Calamities And Quarrels Of Authors Part 2

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 a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 in the mysteries of "coney-catching." Deceptive and vaunting t.i.tle-pages were practised to such excess, that TOM NASH, an "Author by Profession," never fastidiously modest, blushed at the t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed, 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 n.o.ble 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, or whence is this curse? Even from hence, the men that should employ such as I am, are enamoured of their own wits, though they be never so scurvie; that a scrivener is better paid than a scholar; and men of art must seek to live among cormorants, or be kept under by dunces, who count it policy to keep them bare to follow their books the better." And then, Nash thus utters the cries of--

A DESPAIRING AUTHOR!

Why is't d.a.m.nation to despair and die When life is my true happiness' disease?

My soul! my soul! thy safety makes me fly _The faulty means_ that might my pain appease; Divines and dying men may talk of h.e.l.l; But in my heart her several torments dwell.

Ah worthless wit, to train me to this woe!

Deceitful arts that nourish discontent!

Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so!

Vain thoughts, adieu! for now I will repent; And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, Since none take pity of a scholar's need!--

Forgive me, G.o.d, although I curse my birth, And ban the air wherein I breathe a wretch!

For misery hath daunted all my mirth-- Without redress complains my careless verse, And Midas' ears relent not at my moan!

In some far land will I my griefs rehea.r.s.e, 'Mongst them that will be moved when I shall groan!

England, adieu! the soil that brought me forth!

Adieu, unkinde! where skill is nothing worth!

Such was the miserable cry of an "Author by Profession" in the reign of Elizabeth. Nash not only renounces his country in his despair--and hesitates on "the faulty means" which have appeased the pangs of many of his unhappy brothers, but he proves also the weakness of the moral principle among these men of genius; for he promises, if any Maecenas will bind him by his bounty, he will do him "as much honour as any poet of my beardless years in England--but," he adds, "if he be sent away with a flea in his ear, let him look that I will rail on him soundly; not for an hour or a day, while the injury is fresh in my memory, but in some elaborate polished poem, which I will leave to the world when I am dead, to be a living image to times to come of his beggarly parsimony." Poets might imagine that CHATTERTON had written all this, about the time he struck a balance of his profit and loss by the death of Beckford the Lord Mayor, in which he concludes with "I am glad he is dead by 3_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._"[19]

FOOTNOTES:

[17] An abundance of these amusing tracts eagerly bought up in their day, but which came in the following generation to the ballad-stalls, are in the present enshrined in the cabinets of the curious. Such are the revolutions of literature! [It is by no means uncommon to find them realise sums at the rate of a guinea a page; but it is to be solely attributed to their extreme rarity; for in many instances the reprints of such tracts are worthless.]

[18] Poverty and the gaol alternated with tavern carouses or the place of honour among the wild young gallants at the playhouses. They were gentlemen or beggars as daily circ.u.mstances ordained. When this was the case with such authors as Greene, Peele, and Ma.s.singer, we need not wonder at finding "a whole knot" of writers in infinitely worse plight, who lived (or starved) by writing ballads and pamphlets on temporary subjects. In a brief tract, called "The Downfall of Temporising Poets," published 1641, they are said to be "an indifferent strong corporation, twenty-three of you sufficient writers, besides Martin Parker," who was the great ballad and pamphlet writer of the day. The shifts they were put to, and the difficulties of their living, is denoted in the reply of one of the characters in this tract, who on being asked if he has money, replies "Money? I wonder where you ever see poets have money two days together; I sold a copy last night, and have spent the money; and now have another copy to sell, but n.o.body will buy it."--ED.

[19] Chatterton had written a political essay for "The North Briton,"

which opened with the preluding flourish of "A spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:" it was, however, though accepted, not printed, on account of the Lord Mayor's death. The patriot thus calculated the death of his great patron!

s. d.

Lost by his death in this Essay 1 11 6 Gained in Elegies 2 2 ---- in Essays 3 3 ---- 5 5 0 --------- Am glad he is dead by 3 13 6

A MENDICANT AUTHOR,

AND THE PATRONS OF FORMER TIMES.

It must be confessed, that before "Authors by Profession" had fallen into the hands of the booksellers, they endured peculiar grievances. They were pitiable retainers of some great family.

