CHAPTER IX.
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS _'That's a strange man!' said I to myself, after I had left the house, 'he is evidently very clever; but I cannot say that I like him much with his Oxford Reviews and Dairyman's Daughters.'_--LAVENGRO.
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 inadequate treatment in our own.[49] Phillips was active in the cause of reform at a certain period in his life, and would seem to have had many sterling 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 determined to seek his fortune in London.