(i.) The Ancient Songs of Denmark, heroic and romantic, translated by himself, with notes philological, critical and historical.
(ii.) The Songs of Ab Gwilym, the Welsh Bard, also translated by himself, with notes critical, philological and historical. [41]
(iii.) A romance in the German style.
In addition to his manuscripts, Borrow had some twenty or thirty pounds, his testimonials, and a letter from William Taylor to Sir Richard Phillips, the publisher, to whose New Magazine he had already contributed a number of translations of poems. He had also printed in The Monthly Magazine and The New Monthly Magazine translations of verse from the German, Swedish, Dutch, Danish and Spanish, and an essay on Danish ballad writing.
On the morning of 2nd April there arrived at 16 Milman Street, Bedford Row, London, W.C.,
“A lad who twenty tongues can talk,
And sixty miles a day can walk;
Drink at a draught a pint of rum,
And then be neither sick nor dumb;
Can tune a song and make a verse,
And deeds of Northern kings rehearse;
Who never will forsake his friend
While he his bony fist can bend;
And, though averse to broil and strife,
Will fight a Dutchman with a knife;
O that is just the lad for me,
And such is honest six-foot-three.” [42a]
It was through the Kerrisons that Borrow went to 16 Milman Street, where Roger was lodging. His apartments seem to have been dismal enough, consisting of “a small room, up two pair of stairs, in which I was to sit, and another, still smaller, above it, in which I was to sleep.” After the first feeling of loneliness had passed, dispelled largely by a bright fire and breakfast, he sallied forth, the contents of the green box under his arm, to present his letter of introduction to Sir Richard Phillips, [42b] in whom centred his hopes of employment.
On arriving at the publisher’s house in Tavistock Square, he was immediately shown into Sir Richard’s study, where he found “a tall, stout man, about sixty, dressed in a loose morning gown,” and with him his confidential clerk Bartlett (the Taggart of Lavengro). Sir Richard was at first enthusiastic and cordial, but when he learned from William Taylor’s letter that Borrow had come up to earn his livelihood by authorship, his manner underwent a marked change. The bluff, hearty expression gave place to “a sinister glance,” and Borrow found that within that loose morning gown there was a second Sir Richard.
He learned two things—first, that Sir Richard Phillips had retired from publishing and had reserved only The Monthly Magazine; [43] secondly, that literature was a drug upon the market. With airy self-assertiveness, the ex-publisher dismissed the contents of the green box that Borrow had brought with him, which had already aroused considerable suspicion in the mind of the maid who had admitted him to the publisher’s presence.