♦i79I' THE HISTORY OF AUTHORS BY PROFESSION. 53 

 •niflies. perhaps the firft marked and prerife examples of 

 profefTed authors. Tliat defignation evidently and ex- 

 clufively belonss to Pope. Swift, Addifon, Prior, and 

 Steele, were political adventui'ers ; but Pope was folely 

 an author by profeffion ; he was devoted alone to let- 

 ters ; he felt or affecled a fcorn of the adulation which 

 purchafes patron?. f^e ; and he fought. affluence and glory 

 from the pub iic favour, which fo amply repaid his toil. 

 An ariftocracy oi patrons, ^ix. is true, tiill continued to 

 divide with the people the fovereignty of literature ; 

 they did not aiFedt to emulate the munificence of, a 

 more early period ; they were flill jealous of tlie repu- 

 tation of a ikill fuperior to that of the vulgar, and a 

 generofity towards men of letters, beyond the mere 

 purchafe of their works. Thig was the age of fuh- 

 Jcription ; for this body of patrons was fmall enoug'h 

 to be pervaded by individual folicitation or influence! I 

 But the multiplicity of fuitors foon extinguilhed even 

 this remnant of patronage, and left men of letters to be 

 patronized only by thofe who derived profit from the 

 diftribution of their works, as the merchant is the bell 

 patron of the manufafturer. 



No fooner had this inevitable revolution in the ftate 

 of literature been completed, than its profeiTors raifed 

 the loudeft clamour againft the Gothic infeniibility of the 

 great to the charms of compciition, and the calamities 

 of genius. The inferior arts too, it was exclaimed, 

 had obtained that patronage, which was denied to the 

 more elegant and liberal. Mufic and painting, v.'hich, 

 without derogating from thefe delightful arts, cannot 

 furely be compared to poetry, have fupplanted her in 

 the favour of the oppulcnt. Had not men of letters 

 been too keenly affected by their own condition, tliey 

 might have feen in this laft circumftance, the folutioit 

 of the phanomenoti. The profeflbrs of thefe 7iew arts 

 were not too 7iumerous to be patronized ; and they ac- 

 cordingly becamt? what literary men had been in the 

 infancy of literature, the objects of adifcriminative and 



