1822.] 
bine some talent with much industry. 
Translating, too, is another source of 
literary employment; and editing new 
editions of books, and index-making, 
are other sources. 
As quality is not reducible to any 
previous standard, payment is gene- 
rally made by the printed sheet; and, 
the measure being superficial, it is not 
fo be wondered that the productions 
are also superficial. Thought is the 
material of the writer by the sheet, and 
is the gold with which he contrives to 
gild a certain number of pages. Of 
course he lays it on in proportion to 
the price he is paid, and we have sin- 
gle and double gilding, and plating of 
various thicknesses in literature, as 
well as in the metallic arts. 
lt is amusing to carry this idea 
through the pages of a review or ma- 
gazine. The writers and the readers 
are constantly at issue. The former 
is endeavouring to beat out his small 
stock of thoughts into the greatest 
number of pages, is eking them out by 
antitheses, comparisons, figures, and 
well-rounded periods; while the weary 
reader is vainly looking for original 
ideas and useful conclusions. ‘lheir 
objects, however, are different. The 
author must eat, and must fill a cer- 
tain number of pages; and the reader 
must be content if he catch one good 
thought in a thousand words; or in ten 
thousand, if the style is easy, graceful, 
and flowing. 
Small type and matters of fact are 
the bane of authorship. A close-print- 
ed page, and the details of art and 
science, are as much dreaded by a 
practised author as a whipping-cart 
by a pick-pocket. On the contrary, 
essays about nothing, about trifles, or 
common-place topics ; or reviews 
which admit of long quotations, strung 
together with short paragraphs, are 
perennial blessings. Of the former 
an industrious writer cannot produce 
a sheet in a month, while of the latter 
he can produce a sheet, day after day, 
before he dines. 
In my early days the Monthly Re- 
view used to give three guineas a sheet, 
or four shillings a page, quotations 
meluded ; and it transcended and has 
outlived the Critical, because the lat- 
ter paid but two, and therefore had 
the aid only of those writers who could 
not get engagements in the Monthly. 
The magazines in general paid but 
wo, but the European under Perry 
paid three. Phillips got the ill-will of 
Montuty Mac, No. 371, 
Stephensiana, No. X. 
41 
the other proprietors by paying five, 
and upwards; but then he undid his 
authors by his small type, and by his 
matters of fact, of which he exhausts 
them, in succession, in a few months. 
The Edinburgh Review gave ten gui- 
neas for essays ; the Quarterly follow- 
ed at fifteen: others have given as 
much; and while the public, or any 
considerable portion of the public, are 
gratified by long-winded essays, this 
species of publication will succeed. 
But it is melancholy to see on the book- 
stalls the numerous extinct works, 
which are selling for little more than 
waste-paper, though filled with ably- 
written essays, paid for at the best 
price of their day. They seem like 
the garnish at a feast, which may 
please the eye and the fancy, but we 
turn from them to the solid dishes, 
just as we do to works of solid infor- 
mation. The one is the art of the cook 
paid for per quantum, and the other is 
eternal nature, which no art can sup- 
ply, or essentially improve. 
I was delighted in Paris to find that 
the corps de gens de lettres consist for 
the most part of men of small inde- 
pendent fortunes, and could even 
boast of men of wealth; whereas in 
London, where every thing is so com- 
mercial, this class consists chiefly of 
needy adventurers, dependant from 
month to month on the exertions of 
their brains. 
- The proprietors of our two most 
established miscellanies have at diffe- 
rent times assured me, that they value 
their successive numbers in the in- 
verse ratio of the number of their pur- 
chased communications; and _ that 
their most interesting papers consist 
.in the occasional volunteer contribu- 
tions of the public at large. These 
they consider as their substantial 
dishes, and the paid communications 
merely as garnish. This seems likely 
to be the fact. 
BONAPARTE. 
The court of Bonaparte was the 
most splendid ever seen in Europe. 
Marshals, ambassadors, princes, sove- 
reigns, all surrounded his throne, 
sought his smiles, and obeyed his 
mandates. 
The livery of Bonaparte was gold 
and green. He adopted the golden 
bees from those found in the tomb of 
Childeric, and supposed to have deco- 
rated the robes of the Merovingian 
kings. 
G LIBERALITY. 
