figure in the forthcoming volumes--he glances rapidly over it, and his countenance once more a.s.sumes a terrific expression. 'How is this?' he exclaims; 'I can scarcely believe my eyes--the most important life and trial omitted to be found in the whole criminal record--what gross, what utter negligence! Where's the life of Farmer Patch?

where's the trial of Yeoman Patch?'

'What a life! what a dog's life!' I would frequently exclaim, after escaping from the presence of the publisher.[59]

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 a.s.sume 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 his 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 a.s.sure Phillips, who had at last to go to a German for a translation, and the book appeared at Stuttgart in 1826.[60] 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 a.s.sisting. Gifford translated _Juvenal_, and it was for a long time a.s.sumed that Borrow wished merely to disguise Gifford's ident.i.ty 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] The few lines awarded to him in Mumby's _Romance of Bookselling_ are an ill.u.s.tration of this.

[50] _Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of Sir Richard Phillips, King's High Sheriff for the City of London and the County of Middles.e.x, by a Citizen of London and a.s.sistants_. London, 1808. This _Memoir_ was published in 1808, many years before the death of Phillips, and was clearly inspired and partly written by him, although an autograph letter before me from one Ralph Fell shows that the worthy Fell actually received 12 from Phillips for 'compiling' the book. A portion of the _Memoir_ may have been written by another literary hack named Pinkerton, but all of it was compiled under the direction of Phillips.

[51] Mr. Arthur Aikin Brodribb in his memoir of Aikin in the _Dictionary of National Biography_ makes the interesting but astonis.h.i.+ng statement that Aikin's _Life of Howard_ 'has been adopted, without acknowledgment, by a modern writer.' Mr. Brodribb apparently knew nothing of Dr. Aikin's a.s.sociation with the _Monthly Magazine_ or with the first _Athenaeum_.

[52] I have no less than four memoirs of Lady Morgan on my shelves:--_Pa.s.sages from my Autobiography_, by Sydney, Lady Morgan (Richard Bentley, 1859); _The Friends, Foes, and Adventures of Lady Morgan_, by William John Fitzpatrick (W. B. Kelly: Dublin, 1859); _Lady Morgan; Her Career, Literary and Personal, with a Glimpse of her Friends, and A Word to her Calumniators_, by William John Fitzpatrick (London: Charles J. Skeet, 1860); _Lady Morgan's Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence_. Two vols. (London: W. H. Allen, 1863).

[53] _Memoirs of Lady Morgan_, edited by W. Hepworth Dixon.