self in advertisements
of _The Athenaeum_ as 'J. Aikin, M.D., late editor of _The Monthly
Magazine_.' Aikin's contributors to _The Monthly_ included Capell Lofft,
of whom we know too little, and Dr. Wolcot, of whom we know too much.
Meanwhile Phillips's publishing business grew apace, and he removed to
larger premises in Bridge Street, Blackfriars, an address which we find
upon many famous publications of his period. A catalogue of his books
lies before me dated 'January 1805.' It includes many works still upon
our shelves. Almon's _Memoirs and Correspondence of John Wilkes_, Samuel
Richardson's _Life and Correspondence_, for example, several of the
works of Maria Edgeworth, including her _Moral Tales_, many of the works
of William Godwin, including _Caleb Williams_, and the earlier books of
that still interesting woman and once popular novelist, Lady Morgan,
whose _Poems_ as Sydney Owenson bears Phillips's name on its title-page,
as does also her first successful novel _The Wild Irish Girl_, and other
of her stories. My own interest in Phillips commenced when I met him in
the pages of Lady Morgan's _Memoirs_.[52] Thomas Moore, Lady Morgan
tells us,

had come back to Dublin from London, where he had been 'the
guest of princes, the friend of peers, the translator of
Anacreon!' From royal palaces and noble manors, he had returned
to his family seat--a grocer's shop at the corner of Little
Longford Street, Angier Street.

Here, in a little room over the shop, Sydney heard him sing two of his
songs, and was inspired thereby to write her first novels, _St. Clair_
and _The Novice of St. Dominick_. The first was published in Dublin;
over the second she corresponded with Phillips, and his letters to her
commence with one dated from Bridge Street, 6th April 1805, in which he
wishes her to send the manuscript of _The Novice_ to him as one 'often
(undeservedly) complimented as the most liberal of my trade!' She
determined, fresh from a governess situation, to bring the manuscript
herself. Phillips was charmed with his new author, and really seems to
have treated her very liberally. He insisted, however, on having _The
Novice_ cut down from six volumes to four, and she was wont to say that
nothing but regard for her feelings prevented him from reducing it to
three.[53] _The Novice of St. Dominick_ was a favourite book with the
younger Pitt, who read it over again in his last illness. Then
followed--in 180