those of the college, by erasing the name of the country and
substituting that of Egypt. With as much pains, and with a more
honourable direction, our Hindu Lauder might have immortalized his
invention.

We have authors who sold their names to be prefixed to works they never
read; or, on the contrary, have prefixed the names of others to their
own writings. Sir John Hill, once when he fell sick, owned to a friend
that he had over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once! one
of which was on architecture, and another on cookery! This hero once
contracted to translate Swammerdam's work on insects for fifty guineas.
After the agreement with the bookseller, he recollected that he did not
understand a word of the Dutch language! Nor did there exist a French
translation! The work, however, was not the less done for this small
obstacle. Sir John bargained with another translator for twenty-five
guineas. The second translator was precisely in the same situation as
the first--as ignorant, though not so well paid as the knight. He
rebargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for
twelve guineas! So that the translators who could not translate feasted
on venison and turtle, while the modest drudge, whose name never
appeared to the world, broke in patience his daily bread! The craft of
authorship has many mysteries.[48] One of the great patriarchs and
primeval dealers in English literature was Robert Green, one of the most
facetious, profligate, and indefatigable of the Scribleri family. He
laid the foundation of a new dynasty of literary emperors. The first act
by which he proved his claim to the throne of Grub-street has served as
a model to his numerous successors--it was an ambidextrous trick! Green
sold his "Orlando Furioso" to two different theatres, and is among the
first authors in English literary history who wrote as a _trader_;[49]
or as crabbed Anthony Wood phrases it, in the language of celibacy and
cynicism, "he wrote to maintain his _wife_, and that high and loose
course of living which _poets generally follow_." With a drop still
sweeter, old Anthony describes Gayton, another worthy; "he came up to
London to live in a _shirking condition_, and wrote _trite things_
merely to get bread to sustain him and his _wife_."[50] The hermit
Anthony seems to have had a mortal antipathy against the Eves of
literary men.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: Burnet's little 12mo volume was printed at Amster