s live to witness it, but of their
_uninterrupted profits_, which might save them from their frequent
degradation in society. That act of Anne which confers on them some
right of property, acknowledges that works of learned men have been
carried on "too often to the ruin of them and their families."

Hence we trace a literary calamity which the public endure in those
"Authors by Profession," who, finding often too late in life that it
is the worst profession, are not scrupulous to live by some means or
other. "I must live," cried one of the brotherhood, shrugging his
shoulders in his misery, and almost blushing for a libel he had just
printed--"I do not see the necessity," was the dignified reply. Trade
was certainly not the origin of authorship. Most of our great authors
have written from a more impetuous impulse than that of a mechanic;
urged by a loftier motive than that of humouring the popular taste,
they have not lowered themselves by writing down to the public, but
have raised the public to them. Untasked, they composed at propitious
intervals; and feeling, not labour, was in their last, as in their
first page.

When we became a reading people, books were to be suited to popular
tastes, and then that trade was opened that leads to the workhouse. A
new race sprang up, that, like Ascham, "spoke as the common people;"
but would not, like Ascham, "think as wise men." The founders of
"Authors by Profession" appear as far back as in the Elizabethan age.
Then there were some roguish wits, who, taking advantage of the public
humour, and yielding their principle to their pen, lived to write, and
wrote to live; loose livers and loose writers!--like Autolycus, they
ran to the fair, with baskets of hasty manufactures, fit for clowns
and maidens.[17]

Even then flourished the craft of authorship, and the mysteries of
bookselling. ROBERT GREENE, the master-wit, wrote "The Art of
Coney-catching," or Cheatery, in which he was an adept; he died of a
surfeit of Rhenish and pickled herrings, at a fatal banquet of
authors;--and left as his legacy among the "Authors by Profession" "A
Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance." One died of
another kind of surfeit. Another was assassinated in a brothel. But
the list of the calamities of all these worthies have as great variety
as those of the Seven Champions.[18] Nor were the _stationers_, or
_book-venders_, as the publishers of books were first designated, at a
fault