In my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening with a society of
authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. My uncle
was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their
conversation. ‘A man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper
(said he), and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed,
that those who shine most in private company, are but secondary stars
in the constellation of genius--A small stock of ideas is more easily
managed, and sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded together.
There is very seldom any thing extraordinary in the appearance and
address of a good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes
himself by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason, I fancy, that
an assembly of Grubs must be very diverting.’
My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick Ivy,
who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last.
He carried me to dine with S--, whom you and I have long known by his
writings.--He lives in the skirts of the town, and every Sunday his
house is opened to all unfortunate brothers of the quill, whom he treats
with beef, pudding, and potatoes, port, punch, and Calvert’s entire butt
beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of
his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any
other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in
a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very
pleasant garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the
outward signs of authorship, either in the house or the landlord, who
is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own
foundation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was
nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample amends
for his want of singularity.
At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates seated at
table; and, I question, if the whole kingdom could produce such another
assemblage of originals. Among their peculiarities, I do not mention
those of dress, which may be purely accidental. What struck me were
oddities originally produced by affectation, and afterwards confirmed
by habit. One of them wore spectacles at dinner, and another his hat
flapped; though (as Ivy told me) the first was noted for having a
seaman’s eye, when a bailiff was in the wind; and the other was never
known to labour under any weakness or defect of vision, except about
five years ago, when he was complimented with a couple of black eyes by
a player, with whom he had quarrelled in his drink. A third wore a laced
stocking, and made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had
been laid up with a broken leg, though no man could leap over a stick
with more agility. A fourth had contracted such an antipathy to the
country, that he insisted upon sitting with his back towards the window
that looked into the garden, and when a dish of cauliflower was set upon
the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from fainting; yet
this delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge,
and had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected
distraction. When spoke to, he always answered from the purpose
sometimes he suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath
sometimes he burst out a-laughing--then he folded his arms, and sighed
and then, he hissed like fifty serpents.
At first I really thought he was mad, and, as he sat near me, began
to be under some apprehensions for my own safety, when our landlord,
perceiving me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing to fear. ‘The
gentleman (said he) is trying to act a part for which he is by no means
qualified--if he had all the inclination in the world, it is not in his
power to be mad. His spirits are too flat to be kindled into frenzy.’
‘'Tis no bad p-p-puff, however (observed a person in a tarnished
laced coat): aff-ffected in-madness w-will p-pass for w-wit w-with
nine-ninet-teen out of t-twenty.’--‘And affected stuttering for humour:
replied our landlord, tho’, God knows, there is an affinity betwixt
them.’ It seems, this wag, after having made some abortive attempts
in plain speaking, had recourse to this defect, by means of which he
frequently extorted the laugh of the company, without the least expence
of genius; and that imperfection, which he had at first counterfeited,
was now become so habitual, that he could not lay it aside.
A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on his
first introduction, taken such offence at S--, because he looked
and talked, and ate and drank like any other man, that he spoke
contemptuously of his understanding ever after, and never would repeat
his visit, until he had exhibited the following proof of his caprice.
Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some unsuccessful advances towards an
intimacy with S--, at last gave him to understand, by a third person,
that he had written a poem in his praise, and a satire against his
person; that if he would admit him to his house, the first should be
immediately sent to press; but that if he persisted in declining his
friendship, he would publish his satire without delay. S-- replied, that
he looked upon Wyvil’s panegyrick, as in effect, a species of infamy,
and would resent it accordingly with a good cudgel; but if he published
the satire, he might deserve his compassion, and had nothing to fear
from his revenge. Wyvil having considered the alternative, resolved to
mortify S-- by printing the panegyrick, for which he received a sound
drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the aggressor, who, in order
to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good graces. It was
the singularity in S--‘s conduct, on this occasion, that reconciled him
to the yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius, and from
that period cultivated his acquaintance.
Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my
fellow-guests were employed, I applied to my communicative friend Dick
Ivy, who gave me to understand, that most of them were, or had been,
understrappers, or journeymen, to more creditable authors, for whom they
translated, collated, and compiled, in the business of bookmaking; and
that all of them had, at different times, laboured in the service of
our landlord, though they had now set up for themselves in various
departments of literature. Not only their talents, but also their
nations and dialects were so various, that our conversation resembled
the confusion of tongues at Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the
Scotch accent, and foreign idiom, twanged off by the most discordant
vociferation; for, as they all spoke together, no man had any chance
to be heard, unless he could bawl louder than his fellows. It must be
owned, however, there was nothing pedantic in their discourse; they
carefully avoided all learned disquisitions, and endeavoured to be
facetious; nor did their endeavours always miscarry--some droll repartee
passed, and much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his
temper so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually
checked by the master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal
authority over this irritable tribe.
