_Ind._ Indeed, Sir, it does not, for you see all of the Book that I ever intend to publish. It is only a handsome Way of asking one's Friends for a Guinea. _Book._ Then you have not translated a Word of it, perhaps. _Ind._ Not a single Syllable. _Book._ Well, you shall have your Proposals forthwith; but I desire you wou'd be a little more reasonable in your Bills for the future, or I shall deal with you no longer; for I have a certain Fellow of a College, who offers to furnish me with Second-hand Motto's out of the _Spectator_ for Two-pence each. _Ind._ Sir, I only desire to live by my Goods, and I hope you will be pleas'd to allow some difference between a neat fresh Piece, piping hot out of the Classicks, and old thread-bare worn-out Stuff that has past thro' ev'ry Pedant's Mouth...." The latter part of this amusing dialogue, referring to Mr. Index's translation from Cicero, was added in an amended version of the _Author's Farce_, which appeared some years later, and in which Fielding depicts the portrait of another all-powerful personage in the literary life,--the actor-manager. This, however, will be more conveniently treated under its proper date, and it is only necessary to say here that the slight sketches of Marplay and Sparkish given in the first edition, were presumably intended for Cibber and Wilks, with whom, notwithstanding the "civil and kind Behaviour" for which he had thanked them in the "Preface" to _Love in Several Masques_, the young dramatist was now, it seems, at war. In the introduction to the Miscellanies, he refers to "a slight Pique" with Wilks; and it is not impossible that the key to the difference may be found in the following passage:-- "_Sparkish._ What dost think of the Play? _Marplay._ It may be a very good one, for ought I know; _but I know the Author has no Interest_. _Spark._ Give me Interest, and rat the Play. _Mar._ Rather rat the Play which has no Interest. Interest sways as much in the Theatre as at Court.--And you know it is not always the Companion of Merit in either." The handsome student from Leyden--the potential Congreve who wrote _Love in Several Masques_, and had Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for patroness, might fairly be supposed to have expectations which warranted the civilities of Messrs. Wilks and Cibber; but the "Luckless" of two years later had probably convinced them that his dramatic performances did not involve their _sine qua non_ of success. Under these circumstances nothing perhaps could be more natural than that they should play their parts in his little satire.