the _Lives of the Admirals_ and the _Political
Survey of Great Britain_, and innumerable historical and statistical
works; and the queer adventurer Sir John Hill, who turned out book after
book with marvellous rapidity and impudence, and is said to have really
had some knowledge of botany. The industrious drudges and clever
charlatans could make a respectable income. Smollett is a superior
example, whose 'literary factory,' as it has been said, 'was in full
swing' at this period, and who, besides his famous novels, was
journalist, historian, and author of all work, and managed to keep
himself afloat, though he also contrived to exceed his income and was
supported by a number of inferior 'myrmidons' who helped to turn out his
hackwork. He describes the author's position in a famous passage in
_Humphry Clinker_ (1756). Smollett also started the _Critical Review_ in
rivalry to the _Monthly Review_, begun by Griffiths a few years before
(1749), and these two were for a long time the only precursors to the
_Edinburgh Review_, and marked an advance upon the old _Gentleman's
Magazine_. In other words, we have the beginning of a new tribunal or
literary Star Chamber. The author has not to inquire what is said of his
performances in the coffee-houses, where the Wits gathered under the
presidency of Addison or Swift. The professional critic has appeared
who will make it his regular business to give an account of all new
books, and though his reviews are still comparatively meagre and apt to
be mere analyses, it is implied that a kind of public opinion is growing
up which will decide upon his merits, and upon which his success or
failure will depend. That means again that the readers to whom he is to
appeal are mainly the middle class, who are not very highly cultivated,
but who have at any rate reached the point of reading their newspaper
and magazine regularly, and buy books enough to make it worth while to
supply the growing demand. The nobleman has ceased to consider the
patronage of authors as any part of his duty, and the tradition which
made him consider writing poetry as a proper accomplishment is dying
out. Since that time our aristocracy as such has been normally
illiterate. Peers--Byron, for example--have occasionally written books;
and more than one person of quality has, like Fox, kept up the interest
in classical literature which he acquired at a public school, and added
a charm to his parliamentary oratory. The great