, though all his publications were of the best kinds,
and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended
in bankruptcy. It is to be lamented for the cause of literature, that
even a bookseller may have too refined a taste for his trade; it must
always be his interest to float on the current of public taste,
whatever that may be; should he have an ambition to _create_ it, he
will be anticipating a more cultivated curiosity by half a century;
thus the business of a bookseller rarely accords with the design of
advancing our literature.

The works of literature, it is then but too evident, receive no
equivalent; let this be recollected by him who would draw his
existence from them. A young writer often resembles that imaginary
author whom Johnson, in a humorous letter in "The Idler" (No. 55),
represents as having composed a work "of universal curiosity, computed
that it would call for many editions of his book, and that in five
years he should gain fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty
thousand copies." There are, indeed, some who have been dazzled by the
good fortune of GIBBON, ROBERTSON, and HUME; we are to consider these
favourites, not merely as authors, but as possessing, by their
situation in life, a certain independence which preserved them from
the vexations of the authors I have noticed. Observe, however, that
the uncommon sum Gibbon received for copyright, though it excited the
astonishment of the philosopher himself, was for the continued labour
of a _whole life_, and probably the _library_ he had purchased for his
work equalled at least in cost the produce of his _pen_; the tools
cost the workman as much as he obtained for his work. Six thousand
pounds gained on these terms will keep an author indigent.

Many great labours have been designed by their authors even to be
posthumous, prompted only by their love of study and a patriotic
zeal. Bishop KENNETT'S stupendous "Register and Chronicle," volume I.,
is one of those astonishing labours which could only have been
produced by the pleasure of study urged by the strong love of
posterity.[66] It is a diary in which the bishop, one of our most
studious and active authors, has recorded every matter of fact,
"delivered in the words of the most authentic books, papers, and
records." The design was to preserve our literary history from the
Restoration. This silent labour he had been pursuing all his life,
and published the first volume in his