SHOOTING A BOOKSELLER. 



1S5 



glected by Henry, under whos 

 inglorious reign it was that he pe- 

 rished in poverty. 



Camoens had a black servant 

 who was grown old with him, and 

 who had long experienced his 

 master's humanity. This grateful 

 Indian, who was a native of Java, 

 is said by some writers to. have 

 saved the life of his master in that 

 unhappy shipwreck by which he 

 lost all his property, except his 

 poems, which he preserved. When 

 Camoens became so reduced as no 

 longer to maintain his servant, this 

 faithful creature begged in the 

 streets of Lisbon for the only man 

 in Portugal on whom God had be- 

 stowed those talents which have a 

 tendency to erect the spirit of a 

 sinking age. 



BOILEAU AND RACINE. 



Boileau and Eacine derived little 

 or no profit from the booksellers. 

 Boileau particularly, though fond 

 of money, was so delicate on this 1 

 point, that he gave all his works 

 away. It was this that made him 

 so bold in railing at those authors 

 qui mettent leur Apollon aux gages 

 a?un librazre, and he declared that 

 he had inserted only these verses, 



" Je sois qu'un nolle esprit peut sans hontc 



et sans crime 

 Tirer de son travail un tribut U<jit!me" 



to console Eacine, who had received 

 some profits from the printing of 

 his tragedies. These profits, were, 

 however, inconsiderable : the truth 

 is, the king remunerated the poets. 

 Racine's first royal mark of favour 

 was an order signed by Colbert for 

 six hundred livres, to give him the 

 means of continuing his studies for 

 the belles-lettres. He received, by an 

 account found among his papers, 

 above forty thousand livres from 

 the cassette of the king, by the hand 

 of the first valet-dc-cli ambre. Besides 

 these gifts, Racine had a pension of 

 four thousand livres, as historiogra- 



pher, and another pension as a man 

 of letters. 



BUTLER'S PRIDK. 



It is said that Butler, the cele- 

 brated author of Hudibras, was 

 equally remarkable for poverty and 

 pride. A friend of his one evening 

 invited him to supper, and contrived 

 to place in his pocket a purse con- 

 taining one hundred guineas. This 

 was found by the poet the following 

 morning, and, feeling uneasy, he 

 ascertained by whom it was given, 

 and then returned it, expressing 

 his warm displeasure at the insult 

 which had been thus offered him. 



DR. WATTS AND MRS. ROWE. ' 



Dr. Watts, whose passion for the 

 justly celebrated Mrs. Rowe, then 

 Miss Singer, is well known, having 

 called one winter morning upon 

 that lady, and perceiving that the 

 fire and the conversation were 

 getting dull, took up the poker, and 

 putting it in the fire said, "Allow 

 me, madam, to raise a flame." 



LITERARY CAUTIOUSNESS. 



Pope published nothing until it 

 had been a year or two before him, 

 and even then the printer's proofs 

 were very full of alterations ; and, 

 on one occasion, Dodsley, his pub- 

 lisher, thought it better to have the 

 whole recomposed than make the 

 necessary corrections. 



Goldsmith considered four lines 

 a-day good work, and was seven 

 years in beating out the pure gold 

 of the Deserted Village. 



SHOOTING A BOOKSELLER. 



Campbell produced the Plea- 

 sures of Hope at Edinburgh, being 

 then but twenty-one years of age. 

 This fine performance at once gave 

 him fame, and for twenty years 

 afterward brought to the publishers 

 between two and three hundred 

 pounds annually. They had ori- 

 ginally given him ten pounds for 



