papers to the _Craftsman_,
while they employed inferior scribes to do the drudgery. Walpole paid
large sums to the 'Gazetters,' whom Pope denounces; and men like
Amherst of the _Craftsman_ or Gordon of the _Independent Whig_, carried
on the ordinary warfare. The author by profession was beginning to be
recognised. Thomson and Mallet came up from Scotland during this period
to throw themselves upon literature; Ralph, friend of Franklin and
collaborator of Fielding, came from New England; and Johnson was
attracted from the country to become a contributor to the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, started by Cave in 1731--an event which marked a new
development of periodical literature. Though no one would then advise a
young man who could do anything else to trust to authorship (it would be
rash to give such advice now) the new career was being opened. There
were hack authors of all varieties. The successful playwright gained a
real prize in the lottery; and translations, satires, and essays on the
_Spectator_ model enabled the poor drudge to make both ends meet, though
too often in bondage to his employer to be, as I take it, better off
than in the previous period, when the choice lay between risking the
pillory and selling yourself as a spy.

Before considering the effect produced under the changed conditions, I
must note briefly the intellectual position. The period was that of the
culmination of the deist controversy. In the previous period the
rationalism of which Locke was the mouthpiece represented the dominant
tendency. It was generally held on all sides that there was a religion
of nature, capable of purely rational demonstration. The problem
remained as to its relation to the revealed religion and the established
creed. Locke himself was a sincere Christian, though he reduced the
dogmatic element to a minimum. Some of his disciples, however, became
freethinkers in the technical sense, and held that revelation was
needless, and that in point of fact no supernatural revelation had been
made. The orthodox, on the other hand, while admitting or declaring that
faith should be founded on reason, and that reason could establish a
'religion of nature,' admitted in various ways that a supernatural
revelation was an essential corollary or a useful addition to the simple
rational doctrine. The controversies which arose upon this issue, after
being carried on very vigorously for a time, caused less interest as
time went on, and were b