hed among us
the Grub Street tradition. He revels in base descriptions of poor men's
want; he gloats over poor Dennis's garret, and flannel nightcap, and red
stockings; he gives instructions how to find Curll's authors, the
historian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind arch in Petty France,
the two translators in bed together, the poet in the cock-loft in Budge
Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. It was Pope, I fear, who
contributed, more than any man who ever lived, to depreciate the literary
calling. It was not an unprosperous one before that time, as we have seen;
at least there were great prizes in the profession which had made Addison
a minister, and Prior an ambassador, and Steele a commissioner, and Swift
all but a bishop. The profession of letters was ruined by that libel of
the _Dunciad_. If authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them
lived in haylofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at least
nobody came to disturb them in their straw; if three of them had but one
coat between them, the two remained invisible in the garret, the third, at
any rate, appeared decently at the coffee-house, and paid his twopence
like a gentleman. It was Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and
meanness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public ridicule.
It was Pope that has made generations of the reading world (delighted with
the mischief, as who would not be that reads it?) believe that author and
wretch, author and rags, author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cowheel,
tripe, poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children and clamorous
landladies, were always associated together. The condition of authorship
began to fall from the days of the _Dunciad_: and I believe in my heart
that much of that obloquy which has since pursued our calling was
occasioned by Pope's libels and wicked wit. Everybody read those.
Everybody was familiarized with the idea of the poor devil, the author.
The manner is so captivating that young authors practise it, and begin
their career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so pleasant to read!
to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, perhaps; and fancy one's self his
conqueror. It is easy to shoot--but not as Pope did--the shafts of his
satire rise sublimely: no poet's verse ever mounted higher than that
wonderful flight with which the _Dunciad_ concludes(141):--

She comes, she comes! the sable throne behold!
Of Night primaeval and of Chaos old