88 HISTORY OF AUTHCRS BY PROr£SSION. May 25 



— a (late probably more enviable in the ancient, than it 

 has betn in any period of the modern world, becaufe 

 the value of literature was then fo nriuch enhanced by 

 the difficulty of its acquilition. 



From tiiat period, they evidently fubfifted by the 

 public price of their literary exertions, and were pre- 

 cilely, therefore, in the fitiiation of the projejjed an- 

 thers of our times. The change from patronage to this 

 Ifate, fcems ?.lfo to have, in the fame manner, arifen 

 from tlie multiplicity of pretenders, which the difFufion 

 of knowledge had'called forth. But they poffefTed, in 

 one refpect, an eminent fuperior;ty, of which the art 

 of printing has deprived modern authors. They re- 

 ceived divt-ftly from the public, the price of their la- 

 bours, utuUminifbed hy the profit of the hookfeller. Of 

 that profefiion, fcarcely any vefliges aredifcoverable in 

 Greece. The cuitom of lecturing, in a great meafure, 

 fuperfeded its ufe. Their e^iftence in Rome is proved 

 by the letters of Pliny, and the fatires of Juvenal : But 

 the venders of manufcripts, the conductors of fo nar- 

 row a commerce, muft have ever occupied a fecondsry 

 ilaticn. They were probably little better than the dif- 

 tnbutive agents of authors, and the colleflors of curio- 

 fifes for the wealthy. The art of printing, by enlarg- 

 ing the fphere of the commerce of books, gave utility 

 and importance to us conduftors \ they fpeedily became 

 to authors, what the monied capitaliil is to the manu- 

 facturer. In fimple times, the manufacturer and the 

 author diftribute their own produce : But, in the pro- 

 grcfs of focietv, by a fort of divijion of labour, feparate 

 profefiions arile for this diftiibution, the merchant and 

 the hookfeller. Placed in ciicuir.ltances more favour- 

 able to the growth of wealth, than the original produc- 

 er, they foon obtain over him the fuperiority conferred 

 hy tlie com.mand of capital, and, inftead of agents, be- 

 ci-me emplovers and mailers. It is this circumitance 

 that lendtrs the flate of anthorf.np kfs eligible among 

 us than it was io the ancient v\orid. A nudiuvi isi.ow 



