LITENA TURE. CHAP. point which will be admitted by all those who have XVIII. 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. It may, moreover, be observed that literary profits do not in all respects supply the place of literary patronage. First, there are several studies -such as many branches of science or antiquitieswhich 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 upon the XVIII. their literary labours for their daily bread, has not CHAP. unfrequently an unfavourable effect former. It may compel, or at least induce, them LITERA to over-write themselves; to pour forth hasty and TURE. 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 a deserved distinction to them, and a liberal recreation to himself; that his favours might be employed with great advantage, and received with perfect independence. 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 TURE. CHAP. predecessors, and resolutely shut the door of patronXVIII. age in the face of genius. The twenty years of his adLITERA- ministration 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 "those days and those nights which nature had "enabled them to have employed in elevated "speculations, useful studies, or pleasing convers"ation. On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass"house, among thieves and beggars, was to be "found the author of The Wanderer;' the man "of exalted sentiments, extensive views, and cu"rious observations; the man whose remarks on "life might have assisted the statesman, and whose "ideas of virtue might have enlightened the LITERA "moralist."* Johnson, who has commemorated CHA P. these calamities, himself for many years had shared XVIII. them. With Savage he had rambled houseless in the streets, with Savage he had struggled against TURE. the pangs of cold and hunger. Nor was this suffering all. Whenever it was relieved by a sudden supply of money, there commonly ensued a scene of the wildest riot and profusion. There was a constant alternation between beggary and extravagance. The half-starved poet rushed with his only guinea to the tavern, to enjoy one night of splendid luxury, while his shirt was still in pawn, and his cravat of paper; thus the subsistence for a thrifty week was lavished at a single revel; and as poverty had first produced dissipation, so did dissipation prolong and perpetuate poverty. Such, according to the testimony even of their friends, was the life of Savage and of Boyse. It may easily be supposed that the Minister who dried up the stream of patronage would be no favourite with its former objects. Almost every writer of any name, either from principle or resentment, joined the ranks of Opposition, and were marshalled to the onset by the superior genius of Bolingbroke and Pulteney. The motives and measures of Sir Robert were attacked without moderation, and misrepresented without shame; and, in estimating the character of that Minister, we should, therefore, never fail to allow largely for • Johnson's Life of Savage. See also Chalmers' Life of Boyse. TURE. CHAP. calumnious falsehoods. Nay more, it is remarkable, XVIII. and highly to the honour of Walpole, that those LITERA very measures against which the loudest clamours were raised, and which were selected by his adversaries as the special ground of their invective—such as Wood's Halfpence in Ireland, the Malt Tax in Scotland, and the Excise Bill in England, — when rightly and calmly examined, appear not only free from blame, but worthy of praise. But, even in making such great deductions from the exaggerations of a party press, we must condemn Walpole for neglecting and slighting its power. He did not see the danger in time, nor provide his remedy with skill. "No man," says a contemporary, "ever "set the press to work with so little judgment as "he did. He looked upon writing to be a mecha"nical kind of business; and he took up with the "first pen that he could find in public offices, or "whom he could oblige by private liberality."* He "He hired his authors as he would his ditchers, holding no personal communication with them, but placing them, in general, under the guidance of Paxton, solicitor to the Treasury, or of other Ministerial subalterns; persons who in general may be observed to have more ignorance of and contempt for literature, than any other class of gentlemen. How could Walpole have expected much popular effect from such mercenary drudges as his party writers? Were these the men to stem the eloquence * Tindal's Hist. vol. viii. p. 15. |