f fashion. At length he found
a bookseller foolish enough to undertake it. But he presently perceived
that the gentlemen at the head of that profession were wiser than he. All
the motives they had mentioned, and one more, operated against him. The
monarchs of the critic realm scouted him with one voice, because his work,
was not written in the same cold, phlegmatic insupportable manner as their
own.

He had now advanced however too far to retreat. He had too much spirit to
resume either of those professions, which for reasons so cogent in his
opinion, he had already quitted. He wrote essays, squibs, and pamphlets
for an extemporary support. But though these were finished with infinite
rapidity, he found that they constituted a very precarious means of
subsistence. The time of dinner often came, before the production that was
to purchase it was completed; and when completed, it was frequently
several days before it could find a purchaser. And his copy money and his
taylor's bill were too little proportioned to one another.

He now recollected, what in the gaiety of hope he had forgotten, that
_many a flower_ only blows, with its sweetness to refresh the _air
of a desert_. He recollected many instances of works, raised by the
breath of fashion to the very pinnacle of reputation, that sunk as soon
again. He recollected instances scarcely fewer, of works, exquisite in
their composition, pregnant with beauties almost divine, that had passed
from the press without notice. Many had been revived by the cooler and
more deliberate judgment of a future age; and more had been lost for ever.
The instance of Chatterton, as a proof that the universal patronage of
genius was by no means the virtue of his contemporaries, flashed in his
face. And he looked forward to the same fate at no great distance, as his
own.

To Mr. Godfrey however, fortune was in one degree more propitious. Damon
was among the few whose judgment was not guided by the dictate of fashion.
Having met accidentally with the performance we have mentioned, he was
struck with its beauties. As he had heard nothing of it in the politest
circles, he concluded, with his usual penetration, that the author of it
was in obscure and narrow circumstances. _Open as day to sweet
humanity_, interested warmly in the fortune of the writer of so amiable
a performance, he flew to his bookseller's with the usual enquiries. The
bookseller stared, and had it not been for the splendour of