his is a scheme
which I did not devise, for I fear it will end in
disappointment, but for which I have done, and will do, all
I possibly can. There is an old saying of the seamen's,
"Every man is not born to be a boatswain," and I think I
have heard of men born under a sixpenny planet, and doomed
never to be worth a groat. I fear something of this vile
sixpenny influence had gleamed in at the cottage window when
poor Hogg first came squeaking into the world. All that he
made by his original book he ventured on a flock of sheep to
drive into the Highlands to a farm he had taken there, but
of which he could not get possession, so that all the stock
was ruined and sold to disadvantage. Then he tried another
farm, which proved too dear, so that he fairly broke upon
it. Then put forth divers publications, {p.169} which had
little sale--and brought him accordingly few pence, though
some praise. Then came this Queen's Wake, by which he might
and ought to have made from L100 to L200--for there were, I
think, three editions--when lo! his bookseller turned
bankrupt, and paid him never a penny. The Duke has now, with
his wonted generosity, given him a cosie bield, and the
object of the present attack upon the public is to get if
possible as much cash together as will stock it. But no one
has loose guineas now to give poor poets, and I greatly
doubt the scheme succeeding, unless it is more strongly
patronized than can almost be expected. In bookselling
matters, an author must either be the conjurer, who commands
the devil, or the witch who serves him--and few are they
whose situation is sufficiently independent to enable them
to assume the higher character--and this is injurious to the
indigent author in every respect, for not only is he obliged
to turn his pen to every various kind of composition, and so
to injure himself with the public by writing hastily, and on
subjects unfitted for his genius; but, moreover, those
honest gentlemen, the booksellers, from a natural
association, consider the books as of least value, which
they find they can get at least expense of copy-money, and
therefore are proportionally careless in pushing the sale of
the work. Whereas a good round sum out of their purse, like
a moderate rise of rent on a farm, rai