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 inadequate2 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 sterling3 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 determined4 to seek his fortune in London. After a short absence, during which he clearly proved to himself that he was not at present qualified5 to capture London, young Phillips returned to the farm. Borrow refers to his patron’s vegetarianism6, and on this point we have an amusing story from his own pen! He had been, when previously7 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 slaughtered8 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 vow9 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 schooling10, 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 Herald11, to which Dr. Priestley became a contributor. The first number was issued gratis12 in May, 1792. His Memoir13 informs us that it was an article in this newspaper that secured for its proprietor14 and editor eighteen months’ imprisonment15 in Leicester gaol16, but he was really charged with selling Paine’s Rights of Man. The worthy17 knight18 had probably grown ashamed of The Rights of Man in the intervening years, and hence the reticence19 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 groaned20 under.” Moira became Governor-General of Bengal and Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India. The Duke of Norfolk, a stanch21 Whig, distinguished22 himself in 1798 by a famous toast at the Crown and Anchor Tavern23, Arundel Street, Strand:—“Our sovereign’s health—the majesty24 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 opportune25 fire relieved him of an apparently26 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, lodging27 meantime in the house of a milliner, where he fell in love with one of the apprentices28, 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 kindly29 exhortation30 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 attained31 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 bankruptcy32, 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 Phenomena33 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 vouched34 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 laden35 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 factotum36 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 countenance37 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 contemplated38 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 Tract39 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 Celebrated40 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 exacting41, 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 catastrophe42. 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 colloquially43, but he was not a grammarian, and he could not write accurately44 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 poetic45 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 entirely46 devoted47 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 pointed48 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 personalities49, 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 imprint50, 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.
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1
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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vegetarianism
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| n.素食，素食主义 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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gratis
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| adj.免费的 | |
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memoir
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| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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stanch
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| v.止住（血等）；adj.坚固的；坚定的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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opportune
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| adj.合适的，适当的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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vouched
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| v.保证( vouch的过去式和过去分词 )；担保；确定；确定地说 | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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factotum
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| n.杂役；听差 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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42
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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colloquially
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| adv.用白话，用通俗语 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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45
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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47
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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50
imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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