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OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. CBOOKH.
1759. " bookseller. There cannot perhaps be imagined a com-
JEtTl. " bination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is the " interest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the " other to write as much, as possible; accordingly tedious " compilations and periodical magazines are the result of " their joint endeavours. In these circumstances the " author bids adieu to fame, writes for bread, and for that " only imagination is seldom, called in; he sits down to " address the venal muse with the most phlegmatic apathy; " and, as we are told of the Russian, courts his mistress by " falling asleep 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 compositions, 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 last into avarice. He finds that he has written " many years, that the public are scarcely acquainted even " with his name; he despairs of applause, and turns to " profit which invites him. He finds^ that money procures " all those advantages, that respect, and that ease which he " vainly expected from fame. Thus the man who under " the protection of the great might have done honour to " humanity, when only patronised by the bookseller, becomes " a thing little superior to the fellow who works at the " press."* In connection with this unpromising picture, in his following chapter, he placed " the two literary reviews " in London, with critical newspapers and magazines without " number;" remarking in another place that, " were these " Monthly Reviews and Magazines frothy, pert, or absurd, " they might find some pardon; but to be dull and dronish " is an encroachment on the prerogative of a folio." t For
* Chap. x. f Chap. xi.
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