influential man in town, who again would
introduce you to a patron, was all that was necessary. The profession of
Maecenas was then as recognized and established as that of doctor or
lawyer. A man of money could always buy brains; and most noblemen
considered an author to be as necessary a part of his establishment as
the footmen who ushered them into my lord's presence. A fulsome
dedication in the largest type was all that he asked: and if a writer
were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at Maecenas's
table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply to him for
cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor was this all: if a writer
were sufficiently successful in his works to reflect honour on his
patron, he was eagerly courted by others of the noble profession. He was
offered, if not hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a
comfortable government sinecure; and if this was not to be had, he was
sometimes even lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way
he was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit enough to
support the character, he soon found himself _facile princeps_ in a
circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs
of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and
the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded
by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When
Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets,
it was time for authors to look and talk big. Eheu! those happy days are
gone!

Our dramatist, therefore, soon discovered that a good play was the key
to a good place, and the Whigs took care that he should have it. Oddly
enough, when the Tories came in they did not turn him out. Perhaps they
wanted to gain him over to themselves; perhaps, like the Vicar of Bray,
he did not mind turning his coat once or twice in a life-time. However
this may be, he managed to keep his appointment without offending his
own party; and when the latter returned to power, he even induced them
to give him a comfortable little sinecure, which went by the name of
Secretary to the Island of Jamaica, and raised the income from his
appointments to L1200 a year.

From this period he was little before the public. He could afford now to
indulge his natural indolence and selfishness. His private life was
perhaps not worse than that of the majority of his contempo