OLiVElt GOLDSMITHS LIFE AND TIMBS. [BOOK I.
1757. as the coarse wit of Prior could be paid by an embassy, or
ZGt. 29. the delicate humour of Addison win its way to a secretary-
ship; while Steelo and Congrevc, Swift and (lay, sat at
ministers' tables, and were not without weight in cabinet
councils; its slavery might not have been less real than in
later years, yet all externally went well with it. Though
even flat apostacy, as in 'ParneH'B case, might in those days
lift literature in rank, while unpurchaseable independence,
as in that of De Foe, depressed it into contempt and ruin;
—though, for the mere hope of gain to be got from it, such
nobodies as Mr. Hughes and Mr. Philips were worth pro-
pitiating by dignified public employments;-—still, it wait
esteemed by the crowd, because not wholly shut out from
the rank and consideration which worldly means could give to
it. " The middle ranks," said Goldsmith truly, in speaking
of that period,* " generally imitate the great, and applauded
" from fashion if not from feeling." But when another state of
things succeeded; when politicians had too much shrewdness
to despise the helps of the pen, and too little intellect to
honour in any way its claims or iniluenee; when it was
thought that to strike at its dignity, WHS to command its
complete subservience ; when corruption in its grosser forms
had become chief director of political intrigue, and it was
less the statesman's office to wheedle a vote than the
minister's business to give; hard cash in return for it;—•
literature, or the craft so called, was thrust from the house
of commons into its lobbies and waiting-rooms, and ordered
to exchange the dignity of the council-table for the comforts
of the great man's kitchen.
The order did not of necessity make the man of genius
a servant or a parasite : its sentence upon him simply was,
* In lim Jntfiilrif into Politr. Lmtrntni/, (limp. x.