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.
He has a tale to tell us in _Lavengro_ of a certain _Life and Adventures of Joseph Sell, the Great Traveller_, the purchase of which from him by a publisher at the last moment saved him from starvation and enabled him to take to the road, there to meet the many adventures that have become immortal in the pages of _Lavengro_.

Dr.Knapp has encouraged the idea that _Joseph Sell_ was a real book, ignoring the fact that the very title suggests doubts, and was probably meant to suggest them.

In Norfolk, as elsewhere, a 'sell' is a word in current slang used for an imposture or a cheat, and doubtless Borrow meant to make merry with the credulous.