at the breach. If they subscribe readily the first time, I renew my
request to beg a dedication fee. If they let me have that, I smite them once
more for engraving their coat of arms at the top. Thus, continued he, I live by
vanity, and laugh at it. But between ourselves, I am now too well known, I
should be glad to borrow your face a bit: a nobleman of distinction has just
returned from Italy; my face is familiar to his porter; but if you bring this
copy of verses, my life for it you succeed, and we divide the spoil.«
    »Bless us, George,« cried I, »and is this the employment of poets now! Do
men of their exalted talents thus stoop to beggary! Can they so far disgrace
their calling, as to make a vile traffic of praise for bread?«
    »O no, Sir,« returned he, »a true poet can never be so base; for wherever
there is genius there is pride. The creatures I now describe are only beggars in
rhyme. The real poet, as he braves every hardship for fame, so he is equally a
coward to contempt, and none but those who are unworthy protection condescend to
solicit it.
    Having a mind too proud to stoop to such indignities, and yet a fortune too
humble to hazard a second attempt for fame, I was now obliged to take a middle
course, and write for bread. But I was unqualified for a profession where mere
industry alone was to ensure success. I could not suppress my lurking passion
for applause; but usually consumed that time in efforts after excellence which
takes up but little room, when it should have been more advantageously employed
in the diffusive productions of fruitful mediocrity. My little piece would
therefore come forth in the mist of periodical publication, unnoticed and
unknown. The public were more importantly employed, than to observe the easy
simplicity of my style, or the harmony of my periods. Sheet after sheet was
thrown off to oblivion. My essays were buried among the essays upon liberty,
eastern tales, and cures for the bite of a mad dog; while Philautos,
Philalethes, Philelutheros, and Philanthropos, all wrote better, because they
wrote faster, than I.
    Now, therefore, I began to associate with none but disappointed authors,
like myself, who praised, deplored, and despised each other. The satisfaction we
found in every celebrated writer's attempts, was inversely as their merits. I
found that no genius in another could please me. My unfortunate paradoxes