Phillips was now no longer a publisher.

Here we have some pleasant glimpses of a bygone era, many trite reflections, but not enough topography to make the book one of permanent interest.

It would not, in fact, be worth reprinting.[55] 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 Review_, repurchased after his bankruptcy, and some rights in many of the 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.