|
|
||
|
CHAP, vi.] PECKEAM SCHOOL AND GRUB STEBET.
that he must descend in the social scale, and peradventure
starve. But though it could not disgrace or degrade him, it called a class of writers into existence whose degradation reacted upon him; who flung a stigma on his pursuits, and made the name of man-of-letters the synonyme for dishonest hireling. Of the fifty thousand pounds which the Secret Committee found to have been expended by Walpole's ministry on daily scribblers for their daily bread, not a sixpence was received, either then or when the Pelhams afterwards followed the example, by a writer whose name is now enviably known. All went to the Guthries, the Amhersts, the Arnalls, the Ealphs, and the Oldmixons; and while a Mr. Cook was pensioned, a Harry Fielding solicited Walpole in vain. What the man of genius received, unless the man of rank had wisdom to adorn it by befriending him, was nothing but the shame of being confounded, as one who lived by using the pen, with those who lived by its prostitution and abuse.
It was in vain he strove to escape this imputation; it
increased, and it clove to him. To become author was to be treated as adventurer: a man had only to write, to be classed with what Johnson calls the lowest of all human beings, the scribbler for party. One of Fielding's remarks, under cover of a grave sneer, conveys a bitter sense of this injustice. " An author, in a country where there is no " public provision for men of genius, is not obliged to be a " more disinterested patriot than any other. Why is he, " whose livelihood is in Ms pen, a greater monster in using "it to serve himself, than he who uses his tongue for the " same purpose ? "
Nor was the injustice the work of the vulgar or unthinking;
it was strongest in the greatest of living statesmen. If any |
||
|
|
||