LITERA CHAP. profusion; those who wished only to pursue their XVIII. studies had the means afforded them for learned leisure, while more ambitious spirits were pushed TURE. forward in Parliament or in diplomacy. In short, though the sovereign was never an Augustus, almost every minister was a Mæcenas. Newton became Master of the Mint; Locke was a Commissioner of Appeals; Steele was a Commissioner of Stamps; Stepney, Prior, and Gay, were employed in lucrative and important embassies. was a slight piece of humour at his outset and as his introduction-the "City and Country Mouse" It that brought forth a mountain of honours to Montagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax, and First Lord of the Treasury. When Parnell first came to Court, Lord Treasurer Oxford passed through the crowd of nobles, leaving them all unnoticed, to greet and welcome the poet. "I value myself," says Swift, "upon making the ministry desire to "be acquainted with Parnell, and not Parnell with "the ministry."* Swift himself became Dean of St. Patrick's, and but for the Queen's dislike would have been Bishop of Hereford. Pope, as a Roman Catholic, was debarred from all places of honour or emolument, yet Secretary Craggs offered him a pension of 300l. a year not to be known by the public, and to be paid from the Secret Service Money. + In 1714 General Stanhope carried a bill, providing a most liberal reward for the dis * Journal to Stella, January 31. 1713. + Spence's Anecdotes, p. 307. covery of the longitude.* Addison became Se- CHAP. cretary of State. Tickell was Secretary in Ireland. XVIII. Several rich sinecures were bestowed on Congreve LITERAand Rowe, on Hughes and Ambrose Philips. † Looking to those times, and comparing them with ours, we shall find that this system of munificent patronage has never been revived. Its place has, however, in some degree, been supplied by the large increase of readers, and the higher price of books, and consequently the far superior value of literary labour. A popular writer may now receive a liberal income from the sale of his works, and, according to the common phrase, needs no other patron than the public. It is often boasted, that the latter state of things far exceeds the former in independence; yet, however plausible this assertion, it is not altogether confirmed by a closer survey. I cannot find that the objects of such splendid patronage were at all humbled by receiv ing it, or considered themselves in the slightest degree as political or private bondsmen. I cannot find that Swift or Prior, for example, mixed with the great on any other footing than that of equal familiarity and friendship, or paid any submissive homage to Lord Treasurer Oxford or Secretary St. John. In Bolingbroke's Correspondence we may still read the private notes of MATT to HARRY and of HARRY to MATT; and could not easily distin * Commons' Journals, vol. xvii. p. 686, &c. See a similar enumeration, and some ingenious observations, Edin. Review, No. cvii. p. 21. TURE. LITERA TURE. CHAP. guish from them which was the minister and which XVIII. the poet. The old system of patronage in literature was, I conceive, like the old system of patronage in Parliament. Some powerful nobleman, with large burgage tenures in his hands, was enabled to place in the House of Commons any young man of like principles and of promising abilities. That system, whether for good or for evil, endured till the Reform Bill of 1832. But whatever difference of opinion may exist concerning it, there is one point which will be admitted by all those who have observed its inward workings—although we often hear the contrary roared forth by those who never saw it nearer than from the Strangers' Gallery that a man brought into Parliament from his talents felt no humiliating dependence on him by whose interest he was elected - no such dependence, for example, as would be imposed among gentlemen by what seems a far less favour, a gift of fifty pounds. The two parties met on equal terms of friendship. It was thought as desirable for the one that his principles should be ably supported, as for the other that he should sit in the House of Commons. Thus, likewise, in literary patronage, when Oxford made Swift a Dean, or Bolingbroke made Prior an Ambassador, it was considered no badge of dependence or painful inferiority. It was, of course, desirable for Swift to rise in the Church, and for Prior to rise in the State; but it was also desirable for the administration to secure the assistance of an eloquent writer, and of a skilful diplomatist. LITERA It may, moreover, be observed that literary CHAP. profits do not in all respects supply the place of XVIII. literary patronage. First, there are several studies -such as many branches of science or antiquities— TURE. which are highly deserving of encouragement, but not generally popular, and therefore not productive of emolument. In these cases the liberality of the Government might sometimes usefully atone for the indifference of the public. But even with the most popular authors, the necessity of looking to their literary labours for their daily bread, has not unfrequently an unfavourable effect upon the former. It may compel, or at least induce, them to over-write themselves; to pour forth hasty and immature productions; to keep at all hazards their names before the public. How seldom can they admit intervals of leisure, or allow their minds to lie fallow for a season, in order to bear hereafter a larger and a better harvest! In like manner, they must minister to the taste of the public, whatever that taste may be, and sometimes have to sacrifice their own ideas of beauty, and aspirations of fame. These are undoubted evils, not merely to them, but to us; and as undoubtedly are they guarded against whenever a fixed and competent provision can be granted to genius. I am therefore clearly of opinion, that any Minister who might have the noble ambition to become the patron of literary men, would still find a large field open to his munificence; that his intercourse with them on the footing of equal friendship would be VOL. II. XVIII. CHAP. a deserved distinction to them, and a liberal recreation to himself; that his favours might be employed with great advantage, and received with TURE. perfect independence. LITERA In 1721, however, there were no resources in the public. The number of readers was so limited, that the most incessant labour was seldom sufficient to gain a decent maintenance for writers. It was therefore with a bitter pang that they saw Sir Robert Walpole suddenly turn aside from the example of his predecessors, and resolutely shut the door of patronage in the face of genius. The twenty years of his administration were to them a bleak and barren winter. Looking as he did solely to the House of Commons and to the Court, and measuring the value of every thing by Parliamentary votes or Royal smiles, he despised a literature which the King despised, and which had no influence upon the Legislature. Books, he seems to have thought, were fit only for idle and useless men. The writers of books, therefore, he left to dig, to beg, or to starve. It is truly painful to read of the wretched privations, and still more wretched shifts, to which men of such abilities as Savage were exposed. Their books, their linen, were most frequently in pawn. To obtain a good meal was a rare and difficult achievement. They were sometimes reduced, for want of house-room, to wander all night about the streets. They had to sleep on a bulk in summer, and in winter amidst the ashes of a glass-house. "In this manner," says Johnson, "were passed |