In the early pages of Lavengro Borrow tells us nearly all we are ever likely to know of his sojourn¹ in London in the years 1824 and 1825, during which time he had those interviews with Sir Richard Phillips which are recorded in our last chapter.  Dr. Knapp, indeed, prints a little note from him to his friend Kerrison, in which he begs his friend to come to him as he believes he is dying.  Roger Kerrison, it would seem, had been so frightened by Borrow’s depression and threats of suicide that he had left the lodgings² at 16 Milman Street, Bedford Row, and removed himself elsewhere, and so Borrow was left friendless to fight what he called his “horrors” alone.  The depression was not unnatural³.  From his own vivid narrative⁴ we learn of Borrow’s bitter failure as an author.  No one wanted his translations from the Welsh and the Danish, and Phillips clearly had no further use for him after he had compiled his Newgate Lives and Trials (Borrow’s name in Lavengro for Celebrated⁵ Trials), and was doubtless inclined to look upon him as an impostor for professing⁶, with William Taylor’s sanction, a mastery of the German language which had been demonstrated to be false with regard to his own book.  No “spirited publisher” had come forward to give reality to his dream thus set down: