A fulsome
dedication in the largest type was all that he asked: and if a writer
were sufficiently profuse in his adulation, he might dine at Maecenas's
table, drink his sack and canary without stint, and apply to him for
cash whenever he found his pockets empty. Nor was this all: if a writer
were sufficiently successful in his works to reflect honour on his
patron, he was eagerly courted by others of the noble profession. He was
offered, if not hard cash, as good an equivalent, in the shape of a
comfortable government sinecure; and if this was not to be had, he was
sometimes even lodged and boarded by his obliged dedicatee. In this way
he was introduced into the highest society; and if he had wit enough to
support the character, he soon found himself _facile princeps_ in a
circle of the highest nobility in the land. Thus it is that in the clubs
of the day we find title and wealth mingling with wit and genius; and
the writer who had begun life by a cringing dedication, was now rewarded
by the devotion and assiduity of the men he had once flattered. When
Steele, Swift, Addison, Pope, and Congreve were the kings of their sets,
it was time for authors to look and talk big.
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