The miseries of such an author, and the insolence and penuriousness of his patrons, who would not return the poetry they liked and would not pay for, may be traced in the eventful life of THOMAS CHURCHYARD, a poet of the age of Elizabeth, one of those unfortunate men who have written poetry all their days, and lived a long life to complete the misfortune. His muse was so fertile, that his works pa.s.s all enumeration. He courted numerous patrons, who valued the poetry, while they left the poet to his own miserable contemplations. In a long catalogue of his works, which this poet has himself given, he adds a few memoranda, as he proceeds, a little ludicrous, but very melancholy. He wrote a book which he could never afterwards recover from one of his patrons, and adds, "all which book was in as good verse as ever I made; an honourable knight dwelling in the Black Friers can witness the same, because I read it unto him."

Another accorded him the same remuneration--on which he adds, "An infinite number of other songs and sonnets given where they cannot be recovered, nor purchase any favour when they are craved." Still, however, he announces "Twelve long Tales for Christmas, dedicated to twelve honourable lords." Well might Churchyard write his own sad life, under the t.i.tle of "The Tragicall Discourse of the Haplesse Man's Life."[20]

It will not be easy to parallel this pathetic description of the wretched age of a poor neglected poet mourning over a youth vainly spent.

High time it is to haste my carcase hence: Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy, And age he left in travail ever since; The wanton days that made me nice and coy Were but a dream, a shadow, and a toy--

I look in gla.s.s, and find my cheeks so lean That every hour I do but wish me dead; Now back bends down, and forwards falls the head, And hollow eyes in wrinkled brow doth shroud As though two stars were creeping under cloud.

The lips wax cold, and look both pale and thin, The teeth fall out as nutts forsook the sh.e.l.l, The bare bald head but shows where hair hath been, The lively joints wax weary, stiff, and still, The ready tongue now falters in his tale; The courage quails as strength decays and goes....

The thatcher hath a cottage poor you see: The shepherd knows where he shall sleep at night; The daily drudge from cares can quiet be: Thus fortune sends some rest to every wight; And I was born to house and land by right....

Well, ere my breath my body do forsake My spirit I bequeath to G.o.d above; My books, my scrawls, and songs that I did make, I leave with friends that freely did me love....

Now, friends, shake hands, I must be gone, my boys!

Our mirth takes end, our triumph all is done; Our tickling talk, our sports and merry toys Do glide away like shadow of the sun.

Another comes when I my race have run, Shall pa.s.s the time with you in better plight, And find good cause of greater things to write.

Yet Churchyard was no contemptible bard; he composed a national poem, "The Worthiness of Wales," which has been reprinted, and will be still dear to his "Fatherland," as the Hollanders expressively denote their natal spot. He wrote in the "Mirrour of Magistrates," the Life of Wolsey, which has parts of great dignity; and the Life of Jane Sh.o.r.e, which was much noticed in his day, for a severe critic of the times writes:

Hath not Sh.o.r.e's wife, although a light-skirt she, Given him a chaste, long, lasting memorie?

Churchyard, and the miseries of his poetical life, are alluded to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in "Colin Clout's come Home again." Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious writer for half a century, whose melancholy pipe, in his old age, may make the reader "rew:"

Yet he himself may rewed be more right, That sung so long untill quite hoa.r.s.e he grew.

His epitaph, preserved by Camden, is extremely instructive to all poets, could epitaphs instruct them:--

_Poverty_ and _poetry_ his tomb doth inclose; Wherefore, good neighbours, be merry in _prose_.

It appears also by a confession of Tom Nash, that an author would then, pressed by the _res angusta domi_, when "the bottom of his purse was turned upward," submit to compose pieces for gentlemen who aspired to authorship. He tells us on some occasion, that he was then in the country composing poetry for some country squire;--and says, "I am faine to let my plow stand still in the midst of a furrow, to follow these Senior Fantasticos, to whose amorous _villanellas_[21] I prost.i.tute my pen," and this, too, "twice or thrice in a month;" and he complains that it is "poverty which alone maketh me so unconstant to my determined studies, trudging from place to place to and fro, and prosecuting the means to keep me from idlenesse." An author was then much like a vagrant.

