Pope Urban VIII. erected an hospital for the benefit of decayed authors,
and called it “The Retreat of the Incurables,” intimating that it was
equally impossible to reclaim the patients from poverty or poetry.
Homer is the first poet and beggar of note among the ancients: he was
blind, sung his ballads about the streets, and his mouth was oftener
filled with verses than with bread.
Plautus, the comic poet, was better off; for he had two trades: he was a
poet for his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in order to gain a
living.
Terence was a slave, and Boethius died in a jail.
Among the Italians, Paulo Burghese, almost as good a poet as Tasso, knew
fourteen different trades, and yet died because he could get no
employment in either of them.
Tasso was often obliged to borrow a crown from a friend, to pay for a
month’s subsistence. He has left us a pretty sonnet to his cat, in which
he begs the light of her eyes to write by, being too poor to buy a
candle.
Bentivoglio, whose comedies will last with the Italian language,
dissipated a noble fortune in acts of benevolence, fell into poverty in
his old age, and was refused admittance into an hospital which, in his
better days, he had himself paid for building.
In Spain, the great Cervantes died of hunger; and Camoens, equally
celebrated in Portugal, ended his days in an hospital.
In France, Vaugelas was surnamed “the Owl,” from having been obliged to
keep within all day, and only venturing out by night, through fear of
his creditors. In his last will, he bequeathed every thing towards the
discharge of his debts, and desired his body to be sold, to that end.
Cassander was one of the greatest geniuses of his time, but barely able
to procure his livelihood.
In England, the last days of Spenser, Otway, Butler, and Dryden are our
national reproach.