eal, if
possible, than ever_.

"I have the honour to be,
"My Lord, &c.,
"WILLIAM GUTHRIE."

Unblushing venality! In one part he shouts like a plundering
hussar who has carried off his prey; and in the other he bows with
the tame suppleness of the "quarterly" Swiss chaffering his halbert
for his price;--"to serve his Majesty" for--"his Lordship's future
patronage."

Guthrie's notion of "An Author by Profession," entirely derived from
his own character, was twofold; literary taskwork, and political
degradation. He was to be a gentleman convertible into an historian,
at ---- per sheet; and, when he had not time to write histories, he
chose to sell his name to those he never wrote. These are mysteries of
the craft of authorship; in this sense it is only a trade, and a very
bad one! But when in his other capacity, this gentleman comes to hire
himself to one lord as he had to another, no one can doubt that the
stipendiary would change his principles with his livery.[4]

Such have been some of the "Authors by Profession" who have worn the
literary mask; for literature was not the first object of their
designs. They form a race peculiar to our country. They opened their
career in our first great revolution, and flourished during the
eventful period of the civil wars. In the form of newspapers, their
"Mercuries" and "Diurnals" were political pamphlets.[5] Of these, the
Royalists, being the better educated, carried off to their side all
the spirit, and only left the foam and dregs for the Parliamentarians;
otherwise, in lying, they were just like one another; for "the father
of lies" seems to be of no party! Were it desirable to instruct men by
a system of political and moral calumny, the complete art might be
drawn from these archives of political lying, during their flourishing
era. We might discover principles among them which would have humbled
the genius of Machiavel himself, and even have taught Mr. Sheridan's
more popular scribe, Mr. Puff, a sense of his own inferiority.

It is known that, during the administration of Harley and Walpole,
this class of authors swarmed and started up like mustard-seed in a
hot-bed. More than fifty thousand pounds were expended among them!
Faction, with mad and blind passions, can affix a value on the basest
things that serve its purpose.[6] These "Authors by Profession" wrote
more assiduously the better they were paid; but as attacks only
produced replies and rejo