nbrugh took to architecture, and Farquhar died, no
adequate successors appeared. The production of comedies was left to
inferior writers, to Mrs. Centlivre, and Colley Cibber, and Fielding in
his unripe days, and they were forced by the disfavour into which their
art had fallen to become less forcible rather than to become more
refined. When a preacher denounces the wicked, his sermons seem to be
thrown away because the wicked don't come to church. Collier could not
convert his antagonists; he could only make them more timid and careful
to avoid giving palpable offence. But he could express the growing
sentiment which made the drama an object of general suspicion and
dislike, and induced the ablest writers to turn to other methods for
winning the favour of a larger public.

The natural result, in fact, was the development of a new kind of
literature, which was the most characteristic innovation of the period.
The literary class of which I have hitherto spoken reflected the
opinions of the upper social stratum. Beneath it was the class generally
known as Grub Street. Grub Street had arisen at the time of the great
civil struggle. War naturally generates journalism; it had struggled on
through the Restoration and taken a fresh start at the Revolution and
the final disappearance of the licensing system. The daily
newspaper--meaning a small sheet written by a single author (editors as
yet were not)--appeared at the opening of the eighteenth century. Now
for Grub Street the wit of the higher class had nothing but dislike. The
'hackney author,' as Dunton called him, in his curious _Life and
Errors_, was a mere huckster, who could scarcely be said as yet to
belong to a profession. A Tutchin or Defoe might be pilloried, or
flogged, or lose his ears, without causing a touch of compassion from
men like Swift, who would have disdained to call themselves brother
authors. Yet politicians were finding him useful. He was the victim of
one party, and might be bribed or employed as a spy by the other. The
history of Defoe and his painful struggles between his conscience and
his need of living, sufficiently indicates the result; Charles Leslie,
the gallant nonjuror, for example, or Abel Boyer, the industrious
annalist, or the laborious but cantankerous Oldmixon, were keeping their
heads above water by journalism, almost exclusively, of course,
political. Defoe showed a genius for the art, and his mastery of
vigorous vernacular was hardly