OLIVEfi GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TJMES. [BOOK n.

"learned have been kept pretty much at a distance. * A jockey, or a
" laced player, supplies the place of the scholar, poet, or the man of
" virtue.. . . Wit, when neglected by the Great, is generally despised by
" the vulgar. Those who are unacquainted with the world, are apt to
"fancy the man of wit as leading a very agreeable life. They conclude,
"perhaps, that he is attended to with silent admiration, and dictates
" to the rest of mankind with all the eloquence of conscious superiority.
" Very different is his present situation. He is called an author, and
" all know that an author is a thing only to be laughed at. His person,
" not his jest, becomes the mirth of the company. At his approach the
"most fat unthinking face brightens into malicious meaning. Even
" aldermen laugh, and avenge on him the ridicule which was lavished
" on their forefathers :

Etiam victis redit in praacordia virtus,

Victoresque cadunt.

..." The poet's poverty is a standing 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 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
"insult his distress. Is poverty the writer's fault 1 No doubt he knows
" how to prefer a bottle of champaign to the nectar of the neighbouring
" alehouse, or a venison pasty 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 should we be displeased if it is the only property a man some-
" times has. We must not underrate him who uses it for subsistence,
" and flies from the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress.
" If the profession of an author is to be laughed at by the stupid, it is
" certainly better to be contemptibly rich than contemptibly poor. For
" all the wit that ever adorned the human mind will at present no
" more shield the author's poverty from ridicule, than his high-topped
" gloves f conceal the unavoidable omissions of his laundress. To be

* This allusion to the "inglorious memory" of Sir Kobert "Walpole is more than
enough to explain' the never ceasing indifference, ^dislike, or contempt avowed by
Horace Walpole for its author.

f "laskedMr. Gray," saysNicholls, " what sort of a man Dr. Hurd was. He
"answered, ' The last person who left off stiff-topped gloves,'" Tforfe, v. 52.
Mr. Kogers has often humorously quoted this as a good trait of character.a large field open to his munificence ; that his intercourse with them