The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been
expelled the university for atheism, has made great progress in a
refutation of lord Bolingbroke’s metaphysical works, which is said to
be equally ingenious, and orthodox; but, in the mean time, he has been
presented to the grand jury as a public nuisance, for having blasphemed
in an ale-house on the Lord’s day. The Scotchman gives lectures on the
pronunciation of the English language, which he is now publishing by
subscription.
The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of my Lord
Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a minister, hoping his
zeal would be rewarded with some place or pension; but, finding himself
neglected in that quarter, he whispered about, that the pamphlet was
written by the minister himself, and he published an answer to his own
production. In this, he addressed the author under the title of your
lordship with such solemnity, that the public swallowed the deceit, and
bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians of the metropolis
declared they were both masterly performances, and chuckled over the
flimsy reveries of an ignorant garretteer, as the profound speculations
of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet.
The imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer
retains no part of his assumed importance, but the bare title of
my lord, and the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in
Shoelane.
Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with
a humorous satire, intituled, The Ballance of the English Poets, a
performance which evinced the great modesty and taste of the author,
and, in particular, his intimacy with the elegancies of the English
language. The sage, who laboured under the agrophobia, or horror of
green fields, had just finished a treatise on practical agriculture,
though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his life, and was
so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the face of the whole
company, made him own, that a plate of hominy was the best rice pudding
he had ever eat.
The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and part
of Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the King’s Bench,
except in term-time, with a tipstaff for his companion; and as for
little Tim Cropdale, the most facetious member of the whole society,
he had happily wound up the catastrophe of a virgin tragedy, from the
exhibition of which he promised himself a large fund of profit and
reputation. Tim had made shift to live many years by writing novels,
at the rate of five pounds a volume; but that branch of business is now
engrossed by female authors, who publish merely for the propagation of
virtue, with so much ease and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge of the
human heart, and all in the serene tranquillity of high life, that the
reader is not only inchanted by their genius, but reformed by their
morality.
After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where, I observed, Mr S--
gave a short separate audience to every individual in a small remote
filbert walk, from whence most of them dropt off one after another,
without further ceremony; but they were replaced by fresh recruits of
the same clan, who came to make an afternoon’s visit; and, among others,
a spruce bookseller, called Birkin, who rode his own gelding, and made
his appearance in a pair of new jemmy boots, with massy spurs of plate.
It was not without reason, that this midwife of the Muses used exercise
a-horseback, for he was too fat to walk a-foot, and he underwent some
sarcasms from Tim Cropdale, on his unwieldy size and inaptitude for
motion. Birkin, who took umbrage at this poor author’s petulance in
presuming to joke upon a man so much richer than himself, told him, he
was not so unwieldy but that he could move the Marshalsea court for a
writ, and even overtake him with it, if he did not very speedily come
and settle accounts with him, respecting the expence of publishing his
last ode to the king of Prussia, of which he had sold but three, and
one of them was to Whitfield the methodist. Tim affected to receive this
intimation with good humour, saying, he expected in a post or two, from
Potsdam, a poem of thanks from his Prussian majesty, who knew very well
how to pay poets in their own coin; but, in the mean time, he proposed,
that Mr Birkin and he should run three times round the garden for a bowl
of punch, to be drank at Ashley’s in the evening, and he would run boots
against stockings. The bookseller, who valued himself upon his mettle,
was persuaded to accept the challenge, and he forthwith resigned
his boots to Cropdale, who, when he had put them on, was no bad
representation of captain Pistol in the play.
Every thing being adjusted, they started together with great
impetuosity, and, in the second round, Birkin had clearly the advantage,
larding the lean earth as he puff’d along. Cropdale had no mind to
contest the victory further; but, in a twinkling, disappeared through
the back-door of the garden, which opened into a private lane, that had
communication with the high road.--The spectators immediately began to
hollow, ‘Stole away!’ and Birkin set off in pursuit of him with great
eagerness; but he had not advanced twenty yards in the lane, when a
thorn running into his foot, sent him hopping back into the garden,
roaring with pain, and swearing with vexation. When he was delivered
from this annoyance by the Scotchman, who had been bred to surgery, he
looked about him wildly, exclaiming, ‘Sure, the fellow won’t be such
a rogue as to run clear away with my boots!’ Our landlord, having
reconnoitered the shoes he had left, which, indeed, hardly deserved that
name, ‘Pray (said he), Mr Birkin, wa’n’t your boots made of calf-skin?’
‘Calf-skin or cow-skin (replied the other) I’ll find a slip of
sheep-skin that will do his business--I lost twenty pounds by his farce
which you persuaded me to buy--I am out of pocket five pounds by
his damn’d ode; and now this pair of boots, bran new, cost me
thirty shillings, as per receipt--But this affair of the boots is
felony--transportation.--I’ll have the dog indicted at the Old Bailey--I
will, Mr S-- I will be reveng’d, even though I should lose my debt in
consequence of his conviction.’
