in the mysteries of "coney-catching." Deceptive and vaunting
title-pages were practised to such excess, that TOM NASH, an "Author
by Profession," never fastidiously modest, blushed at the title of his
"Pierce Pennilesse," which the publisher had flourished in the first
edition, like "a tedious mountebank." The booksellers forged great
names to recommend their works, and passed off in currency their base
metal stamped with a royal head. "It was an usual thing in those
days," says honest Anthony Wood, "to set a great name to a book or
books, by the sharking booksellers or snivelling writers, to get
bread."

Such authors as these are unfortunate, before they are criminal; they
often tire out their youth before they discover that "Author by
Profession" is a denomination ridiculously assumed, for it is none!
The first efforts of men of genius are usually honourable ones; but
too often they suffer that genius to be debased. Many who would have
composed history have turned voluminous party-writers; many a noble
satirist has become a hungry libeller. Men who are starved in
society, hold to it but loosely. They are the children of Nemesis!
they avenge themselves--and with the Satan of MILTON they exclaim,

Evil, be thou my good!

Never were their feelings more vehemently echoed than by this
Nash--the creature of genius, of famine, and despair. He lived indeed
in the age of Elizabeth, but writes as if he had lived in our own. He
proclaimed himself to the world as _Pierce Pennilesse_, and on a
retrospect of his _literary life_, observes that he had "sat up late
and rose early, contended with the cold, and conversed with
scarcitie;" he says, "all my labours turned to losse,--I was despised
and neglected, my paines not regarded, or slightly rewarded, and I
myself, in prime of my best wit, laid open to povertie. Whereupon I
accused my fortune, railed on my patrons, bit my pen, rent my papers,
and raged."--And then comes the after-reflection, which so frequently
provokes the anger of genius: "How many base men that wanted those
parts I had, enjoyed content at will, and had wealth at command! I
called to mind a cobbler that was worth five hundred pounds; an
hostler that had built a goodly inn; a carman in a leather pilche that
had whipt a thousand pound out of his horse's tail--and have I more
than these? thought I to myself; am I better born? am I better brought
up? yea, and better favoured! and yet am I a beggar? How am I crost