plundered the public in banquets of four courses,
such as Lucullus might have eaten in the Hall of Apollo. A supper for
twelve Whigs, enriched by jobs, grants, bribes, lucky purchases and
lucky sales of stock, was cheap at eighty pounds. At the end of every
course all the fine linen on the table was changed. Those who saw the
pyramids of choice wild fowl imagined that the entertainment had been
prepared for fifty epicures at the least. Only six birds' nests from the
Nicobar islands were to be had in London; and all the six, bought at
an enormous price, were smoking in soup on the board. These fables were
destitute alike of probability and of evidence. But Grub Street could
devise no fable injurious to Montague which was not certain to find
credence in more than half the manor houses and vicarages of England.

It may seem strange that a man who loved literature passionately, and
rewarded literary merit munificently, should have been more savagely
reviled both in prose and verse than almost any other politician in our
history. But there is really no cause for wonder. A powerful, liberal
and discerning protector of genius is very likely to be mentioned with
honour long after his death, but is very likely also to be most brutally
libelled during his life. In every age there will be twenty bad writers
for one good one; and every bad writer will think himself a good one. A
ruler who neglects all men of letters alike does not wound the self love
of any man of letters. But a ruler who shows favour to the few men of
letters who deserve it inflicts on the many the miseries of disappointed
hope, of affronted pride, of jealousy cruel as the grave. All the rage
of a multitude of authors, irritated at once by the sting of want and by
the sting of vanity, is directed against the unfortunate patron. It is
true that the thanks and eulogies of those whom he has befriended will
be remembered when the invectives of those whom he has neglected are
forgotten. But in his own time the obloquy will probably make as much
noise and find as much credit as the panegyric. The name of Maecenas
has been made immortal by Horace and Virgil, and is popularly used to
designate an accomplished statesman, who lives in close intimacy with
the greatest poets and wits of his time, and heaps benefits on them with
the most delicate generosity. But it may well be suspected that, if the
verses of Alpinus and Fannius, of Bavius and Maevius, had come down
to us, we