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May I not, Mr. Editor, with great truth fubfc.ib

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A FORTUNATE SON OF IDLENESS.

On the Hiftory of Authors by Profeffion.

No. IV.

I HAVE remarked, in the conclufion of the laft number, that there is a fact in the history of the Greek philofophers, which evinces, that they have undergone the fame changes in their condition, as the modern profeffors of literature. Their change, I fix at the period when they avowedly and regularly began to receive money for their public lectures; and I affert, that anterior to that period, they must have depended on the patronage of private individuals; and that pofterior to it. they, like modern authors, depended on the price paid by the public for their productions. To prove the firft of thefe pofitions, I fhall neither have recourfe to Laertius, to Stanley, or to Brucker. I fhall neither urge the connection of Anaxagoras with Pericles, that of Socrates with Alcibiades, that of Ariftotle with Philip, nor the voyages of Plato and Ariflippus to the Court of Dionyfius. I fhall felect a more fi:nple mode of argument. Thefe philofophers were not men of hereditary fortunes; they did not cultivate any enriching profe lions; they profeffed to gain nothing by that literature to which they dedicated their lives. How then were they fupported, all in the conveniences, fome in the indulgencies and luxuries of life? Undoubtedly by the munificence of patrons. The queftion admits no other anfwer;-the fact admits no other explanation.

Till the moment, then, that we find them giving public lectures for money, we muft conclude the trati of Greece to have fubfifted in a state of patronage,

a ftate probably more enviable in the ancient, than it has been in any period of the modern world, because the value of literature was then fo much enhanced by the difficulty of its acquifition.

From that period, they evidently fubfifted by the public price of their literary exertions, and were precifely, therefore, in the fituation of the profeffed authors of our times. The change from patronage to this ftate, feems alfo to have, in the fame manner, arisen from the multiplicity of pretenders, which the diffufion of knowledge had called forth. But they poffeffed, in one refpect, an eminent fuperiority, of which the art of printing has deprived modern authors. They received directly from the public, the price of their la hours, undiminished by the profit of the bookfeller. Of that profeffion, fcarcely any veftiges are difcoverable in Greece. The cuftom of lecturing, in a great measure, fuperfeded its ufe. Their existence in Rome is proved by the letters of Pliny, and the satires of Juvenal: But the venders of manufcripts, the conductors of fo narrow a commerce, must have ever occupied a fecondary ftation. They were probably little better than the dif. tributive agents of authors, and the collectors of curiofities for the wealthy. The art of printing, by enlarging the sphere of the commerce of books, gave utility and importance to its conductors; they speedily became to authors, what the monied capitalift is to the manufacturer. In fimple times, the manufacturer and the author diftribute their own produce: But, in the progrefs of fociety, by a fort of division of labour, separate profeffions arife for this diftribution, the merchant and the book feller. Placed in circumftances more favourable to the growth of wealth, than the original produc er, they foon obtain over him the fuperiority conferred by the command of capital, and, inftead of agents, become employers and mafters. It is this circumstance that renders the state of authorship lefs eligible among us than it was in the ancient world. A medium is now

interpofed between the author and the public. The profits of literature are abridged, while its profeffors are fubjected to a new dependence.

But while the intereft of learning is thus wounded, the interest of mankind is effentially promoted. These interefts are, in fact, oppofite; for it is the object of the author to enhance the value of his produce, and that of the public, to procure it as eafily as they can. The art of printing, and the profeffion of bookfeller, facilitate the dispersion of literary produce. In the fame proportion, they therefore lower the market of knowledge, and, perhaps, in fome degree, diminish the importance of authors, as they diffufe information more widely among men.

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I have thus attempted to investigate a fubject which. has hitherto been little treated. In the first number, I have endeavoured to fhew, that a body of men, who may be called authors by profeffion, exift in every form of fociety. In the fecond, I have confidered the fucceffive changes which they undergo, and the causes which produce the fucceffion; and in the third and fourth, I have attempted to illuftrate and establish the theory, by an application of it to the literary history of England and of Greece. The details of the subject are infinite: It was fufficient for me to have contemplated its more general aspects; and fhould I resume the pen to treat it, it would be to offer fome miscellaneous remarks, which could not, with propriety, be comprehended in a fyftematic view.

Critical Remarks on fome of the most eminent Hiftorians of England.

THOUGH we are now in the close of the eighteenth century, the history of this ifland has never been studied with proper attention. That portion of it, in particular, which precedes the reformation, feems, at prefent, VOL. III. †

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buried in profound neglect. For this misfortune, sufficient reafons may be affigned; an hundred and fifty years were wafted in theological frenzy, or in defeating the tyranny of the houfe of Stuart; and a modern compiler of general hiftory is ftrongly tempted to rush with precipitation over the remoter periods, and to referve his abilities and research for those later fcenes, in which a reader of the present day is more heartily interested. On thefe modern compilers, a few candid obfervations may repay a perusal.

The name of RAPIN is now almoft forgotten; and Mr. Hume, in the end of his English History, has branded him as an author" the most defpicable both in ftyle and matter." The cenfure is invidious, ungenerous, and unjust His work contains an immenfe multitude of interefting circumftances, wholly omitted by the Scottish author. From his perfonal fituation, a claffical compofition was not to be expected. He wrote a more complete General History of England, than had ever appeared in this country; and whatever be his faults, it is impoffible to deny his uncommon merit.

SALMON made an effay on the fame fubject. Though fhort, it contains much information, which is not to be found in more voluminous hiftorians on the fame fubject. His own reflections are brief, lively and fenfible. It is ufual to reprefent Richard III. as deformed and decrepid; and the fame authors inform us, that he unhorfed and killed with his own hand the standard-bearer of Henry VII. who was reputed to be the strongest knight in the rebel army. The inconfiftency of these two stories is pointed out by Salmon. He has left behind him no work of very fuperior value, yet he must have been an author of fuperior abilities; for, without becoming tirefome, he has written more than most of us have read.

The fame remarks apply with equal juftice to Dr. SMOLLET. The immenfe bulk of his writings proves

3.

that he composed with greater facility than ordinary men are able to converfe. By his own account, in the admirable expedition of Humphry Clinker, it appears that he very often wrote merely for wages; and on fuch occafions, nothing above mediocrity can with reafon be demanded. The continuation of his English history, from 1748 to 1764, is a mere catchpenny chaos, without even a fpark of merit. There is great reafon to believe that he, or rather his journeymen, copied at random from fomebody elfe, moft of the quotations and references arranged with so much parade on the margin of his text.

GUTHRIE has left behind him more than one ponderous fabric on British hiftory. He had fenfe, learning, candour, and induftry. He had an original manner, and wished to think for himfelf: But to elegance, he was an entire ftranger, and to that happy choice of circumftances which forms an inftructive hiftorian; he was often familiar without perfpicuity, and prolix without completeness. No writer is at prefent lefs popular. A geographical grammar has been printed under his name; but it is generally understood, that he had no fhare in its compofition.

In point of ftile, Mr. HUME may be ftudied as a perfect model. Pure, nervous, eloquent, he is fimple without weakness, and fublime without effort. In the art of telling an humorous ftory, he can never be excelled; and when he chose to exert himself, he was even a confiderable master of the pathetic: But it was his misfortune to defpife accuracy of research, and fidelity of citation. He was a bitter Tory; and while detection flashed in his face, he commonly adhered to whatever he had once written. His account of the houfe of Stuart is not the statement of an historian, but the memorial of a pleader in a Court of Juftice. He fometimes afferts a pofitive falfehood, contradicted by the very author whom he pretends himself to be quoting; but more commonly gains his purpose, by fup

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