ashamed of itself, and has adopted the
more pretentious name Bohemia. The original Grub Street, it is said,
first became associated with authorship during the increase of pamphlet
literature, produced by the civil wars. Fox, the martyrologist, was one
of its original inhabitants. Another of its heroes was a certain Mr.
Welby, of whom the sole record is, that he "lived there forty years
without being seen of any." In fact, it was a region of holes and
corners, calculated to illustrate that great advantage of London life,
which a friend of Boswell's described by saying, that a man could there
be always "close to his burrow." The "burrow" which received the
luckless wight, was indeed no pleasant refuge. Since poor Green, in the
earliest generation of dramatists, bought his "groat'sworth of wit with
a million of repentance," too many of his brethren had trodden the path
which led to hopeless misery or death in a tavern brawl. The history of
men who had to support themselves by their pens, is a record of almost
universal gloom. The names of Spenser, of Butler, and of Otway, are
enough to remind us that even warm contemporary recognition was not
enough to raise an author above the fear of dying in want of
necessaries. The two great dictators of literature, Ben Jonson in the
earlier and Dryden in the later part of the century, only kept their
heads above water by help of the laureate's pittance, though reckless
imprudence, encouraged by the precarious life, was the cause of much of
their sufferings. Patronage gave but a fitful resource, and the author
could hope at most but an occasional crust, flung to him from better
provided tables.

In the happy days of Queen Anne, it is true, there had been a gleam of
prosperity. Many authors, Addison, Congreve, Swift, and others of less
name, had won by their pens not only temporary profits but permanent
places. The class which came into power at the Revolution was willing
for a time, to share some of the public patronage with men distinguished
for intellectual eminence. Patronage was liberal when the funds came out
of other men's pockets. But, as the system of party government
developed, it soon became evident that this involved a waste of power.
There were enough political partisans to absorb all the comfortable
sinecures to be had; and such money as was still spent upon literature,
was given in return for services equally degrading to giver and
receiver. Nor did the patronage of lite