n this country; and that men of letters were ill-received and
held in slight esteem. It would hardly be grateful of me now to alter my
old opinion that we do meet with goodwill and kindness, with generous
helping hands in the time of our necessity, with cordial and friendly
recognition. What claim had any one of these of whom I have been speaking,
but genius? What return of gratitude, fame, affection, did it not bring to
all?

What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among them, but that
which follows reckless habits and careless lives? For these faults a wit
must suffer like the dullest prodigal that ever ran in debt. He must pay
the tailor if he wears the coat; his children must go in rags if he spends
his money at the tavern; he can't come to London and be made Lord
Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his last shilling at
Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty of these follies too, and
expect that the world will shun the man of bad habits, that women will
avoid the man of loose life, that prudent folks will close their doors as
a precaution, and before a demand should be made on their pockets by the
needy prodigal. With what difficulty had any one of these men to contend,
save that eternal and mechanical one of want of means and lack of capital,
and of which thousands of young lawyers, young doctors, young soldiers and
sailors, of inventors, manufacturers, shopkeepers, have to complain?
Hearts as brave and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any wit or
poet, sicken and break daily in the vain endeavour and unavailing struggle
against life's difficulty. Don't we see daily ruined inventors,
grey-haired midshipmen, balked heroes, blighted curates, barristers pining
a hungry life out in chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their
garrets, whilst scores of them are rapping at the door of the successful
quack below? If these suffer, who is the author, that he should be exempt?
Let us bear our ills with the same constancy with which others endure
them, accept our manly part in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can
conceive of no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence,
or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for running
races with the constable. You never can outrun that sure-footed
officer--not by any swiftness or by dodges devised by any genius, however
great; and he carries off the Tatler to the spunging-house, or taps the
Citizen of the World