1830.] Aphorism* m Man. 631 



man who has made even five or six hundred a-year for a length of time 

 has only himself to blame if he has none of it left (a tradesman with the 

 same annual profits would have been rich or independent) ; an artist 

 who breaks for ten thousand pounds cannot surely lament the want of 

 patronage. A sieve might as well petition against a dry season. Persons 

 of talent and reputation do not make money, because they do not keep 

 it ; and they do not keep it, because they do not care about it till they 

 feel the want of it and then the public stop payment. The prudent and 

 careful, even among players, lay by fortunes. 



XLI. 



In general, however, it is not to be expected that those should grow 

 rich by a special Providence, whose first and last object is by every 

 means and at every sacrifice to grow famous. Vanity and avarice have 

 different goals and travel diiferent roads. The man of genius produces 

 that which others admire : the man of business that which they will buy. 

 If the poet is delighted with the ideas of certain things, the reader is 

 equally satisfied with the idea of them too. The man of genius does 

 that which no one else but himself can do : the man of business gets his 

 wealth from the joint mechanical drudgery of all whom he has the 

 means to employ. Trade is the Briareus that works with a hundred 

 hands. A popular author grew rich, because he seemed to have a hun- 

 dred hands to write with : but he wanted another hand to say to his 

 well-got gains, " Come, let me clutch thee." Nollekens made a fortune 

 (how he saved it we know) by having blocks of marble to turn into 

 sharp-looking busts (which required a capital), and by hiring a number 

 of people to hack and hew them into shape. Sir Joshua made more 

 money than West or Barry, partly because he was a better painter, 

 partly because gentlemen like their own portraits better than those of 

 prophet or apostle, saint or hero. What the individual wants, he will 

 pay the highest price for : what is done for the public the State must 

 pay for. How if they will not ? The historical painter cannot make 

 them ; and if he persists in the attempt, must be contented to fall a 

 martyr to it. It is some glory to fail in great designs ; and some 

 punishment is due to having rashly or presumptuously embarked in 

 them. 



XLII. 



It is some comfort to starve on a name : it is something to be a poor 

 gentleman ; and your man of letters " writes himself armigero, in any 

 bond, warrant, or quittance." In fixing on a profession for a child, it is 

 a consideration not to place him in one in which he may not be thought 

 good enough to sit down in any company. Miserable mortals that we 

 are ! If you make a lawyer of him, he may become Lord Chancellor ; 

 and then all his posterity are lords. How cheap and yet acceptable a 

 thing is nobility in this country ! It does not date from Adam or the 

 conquest. We need not laugh at Buonaparte's mushroom peers, who 

 were something like Charlemagne's or the knights of King Arthur's 

 round table. 



XLIII. 



We talk of the march of intellect, as if it only unfolded the know- 

 ledge of good : the knowledge of evil, which communicates with twenty 



