s, that something has to pay."

In an imitation of another epigram of Martial he gives an account of the
unpromising position of his affairs:--

"Without formal petition
Thus stands my condition,
I am closely blocked up in a garret,
Where I scribble and smoke,
And sadly invoke
The powerful assistance of claret.
Four children and a wife
'Tis hard on my life,
Besides myself and a Muse
To be all clothed and fed,
Now the times are so dead,
By my scribbling of doggrel and news;
And what I shall do,
I'm a wretch if I know
So hard is the fate of a poet,
I must either turn rogue,
Or what's as bad--pedagogue,
And so drudge like a thing that has no wit."

How much are we indebted to the pecuniary embarrassments of poets for
the interest we take in them. Who could read sentiment written by a man
faring sumptuously every day? Towards the end of his life, Brown became
acquainted with Lord Dorset, and we read of his once dining with that
nobleman and finding a note for fifty pounds under his plate. Tom Brown
seems to have regarded with great contempt his contemporary Tom
D'Urfey--best known as a composer of sonnets--words and music. He
addresses to him "upon his incomparable ballads, called by him Pindaric
Odes," the following acrimonious lines--

"Thou cur, half French half English breed,
Thou mongrel of Parnassus,
To think tall lines, run up to seed,
Should ever tamely pass us.

"Thou write Pindaricks and be damned
Write epigrams for cutlers,
None with thy lyricks can be shammed
But chambermaids and butlers.

"In t'other world expect dry blows;
No tears can wash thy stains out,
Horace will pluck thee by the nose
And Pindar beat thy brains out."

Such unworthy attacks are not unfrequently made by ill-natured literary
men. Brown was no doubt jealous of his rival, but Addison's generous
heart formed a very different estimate of D'Urfey's talent. He says that
after having "made the world merry he hopes they will make him easy" in
his pecuniary affairs, for that although "Tom" had written more Odes
than Horace, and four times as many Comedies as Terence, he was reduced
to great difficulties by a set of men who had furnished him with the
accommodations of life, and would not, as we say, "be paid with a song."
"As my friend," he continues, "after the manner of all the old lyrics,
accompanies his works with his own voice, he has been