are always three or four literary journals in France, as many in Holland, each fupporting oppofite interefts. The bookfellers who guide thefe periodi'cal compilations find their account in being fe. vere; the authors employed by them have wretchedness to add to their natural malignity. The majority may be in your favour, but you may depend on being torn by the reft. Loaded • with unmerited fcurrility perhaps you reply; they rejoin; both plead at the bar of the public,

and both are condemned to ridicule.

"But if you write for the ftage your cafe is ftill more worthy compaflion. You are there to be judged by men whom the custom of the times has rendered contemptible. Irritated by their own inferiority they exert all their little tyranny upon you, revenging upon the author the infults they receive from the public. From fuch men then you are to expect your fentence. Suppose your piece admitted, acted: one fingle ill-natured jeft from the pit is fufficient to cancel all your la"bours. But allowing that it fucceeds. There are ⚫ an hundred fquibs flying all abroad to prove that it fhould not have fucceeded. You fhall find your brightest scenes burlesqued by the ignorant; and the learned who know a little Greek, and nothing of their native language, affect to despise

6

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you.

But perhaps with a panting heart you carry your piece before a woman of quality. She gives the labours of your brain to her maid to be cut ⚫ into fhreds for curling her hair; while the laced footman, who carries the gaudy livery of luxury, infults your appearance, who bear the livery of indigence.

But granting your excellence has at last forced Envy to confefs that your works have fome merit ; this then is all the reward you can expect while

living.

living. However, for this tribute of applause you must expect perfecution. You will be reputed the author of fcandal which you have never "feen, of verses you defpife, and of fentiments directly contrary to your own. In fhort, you must ⚫ embark in fome one party, or all parties will be against you.

There are among us a number of learned focieties, where a lady prefides, whofe wit begins to twinkle, when the fplendour of her beauty begins to decline. One or two men of learning compofe her minifters of ftate. These must be flattered, or made enemies by being neglected. Thus, though you had the merit of all antiquity ' united in your perfon, you grow old in mifery and difgrace. Every place defigned for men of letters ⚫ is filled up by men of intrigue. Some nobleman's private tutor, fome court flatterer fhall bear away the prize, and leave you to anguish and to difappointment.'

Yet it were well if none but the dunces of fociety were combined to render the profeffion of an author ridiculous or unhappy. Men of the firft eminence are often found to indulge this illiberal vein of raillery. Two contending writers often, by the oppofition of their wit, render their profeffion contemptible in the eyes of ignorant perfons, who fhould have been taught to admire. And yet, whatever the reader may think of himself, it is at least two to one but he is a greater blockhead than the moft fcribling dunce he affects to defpife.

The poet's poverty is a ftanding topic of contempt. His writing for bread is an unpardonable offence. Perhaps of all mankind an author in these times is used most hardly. We keep him poor and yet revile his poverty. Like angry parents who correct their children till they cry, and then correct

them

them for crying, we reproach him for living by his wit, and yet allow him no other means to live.

His taking refuge in garrets and cellars has of late been violently objected to him, and that by men who I dare hope are more apt to pity than infult his diftrefs. Is poverty the writer's fault? No doubt he knows how to prefer a bottle of champaign to the near of the neighbouring ale-houfe, or a venifon pafly to a plate of potatoes. Want of delicacy is not in him but in us, who deny him the opportunity of making an elegant choice.

Wit certainly is the property of those who have it, nor fhould we be difpleafed if it is the only property a man fometimes has. We must not underrate him who ufes it for fubfiftence, and flies from the ingratitude of the age even to a bookfeller for redrefs. If the profeffion of an author is to be laughed at by the ftupid, it is certainly better to be contemptibly rich than contemptibly poor. For all the wit that ever adorned the human mind will at prefent no more fhield the author's poverty from ridicule, than his high-topped gloves conceal the unavoidable omiffions of his laundrefs.

To be more ferious, new fashions, follies and vices make new monitors neceffàry in every age. An author may be confidered as a merciful fubftitute to the legislature; he acts not by punishing crimes but preventing them; however virtuous the prefent age, there may be ftill growing employment for ridicule or reproof, for perfuafion or fatire. If the author be therefore ftill fo neceffary among us, let us treat him with proper confideration as a child of the public, not a rent-charge on the community, And indeed a child of the public he is in all refpects; for while fo well able to direct others, how incapable is he frequently found of guiding himself! His fimplicity expofes him to all the infidious approaches of cunning; his fenfibility to the flightest

invafions

The

invafions of contempt. Though poffeffed of fortitude to ftand unmoved the expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings fo exquifitely poignant as to agonize under the flighteft difappointment. Broken reft, tafielefs meals, and caufelefs anxiety, fhorten his life, or render it unfit for active employment; prolonged vigils and intense application fill farther contract his fpan, and make his time glide infenfibly away. Let us not then aggravate thofe natural inconveniencies by neglect; we have had fufficient inftances of this kind already. Sale and Moore will fuffice for one age at leaft. But they are dead, and their forrows are over. neglected author of the Perfian eclogues, which, however inaccurate, excel any in our language, is ftill alive. Happy, if infenfible of our neglect, not raging at our ingratitude.* It is enough that the age has already produced inftances of men preffing foremost in the lifts of fame, and worthy of better times, fchooled by continued adverfity into an hatred of their kind, flying from thought to drunkennefs, yielding to the united preffure of labour, penury, and forrow, finking unheeded, without one friend to drop a tear on their unattended obfequies, and indebted to charity for a grave.

There

The author, when unpatronized by the Great, has naturally recourfe to the bookfeller. cannot be perhaps imagined a combination more prejudicial to tafte than this. It is the intereft of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the other to write as much as poffible; accordingly tedious compilations and periodical magazines are the refult of their joint endeavours. In these circumftances the author bids adieu to fame, writes for bread, and for that only imagination is feldom called in; he fits down to addrefs the venal mufe

* Our author here alludes to the infanity of Collins.

with

with the most phlegmatic apathy; and, as we are told of the Ruffian, courts his miftrefs by falling afleep in her lap. His reputation never spreads in a wider circle than that of the trade, who generally value him, not for the fineness of his compofitions, but the quantity he works off in a given time.

A long habit of writing for bread thus turns the ambition of every author at laft into avarice. 'He finds that he has written many years, that the public are fcarcely acquainted even with his name; he defpairs of applause, and turns to profit which invites him. He finds that money procures all thofe advantages, that refpect, and that eafe which he vainly expected from fame. Thus the man who, under the protection of the Great might have done honour to humanity, when only patronifed by the bookfeller, becomes a thing little fuperior to the fellow who works at the prefs.

CHAP. XI.

Of the Marks of Literary Decay in France and England.

THE faults already mentioned are fuch as learn

ing is often found to flourish under; but there is one of a much more dangerous nature which has begun to fix itself among us, I mean criticism, which may properly be called the natural deftroyer of polite learning. We have feen that Critics, or those whose only bufinefs is to write books upon other books, are always more numerous as learning is more diffused; and experience has fhewn, that inftead of promoting its intereft, which they profess

to