Recctpitutation. 297 



of course writers met with small encouragement 

 of a pecuniary kind to labour for the instruction 

 of the public *. Hence, none in preceding cen- 

 turies became authors, but such as were prompted 

 by bencTolence, by literary ambition, or by an 

 enthusiastic love of literature. But the eigh- 

 teenth centtiry exhibited the business of publi- 

 cJltion under an aspect entirely new. It pre- 

 sented an increase in the number, both of writers 

 and readers, almost incredible. In this century, 

 for the first time, authorship became a trade. 

 Multitudes of writers toiled, not for the promo- 

 is, in forty-five years, ten large and splendid editions of the same 

 author were given to the public, and, probably, at least ten more, 

 lOf a less magnificent kind>- in various parts of the British do- 

 minions. Allowing each of these editions to have consisted of 

 two thousand copies, which, on an average, may be supposed a 

 moderate allowance, the number of copies of one publication 

 called for by the English literary public, fn a given period of ths 

 eighteenth century, will be iound forlj/ times greater than the num- 

 bef called for during a period nearly equal in the seventeenth. 



" Ths advantage now enjoyed b};^ authors, of deriving large 

 profits from the sale of copy-rights, is wholly modern. Mr. Ba- 

 tetti, a frjend of Dr. Johnson, who resided for some time in En- 

 gland, about half a century ago, told the doctor, that he wrts the 

 first man in Italy who receixed money for the copy-right of A 

 book. BosweU's Life of Johnson, vol. ii, p. 503. Though this 

 practice had been established long before in Great Britain, yet 

 evert there the instances of literary profit were rare, and the 

 amount in general extremely small, until the middle, and to- 

 ward the close of the eighteenth century. Milton sold his Parct- 

 di&e Lost for Jlve pounds, on condition of receiving some small 

 Subsfitluettt emolument, if the sale should prove ready and exten- 

 sive. Forty six years afterward, Mr. Pope received tivo hundred 

 pounds for each volume of his translation of the Iliad, or twelve 

 hundred pounds for the whole Work. And towards the close of 

 the tentury, the fevs^ards of literary labour were, in many in-- 

 stances, augmented four, six, and oven ten fold. 



