eneral distress, to increase confusion, and hasten famine.

Having long studied the varieties of life, I can guess by every man's
walk, or air, to what state of the community he belongs. Every man has
noted the legs of a tailor, and the gait of a seaman; and a little
extension of his physiognomical acquisitions will teach him to
distinguish the countenance of an author. It is my practice, when I am
in want of amusement, to place myself for an hour at Temple-bar, or any
other narrow pass much frequented, and examine, one by one, the looks of
the passengers; and I have commonly found, that, between the hours of
eleven and four, every sixth man is an author. They are seldom to be
seen very early in the morning, or late in the evening, but about dinner
time they are all in motion, and have one uniform eagerness in their
faces, which gives little opportunity of discerning their hopes or
fears, their pleasures or their pains.

But, in the afternoon, when they have all dined, or composed themselves
to pass the day without a dinner, their passions have full play, and I
can perceive one man wondering at the stupidity of the publick, by which
his new book has been totally neglected; another cursing the French who
fright away literary curiosity by their threats of an invasion; another
swearing at his bookseller, who will advance no money without copy;
another perusing, as he walks, his publisher's bill; another murmuring
at an unanswerable criticism; another determining to write no more to a
generation of barbarians; and another resolving to try, once again,
whether he cannot awaken the drowsy world to a sense of his merit.

It sometimes happens, that there may be remarked among them a smile of
complacence, or a strut of elevation; but, if these favourites of
fortune are carefully watched for a few days, they seldom fail to show
the transitoriness of human felicity; the crest falls, the gaiety is
ended, and there appear evident tokens of a successful rival, or a
fickle patron.

But of all authors, those are the most wretched, who exhibit their
productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager,
and then the publick. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the
doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a
shaking hand, and, after long deliberation, adventure to solicit
entrance by a single knock; but I never staid to see them come out from
their audience, because my heart is tender,