which, on the death of his mother, three years later, was increased by
£20 more, or £60 at the present value of money. He was thus protected
for life against the meaner and more miserable necessities of the
literary man, under which many of his unfortunate rivals were crushed;
and if he could not always command luxuries, he was always sure of
bread.

To improve his circumstances, however, and to enable him to keep up a
style of living in unison with his lady's rank, he must write, and the
question arose, what mode of composition was likely to be the most
lucrative? Were he to continue to indite panegyrical verses, like those
to Clarendon, he stood a chance of having a few guineas tossed to him
now and then by a patron, like a crust to an unfortunate cur. Were he
to translate, or write prefaces for the booksellers, he might pay his
bill for salt, if diligent enough. For Satires as yet there was little
demand. The follies of the more fanatical of the Puritans were too
recent, although they were beginning to ripen for the hand of Butler;
and the far grosser absurdities of the Cavaliers were yet in blossom.
There remained nothing for an aspiring author but the stage, which
during the previous _regime_ had been abolished. While the French
Revolution was in progress, ay, even in the depths of the reign of
terror, the theatres were all open, and all crowded; but when Cromwell
was enacting his solemn and solitary part, before God, angels, and men,
the petty potentates--the gods and goddesses of the stage--vanished into
thin air. At his tremendous stamp their cue had been "_Exeunt omnes_"
and if the spirit of Shakspeare himself had witnessed the departure, he
would have added his Amen. And had he watched in their stead the
gigantic actor treading his trembling stage alone, with all the world
looking on, he might have remembered and re-applied his own magnificent
words--