_Author._ It would be base to do so exclusively, or even to make it a
principal motive for literary exertion. Nay, I will venture to say,
that no work of imagination, proceeding from the mere consideration of
a certain sum of copy-money, ever did, or ever will, succeed. So the
lawyer who pleads, the soldier who fights, the physician who
prescribes, the clergyman--if such there be--who preaches, without any
zeal for his profession, or without any sense of its dignity, and
merely on account of the fee, pay, or stipend, degrade themselves to
the rank of sordid mechanics. Accordingly, in the case of two of the
learned faculties at least, their services are considered as
unappreciable, and are acknowledged, not by any exact estimate of the
services rendered, but by a _honorarium,_ or voluntary acknowledgment.
But let a client or patient make the experiment of omitting this
little ceremony of the honorarium, which is _cense_ to be a thing
entirely out of consideration between them, and mark how the learned
gentleman will look upon his case. Cant set apart, it is the same
thing with literary emolument. No man of sense, in any rank of life,
is, or ought to be, above accepting a just recompense for his time,
and a reasonable share of the capital which owes its very existence to
his exertions. When Czar Peter wrought in the trenches, he took the
pay of a common soldier; and nobles, statesmen, and divines, the most
distinguished of their time, have not scorned to square accounts with
their bookseller.

_Captain. (Sings._)

"O if it were a mean thing,
The gentles would not use it;
And if it were ungodly,
The clergy would refuse it."