Mr S-- said nothing at present, but accommodated him with a pair of
shoes; then ordered his servant to rub him down, and comfort him with a
glass of rum-punch, which seemed, in a great measure, to cool the rage
of his indignation. ‘After all (said our landlord) this is no more
than a humbug in the way of wit, though it deserves a more respectable
epithet, when considered as an effort of invention. Tim, being (I
suppose) out of credit with the cordwainer, fell upon this ingenious
expedient to supply the want of shoes, knowing that Mr Birkin, who
loves humour, would himself relish the joke upon a little recollection.
Cropdale literally lives by his wit, which he has exercised upon all his
friends in their turns. He once borrowed my poney for five or six days
to go to Salisbury, and sold him in Smithfield at his return. This was
a joke of such a serious nature, that, in the first transports of my
passion, I had some thoughts of prosecuting him for horse-stealing;
and even when my resentment had in some measure subsided, as he
industriously avoided me, I vowed, I would take satisfaction on his ribs
with the first opportunity. One day, seeing him at some distance in the
street, coming towards me, I began to prepare my cane for action, and
walked in the shadow of a porter, that he might not perceive me soon
enough to make his escape; but, in the very instant I had lifted up
the instrument of correction, I found Tim Cropdale metamorphosed into a
miserable blind wretch, feeling his way with a long stick from post to
post, and rolling about two bald unlighted orbs instead of eyes. I
was exceedingly shocked at having so narrowly escaped the concern and
disgrace that would have attended such a misapplication of vengeance:
but, next day, Tim prevailed upon a friend of mine to come and solicit
my forgiveness, and offer his note, payable in six weeks, for the price
of the poney. This gentleman gave me to understand, that the blind man
was no other than Cropdale, who having seen me advancing, and
guessing my intent, had immediately converted himself into the object
aforesaid--I was so diverted at the ingenuity of the evasion, that I
agreed to pardon his offence, refusing his note, however, that I might
keep a prosecution for felony hanging over his head, as a security for
his future good behaviour--But Timothy would by no means trust himself
in my hands till the note was accepted--then he made his appearance at
my door as a blind beggar, and imposed in such a manner upon my man, who
had been his old acquaintance and pot-companion, that the fellow threw
the door in his face, and even threatened to give him the bastinado.
Hearing a noise in the hall, I went thither, and immediately
recollecting the figure I had passed in the street, accosted him by his
own name, to the unspeakable astonishment of the footman.’
Birkin declared he loved a joke as well as another; but asked if any of
the company could tell where Mr Cropdale lodged, that he might send him
a proposal about restitution, before the boots should be made away with.
‘I would willingly give him a pair of new shoes (said he), and half a
guinea into the bargain’ for the boots, which fitted me like a glove;
and I shan’t be able to get the fellows of them ‘till the good weather
for riding is over. The stuttering wit declared, that the only secret
which Cropdale ever kept, was the place of his lodgings; but he
believed, that, during the heats of summer, he commonly took his
repose upon a bulk, or indulged himself, in fresco, with one of the
kennel-nymphs, under the portico of St Martin’s church. ‘Pox on him!
(cried the bookseller) he might as well have taken my whip and spurs. In
that case, he might have been tempted to steal another horse, and then
he would have rid to the devil of course.’
After coffee, I took my leave of Mr S--, with proper acknowledgments of
his civility, and was extremely well pleased with the entertainment of
the day, though not yet satisfied, with respect to the nature of this
connexion, betwixt a man of character in the literary world, and a
parcel of authorlings, who, in all probability, would never be able
to acquire any degree of reputation by their labours. On this head
I interrogated my conductor, Dick Ivy, who answered me to this
effect--‘One would imagine S-- had some view to his own interest, in
giving countenance and assistance to those people, whom he knows to be
bad men, as well as bad writers; but, if he has any such view, he will
find himself disappointed; for if he is so vain as to imagine he can
make them, subservient to his schemes of profit or ambition, they are
cunning enough to make him their property in the mean time. There is not
one of the company you have seen to-day (myself excepted) who does
not owe him particular obligations--One of them he bailed out of a
spunging-house, and afterwards paid the debt--another he translated into
his family, and clothed, when he was turned out half naked from jail in
consequence of an act for the relief of insolvent debtors--a third, who
was reduced to a woollen night cap, and lived upon sheeps trotters, up
three pair of stairs backward in Butcher-row, he took into present pay
and free quarters, and enabled him to appear as a gentleman, without
having the fear of sheriff’s officers before his eyes. Those who are in
distress he supplies with money when he has it, and with his credit when
he is out of cash. When they want business, he either finds employment
for them in his own service, or recommends them to booksellers to
execute some project he has formed for their subsistence. They are
always welcome to his table (which though plain, is plentiful) and to
his good offices as far as they will go, and when they see Occasion,
they make use of his name with the most petulant familiarity; nay, they
do not even scruple to arrogate to themselves the merit of some of his
performances, and have been known to sell their own lucubrations as the
produce of his brain. The Scotchman you saw at dinner once personated
him at an alehouse in West-Smithfield and, in the character of S--, had
his head broke by a cow-keeper, for having spoke disrespectfully of the
Christian religion; but he took the law of him in his own person, and
the assailant was fain to give him ten pounds to withdraw his action.’