Even at a later period, in the reign of the literary James, great authors were reduced to a state of mendicity, and lived on alms, although their lives and their fortunes had been consumed in forming national labours. The antiquary STOWE exhibits a striking example of the rewards conferred on such valued authors. Stowe had devoted his life, and exhausted his patrimony, in the study of English antiquities; he had travelled on foot throughout the kingdom, inspecting all monuments of antiquity, and rescuing what he could from the dispersed libraries of the monasteries. His stupendous collections, in his own handwriting, still exist, to provoke the feeble industry of literary loiterers. He felt through life the enthusiasm of study; and seated in his monkish library, living with the dead more than with the living, he was still a student of taste: for Spenser the poet visited the library of Stowe; and the first good edition of Chaucer was made so chiefly by the labours of our author. Late in life, worn-out with study and the cares of poverty, neglected by that proud metropolis of which he had been the historian, his good-humour did not desert him; for being afflicted with sharp pains in his aged feet, he observed that "his affliction lay in that part which formerly he had made so much use of." Many a mile had he wandered and much had he expended, for those treasures of antiquities which had exhausted his fortune, and with which he had formed works of great public utility. It was in his eightieth year that Stowe at length received a public acknowledgment of his services, which will appear to us of a very extraordinary nature. He was so reduced in his circ.u.mstances that he pet.i.tioned James I. for a _licence to collect alms_ for himself! "as a recompense for his labours and travel of _forty-five years_, in setting forth the _Chronicles of England_, and _eight years_ taken up in the _Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster_, towards his relief now in his old age; having left his former means of living, and only employing himself for the service and good of his country." Letters-patent under the great seal were granted. After no penurious commendations of Stowe's labours, he is permitted "to gather the benevolence of well-disposed people within this realm of England; to ask, gather, and take the alms of all our loving subjects." These letters-patent were to be published by the clergy from their pulpits; they produced so little, that they were renewed for another twelvemonth: one entire parish in the city contributed seven shillings and sixpence! Such, then, was the patronage received by Stowe, to be a licensed beggar throughout the kingdom for one twelvemonth! Such was the public remuneration of a man who had been useful to his nation, but not to himself!

Such was the first age of _Patronage_, which branched out in the last century into an age of _Subscriptions_, when an author levied contributions before his work appeared; a mode which inundated our literature with a great portion of its worthless volumes: of these the most remarkable are the splendid publications of Richard Blome; they may be called fict.i.tious works; for they are only mutilated transcripts from Camden and Speed, but richly ornamented, and pompously printed, which this literary adventurer, said to have been a gentleman, loaded the world with, by the aid of his subscribers.

Another age was that of _Dedications_,[22] when the author was to lift his tiny patron to the skies, in an inverse ratio as he lowered himself, in this public exhibition. Sometimes the party haggled about the price;[23] or the statue, while stepping into his niche, would turn round on the author to a.s.sist his invention. A patron of Peter Motteux, dissatisfied with Peter's colder temperament, composed the superlative dedication to himself, and completed the misery of the author by subscribing it with Motteux's name![24] Worse fared it when authors were the unlucky hawkers of their own works; of which I shall give a remarkable instance in MYLES DAVIES, a learned man maddened by want and indignation.

The subject before us exhibits one of the most singular spectacles in these volumes; that of a scholar of extensive erudition, whose life seems to have pa.s.sed in the study of languages and the sciences, while his faculties appear to have been disordered from the simplicity of his nature, and driven to madness by indigence and insult. He formed the wild resolution of becoming a mendicant author, the hawker of his own works; and by this mode endured all the aggravated sufferings, the great and the petty insults of all ranks of society, and even sometimes from men of learning themselves, who denied a mendicant author the sympathy of a brother.

MYLES DAVIES and his works are imperfectly known to the most curious of our literary collectors. His name has scarcely reached a few; the author and his works are equally extraordinary, and claim a right to be preserved in this treatise on the "Calamities of Authors."

Our author commenced printing a work, difficult, from its miscellaneous character, to describe; of which the volumes appeared at different periods. The early and the most valuable volumes were the first and second; they are a kind of bibliographical, biographical, and critical work, on English Authors. They all bear a general t.i.tle of "Athenae Britannicae."[25]

Collectors have sometimes met with a very curious volume, ent.i.tled "Icon Libellorum," and sometimes the same book, under another t.i.tle--"A Critical History of Pamphlets." This rare book forms the first volume of the "Athenae Britannicae." The author was Myles Davies, whose biography is quite unknown: he may now be his own biographer. He was a Welsh clergyman, a vehement foe to Popery, Arianism, and Socinianism, of the most fervent loyalty to George I. and the Hanoverian succession; a scholar, skilled in Greek and Latin, and in all the modern languages. Quitting his native spot with political disgust, he changed his character in the metropolis, for he subscribes himself "Counsellor-at-Law." In an evil hour he commenced author, not only surrounded by his books, but with the more urgent companions of a wife and family; and with that childlike simplicity which sometimes marks the mind of a retired scholar, we perceive him imagining that his immense reading would prove a source, not easily exhausted, for their subsistence.

From the first volumes of his series much curious literary history may be extracted, amidst the loose and wandering elements of this literary chaos. In his dedication to the Prince he professes "to represent writers and writings in a catoptrick view."

The preface to the second volume opens his plan; and nothing as yet indicates those rambling humours which his subsequent labours exhibit.