r
some of the London copies bear the imprint Wightman and Cramp. In 1913
Jarrold and Sons of Norwich issued a reprint of _Romantic Ballads_
limited to 300 copies, with facsimiles of the manuscript from my Borrow
Papers.

[64] Knapp's _Life_, vol. i 117.

CHAPTER XI

_CELEBRATED TRIALS_ AND JOHN THURTELL

Borrow's first book was _Faustus_, and his second was _Romantic
Ballads_, the one being published, as we have seen, in 1825, the other
in 1826. This chronology has the appearance of ignoring the _Celebrated
Trials_, but then it is scarcely possible to count _Celebrated
Trials_[65] as one of Borrow's books at all. It is largely a
compilation, exactly as the _Newgate Calendar_ and Howell's _State
Trials_ are compilations. In his preface to the work Borrow tells us
that he has differentiated the book from the _Newgate Calendar_[66] and
the _State Trials_[67] by the fact that he had made considerable
compression. This was so, and in fact in many cases he has used the blue
pencil rather than the pen--at least in the earlier volumes. But Borrow
attempted something much more comprehensive than the _Newgate Calendar_
and the _State Trials_ in his book. In the former work the trials range
from 1700 to 1802; in the latter from the trial of Becket in 1163 to
the trial of Thistlewood in 1820. Both works are concerned solely with
this country. Borrow went all over Europe, and the trials of Joan of
Arc, Count Struensee, Major Andre, Count Cagliostro, Queen Marie
Antoinette, the Duc d'Enghien, and Marshal Ney, are included in his
volumes. Moreover, while what may be called state trials are numerous,
including many of the cases in _Howell_, the greater number are of a
domestic nature, including nearly all that are given in the _Newgate
Calendar_. In the first two volumes he has naturally mainly state trials
to record; the later volumes record sordid everyday crimes, and here
Borrow is more at home. His style when he rewrites the trials is more
vigorous, and his narrative more interesting. It is to be hoped that the
exigent publisher, who he assures us made him buy the books for his
compilation out of the L50 that he paid for it, was able to present him
with a set of the _State Trials_, if only in one of the earlier and
cheaper issues of the work than the one that now has a place in every
lawyer's library.[68]

The third volume of _Celebrated Trials_, although it opens with the
trial of Algernon Sidney, is made up largely