short saw the sights of London. The arrival of Francis Arden at 16 Milman Street was a signal for books and manuscripts to be thrown aside in favour either of some expedition or an hour or two's conversation. Borrow, however, soon tired of the pleasures of London, and devoted himself almost entirely to work. Although he saw less of Francis Arden in consequence, they continued to be excellent friends.

After being some four weeks in London, Borrow received a surprise visit (29th April) from his brother, whom he found waiting for him one morning when he came down to breakfast. John told him of his mother's anxiety at receiving only one letter from him since his departure, of her fits of crying, of the grief of Captain Borrow's dog at the loss of his master. He also explained the reason for his being in London. He had been invited to paint the portrait of Robert Hawkes, an ex-mayor of Norwich, for a fee of a hundred guineas. Lacking confidence in his own ability, he had declined the honour and suggested that Benjamin Haydon should be approached. At the request of a deputation of his fellow citizens, which had waited upon him, he had undertaken to enter into negotiations with Haydon. He even undertook to come up to London at his own expense, that he might see his old master and complete the bargain. Borrow subsequently accompanied his brother when calling upon Haydon, and was enabled to give a thumbnail-sketch of the painter of the Heroic at work that has been pronounced to be photographic in its faithfulness.

John returned to Norwich about a fortnight later accompanied by Haydon, who was to become the guest of his sitter, {47a} and George was left to the compilation of Celebrated Trials. Sir Richard Phillips appears to have been a man as prolific of suggestion as he was destitute of tact. He regarded his authors as the instruments of his own genius. Their business it was to carry out his ideas in a manner entirely congenial to his colossal conceit. His latest author he exposed "to incredible mortification and ceaseless trouble from this same rage for interference."

The result of all this was an attack of the "Horrors." Towards the end of May, Roger Kerrison received from Borrow a note saying that he believed himself to be dying, and imploring him to "come to me immediately." The direct outcome of this note was, not the death of Borrow, but the departure from Milman Street of Roger Kerrison, lest he should become involved in a tragedy connected with Borrow's oft- repeated threat of suicide. Kerrison became "very uneasy and uncomfortable on his account, so that I have found it utterly impossible to live any longer in the same lodgings with him." {48a} Looked at dispassionately it seems nothing short of an act of cowardice on Kerrison's part to leave alone a man such as Borrow, who might at any moment be assailed by one of those periods of gloom from which suicide seemed the only outlet. On the other hand, from an anecdote told by C. G. Leland ("Hans Breitmann"), there seems to be some excuse for Kerrison's wish to live alone. "I knew at that time [about 1870]," he writes, {48b} "a Mr Kerrison, who had been as a young man, probably in the Twenties, on intimate terms with Borrow. He told me that one night Borrow acted very wildly, whooping and vociferating so as to cause the police to follow him, and after a long run led them to the edge of the Thames, 'and there they thought they had him.' But he plunged boldly into the water and swam in his clothes to the opposite shore, and so escaped."

A serious misfortune now befell Borrow in the premature death of The Universal Review, which expired with the sixth number (March 1824-- January 1825). It is not known what was the rate of pay to young and impecunious reviewers {49a} certainly not large, if it may be judged by the amount agreed upon for Celebrated Trials. Still, its end meant that Borrow was now dependent upon what he received for his compilation, and what he merited by his translation into German of Proximate Causes.

There appears to have been some difficulty about payment for Borrow's contributions to the now defunct review, which considerably widened the breach that the Trials had created. Sir Richard became more exacting and more than ever critical. {49b} The end could not be far off. Borrow had come to London determined to be an author, and by no juggling with facts could his present drudgery be considered as authorship. Occasionally his mind reverted to the manuscripts in the green box, his faith in which continued undiminished. He made further efforts to get his translations published, but everywhere the answer was the same, in effect, "A drug, sir, a drug!"

At last he determined to approach John Murray (the Second), "Glorious John, who lived at the western end of the town"; but he called many times without being successful in seeing him. Another seventeen years were to elapse before he was to meet and be published by John Murray.

Yet another dispute arose between Borrow and Sir Richard Phillips. Neither appeared to have realised the supreme folly of entrusting to a young Englishman the translation into German of an English work. A novel would have presented almost insurmountable difficulties; but a work of philosophy! The whole project was absurd. The diction of philosophy in all languages is individual, just as it is in other branches of science, and a very thorough knowledge of, and deep reading in both languages are necessary to qualify a man to translate from a foreign tongue into his own. To expect an inexperienced youth to reverse the order seems to suggest that Sir Richard Phillips must have been a publisher whose enthusiasm was greater than his judgment.

