ff his hat. This shows he has good
principles,"--of which in fact there seems to be some less questionable
evidence. Campbell supported himself by writings chiefly of the
Encyclopedia or Gazetteer kind; and became, still in Johnson's phrase,
"the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature." A more
singular and less reputable character was that impudent quack, Sir John
Hill, who, with his insolent attacks upon the Royal Society, pretentious
botanical and medical compilations, plays, novels, and magazine
articles, has long sunk into utter oblivion. It is said of him that he
pursued every branch of literary quackery with greater contempt of
character than any man of his time, and that he made as much as L1500 in
a year;--three times as much, it is added, as any one writer ever made
in the same period.

The political scribblers--the Arnalls, Gordons, Trenchards, Guthries,
Ralphs, and Amhersts, whose names meet us in the notes to the _Dunciad_
and in contemporary pamphlets and newspapers--form another variety of
the class. Their general character may be estimated from Johnson's
classification of the "Scribbler for a Party" with the "Commissioner of
Excise," as the "two lowest of all human beings." "Ralph," says one of
the notes to the _Dunciad_, "ended in the common sink of all such
writers, a political newspaper." The prejudice against such employment
has scarcely died out in our own day, and may be still traced in the
account of Pendennis and his friend Warrington. People who do dirty work
must be paid for it; and the Secret Committee which inquired into
Walpole's administration reported that in ten years, from 1731 to 1741,
a sum of L50,077 18_s_. had been paid to writers and printers of
newspapers. Arnall, now remembered chiefly by Pope's line,--

Spirit of Arnall, aid me whilst I lie!

had received, in four years, L10,997 6_s_. 8_d_. of this amount. The
more successful writers might look to pensions or preferment. Francis,
for example, the translator of Horace, and the father, in all
probability, of the most formidable of the whole tribe of such literary
gladiators, received, it is said, 900_l_. a year for his work, besides
being appointed to a rectory and the chaplaincy of Chelsea.

It must, moreover, be observed that the price of literary work was
rising during the century, and that, in the latter half, considerable
sums were received by successful writers. Religious as well as dramatic
literature