disreputable and piratical Curll shows that at least the demand for miscellaneous literature was growing. The anecdotes of the misery of authors, of the translators who lay three in a bed in Curll's garret, of Samuel Boyse, who had reduced his clothes to a single blanket, and Savage sleeping on a bulk, are sometimes adduced to show that literature was then specially depressed. But there never was a time when authors of dissolute habits were not on the brink of starvation, and the authorities of the Literary Fund could give us contemporary illustrations of the fact. The real inference is, I take it, that the demand which was springing up attracted a great many impecunious persons, who became the drudges of the rising class of booksellers. No doubt the journalist was often in a degrading position. The press was active in all political struggles. The great men, Walpole, Bolingbroke, and Pulteney, wrote pamphlets or contributed papers to the _Craftsman_, while they employed inferior scribes to do the drudgery. Walpole paid large sums to the 'Gazetters,' whom Pope denounces; and men like Amherst of the _Craftsman_ or Gordon of the _Independent Whig_, carried on the ordinary warfare. The author by profession was beginning to be recognised. Thomson and Mallet came up from Scotland during this period to throw themselves upon literature; Ralph, friend of Franklin and collaborator of Fielding, came from New England; and Johnson was attracted from the country to become a contributor to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, started by Cave in 1731--an event which marked a new development of periodical literature. Though no one would then advise a young man who could do anything else to trust to authorship (it would be rash to give such advice now) the new career was being opened. There were hack authors of all varieties. The successful playwright gained a real prize in the lottery; and translations, satires, and essays on the _Spectator_ model enabled the poor drudge to make both ends meet, though too often in bondage to his employer to be, as I take it, better off than in the previous period, when the choice lay between risking the pillory and selling yourself as a spy.