The
prosperous are feared, hated and flattered; and the unfortunate avoided,
pitied and despised. No sooner is a book published than the writer may
judge of the opinion of the world. If his acquaintance press round him
in publick places, or salute him from the other side of the street; if
invitations to dinner come thick upon him, and those with whom he dines
keep him to supper; if the ladies turn to him when his coat is plain,
and the footmen serve him with attention and alacrity; he may be sure
that his work has been praised by some leader of literary fashions.
Of declining reputation the symptoms are not less easily observed. If
the author enters a coffee-house, he has a box to himself; if he calls
at a bookseller's, the boy turns his back and, what is the most fatal of
all prognosticks, authors will visit him in a morning, and talk to him
hour after hour of the malevolence of criticks, the neglect of merit,
the bad taste of the age and the candour of posterity.
All this, modified and varied by accident and custom, would form very
amusing scenes of biography, and might recreate many a mind which is
very little delighted with conspiracies or battles, intrigues of a
court, or debates of a parliament; to this might be added all the
changes of the countenance of a patron, traced from the first glow which
flattery raises in his cheek, through ardour of fondness, vehemence of
promise, magnificence of praise, excuse of delay, and lamentation of
inability, to the last chill look of final dismission, when the one
grows weary of soliciting, and the other of hearing solicitation.
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