One day when calling at Tavistock Square, Borrow found Sir Richard in a fury of rage. He had submitted the first chapter of the translation of Proximate Causes to some Germans, who found it utterly unintelligible. This was only to be expected, as Borrow confesses that, when he found himself unable to comprehend what was the meaning of the English text, he had translated it LITERALLY INTO GERMAN!

The result of the interview was that Borrow, after what appears to be a tactless, not to say impertinent, rejoinder, {50a} relapsed into silence and finally left the house, ordered back to his compilation by Sir Richard, as soon as he became sufficiently calm to appear coherent, and Borrow walked away musing on the "difference in clever men."

The discovery of the inadequacy of the German translation apparently urged Borrow to hasten on with Celebrated Trials. The Universal Review was dead, the German version of Proximate Causes {50b} had passed out of his hands. It was desirable, therefore, that the remaining undertaking should be completed as soon as possible, that the two might part. The last of the manuscript was delivered, the proofs passed for press, and on 19th March the work appeared, the six volumes, running to between three and four thousand pages, containing accounts of some four hundred trials, including that of Borrow's old friend Thurtell for the murder of Mr Weare.

Borrow's name did not appear. He was "the editor," and as such was referred to in the preface contributed by Sir Richard himself. Among other things he tells of how, in some cases, "the Editor has compressed into a score of pages the substance of an entire volume." Sir Richard was a philosopher as well as a preface-writing publisher, and it was only natural that he should speculate as to the effect upon his editor's mind of months spent in reading and editing such records of vice. "It may be expected," he writes, "that the Editor should convey to his readers the intellectual impressions which the execution of his task has produced on his mind. He confesses that they are mournful." Sir Richard was either a master of irony, or a man of singular obtuseness.

One effect of this delving into criminal records had been to raise in Borrow's mind strange doubts about virtue and crime. When a boy, he had written an essay in which he strove to prove that crime and virtue were mere terms, and that we were the creatures of necessity or circumstance. These broodings in turn reawakened the theory that everything is a lie, and that nothing really exists except in our imaginations. The world was "a maze of doubt." These indications of an overtaxed brain increased, and eventually forced Borrow to leave London. His work was thoroughly uncongenial. He disliked reviewing; he had failed in his endeavours to render Proximate Causes into intelligible German; and it had taken him some time to overcome his dislike of the sordid stories of crime and criminals that he had to read and edit. He became gloomy and depressed, and prone to compare the real conditions of authorship with those that his imagination had conjured up.

The most important result of his labours in connection with Celebrated Trials was that upon his literary style. There is a tremendous significance in the following passage. It tells of the transition of the actual vagabond into the literary vagabond, with power to express in words what proved so congenial to Borrow's vagabond temperament:

"Of all my occupations at this period I am free to confess I liked that of compiling the Newgate Lives and Trials [Celebrated Trials] the best; that is, after I had surmounted a kind of prejudice which I originally entertained. The trials were entertaining enough; but the lives--how full were they of wild and racy adventures, and in what racy, genuine language were they told. What struck me most with respect to these lives was the art which the writers, whoever they were, possessed of telling a plain story. It is no easy thing to tell a story plainly and distinctly by mouth; but to tell one on paper is difficult indeed, so many snares lie in the way. People are afraid to put down what is common on paper, they seek to embellish their narratives, as they think, by philosophic speculations and reflections; they are anxious to shine, and people who are anxious to shine can never tell a plain story. 'So I went with them to a music booth, where they made me almost drunk with gin, and began to talk their flash language, which I did not understand,' {52a} says, or is made to say, Henry Simms, executed at Tyburn some seventy years before the time of which I am speaking. I have always looked upon this sentence as a masterpiece of the narrative style, it is so concise and yet so clear." {52b}

By the time the work was published and Borrow had been paid his fee, all relations between editor and publisher had ceased, and there was "a poor author, or rather philologist, upon the streets of London, possessed of many tongues," which he found "of no use in the world." {52c} A month after the appearance of Celebrated Trials (18th April), and a little more than a year after his arrival in London, Borrow published a translation of Klinger's Faustus. {53a} He himself gives no particulars as to whether it was commissioned or no. It may even have been "the Romance in the German style" from the Green Box. It is known that he received payment for it by a bill at five or six months, {53b} but there is no mention of the amount. It would appear that the translation had long been projected, for in The Monthly Magazine, July 1824, there appeared, in conjunction with the announcement of Celebrated Trials, the following paragraph: "The editor of the preceding has ready for the press, a Life of Faustus, his Death and Descent into Hell, which will also appear the next winter."

Faustus did not meet with a very cordial reception. The Literary