[57] Legh Richmond (1772-1827), the author of The Dairyman's Daughter and The Young Cottager, which had an extraordinary vogue in their day. A few years earlier than this Princess Sophia Metstchersky translated the former into the Russian language, and Borrow must have seen copies when he visited St. Petersburg. Richmond was the first clerical secretary of the Religious Tract Society, with which The Dairyman's Daughter has always been one of the most popular of tracts.
[58] Phillips at his death in 1840 left a widow, three sons, and four daughters. One son was Vicar of Kilburn.
[59] Lavengro, ch. xxxix.
[60] Ueber die nächsten Ursachen der materiellen Erscheinungen des Universums, von Sir Richard Phillips, nach dem Englischen bearbeitet von General von Theobald und Prof. Dr. Lebret. Stuttgart, 1826.
CHAPTER X
FAUSTUS AND ROMANTIC BALLADS
In the early pages of Lavengro Borrow tells us nearly all we are ever likely to know of his sojourn 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 lodgings 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 unnatural. From his own vivid narrative 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 Celebrated Trials), and was doubtless inclined to look upon him as an impostor for professing, 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:
I had still an idea that, provided I could persuade any spirited publisher to give these translations to the world, I should acquire both considerable fame and profit; not, perhaps, a world-embracing fame such as Byron's; but a fame not to be sneered at, which would last me a considerable time, and would keep my heart from breaking;—profit, not equal to that which Scott had made by his wondrous novels, but which would prevent me from starving, and enable me to achieve some other literary enterprise. I read and re-read my ballads, and the more I read them the more I was convinced that the public, in the event of their being published, would freely purchase, and hail them with the merited applause.