I observed, that all this appearance of liberality on the side of Mr S--
was easily accounted for, on the supposition that they flattered him
in private, and engaged his adversaries in public; and yet I was
astonished, when I recollected that I often had seen this writer
virulently abused in papers, poems, and pamphlets, and not a pen was
drawn in his defence ‘But you will be more astonished (said he) when I
assure you, those very guests whom you saw at his table to-day, were
the authors of great part of that abuse; and he himself is well aware
of their particular favours, for they are all eager to detect and betray
one another.’ ‘But this is doing the devil’s work for nothing (cried I).
What should induce them to revile their benefactor without provocation?’
‘Envy (answered Dick) is the general incitement; but they are galled by
an additional scourge of provocation. S-- directs a literary journal,
in which their productions are necessarily brought to trial; and though
many of them have been treated with such lenity and favour as they
little deserved, yet the slightest censure, such as, perhaps, could not
be avoided with any pretensions to candour and impartiality, has rankled
in the hearts of those authors to such a degree, that they have taken
immediate vengeance on the critic in anonymous libels, letters,
and lampoons. Indeed, all the writers of the age, good, bad, and
indifferent, from the moment he assumed this office, became his enemies,
either professed or in petto, except those of his friends who knew they
had nothing to fear from his strictures; and he must be a wiser man than
me who can tell what advantage or satisfaction he derives from having
brought such a nest of hornets about his ears.’
I owned, that was a point which might deserve consideration; but still
I expressed a desire to know his real motives for continuing his
friendship to a set of rascals equally ungrateful and insignificant.--He
said, he did not pretend to assign any reasonable motive; that, if
the truth must be told, the man was, in point of conduct, a most
incorrigible fool; that, though he pretended to have a knack at hitting
off characters, he blundered strangely in the distribution of his
favours, which were generally bestowed on the most undeserving of those
who had recourse to his assistance; that, indeed, this preference was
not so much owing to want of discernment as to want of resolution, for
he had not fortitude enough to resist the importunity even of the most
worthless; and, as he did not know the value of money, there was very
little merit in parting with it so easily; that his pride was gratified
in seeing himself courted by such a number of literary dependents; that,
probably, he delighted in hearing them expose and traduce one another;
and, finally, from their information, he became acquainted with all the
transactions of Grubstreet, which he had some thoughts of compiling for
the entertainment of the public.
I could not help suspecting, from Dick’s discourse, that he had some
particular grudge against S--, upon whose conduct he had put the worst
construction it would bear; and, by dint of cross-examination, I found
he was not at all satisfied with the character which had been given in
the Review of his last performance, though it had been treated civilly
in consequence of the author’s application to the critic. By all
accounts, S-- is not without weakness and caprice; but he is certainly
good-humoured and civilized; nor do I find that there is any thing
overbearing, cruel, or implacable in his disposition.
I have dwelt so long upon authors, that you will perhaps suspect I
intend to enroll myself among the fraternity; but, if I were actually
qualified for the profession, it is at best but a desperate resource
against starving, as it affords no provision for old age and infirmity.
Salmon, at the age of fourscore, is now in a garret, compiling matter,
at a guinea a sheet, for a modern historian, who, in point of age, might
be his grandchild; and Psalmonazar, after having drudged half a century
in the literary mill, in all the simplicity and abstinence of an
Asiatic, subsists upon the charity of a few booksellers, just sufficient
to keep him from the parish, I think Guy, who was himself a bookseller,
ought to have appropriated one wing or ward of his hospital to the use
of decayed authors; though indeed, there is neither hospital, college,
nor workhouse, within the bills of mortality, large enough to contain
the poor of this society, composed, as it is, from the refuse of every
other profession.
I know not whether you will find any amusement in this account of an odd
race of mortals, whose constitution had, I own, greatly interested the
curiosity of
Yours, J. MELFORD LONDON, June 10.
To Miss LAETITIA WILLIS, at Gloucester.