Note 48 — LITERARY IMPOSTURES.

Fielding, the novelist, in The Author's Farce, one of those slight plays which he wrote so cleverly, has used this incident, probably from his acquaintance with Hill's trick. He introduces his author trying to sell a translation of the Æneid, which the bookseller will not purchase; but after some conversation offers him "employ" in the house as a translator; he then is compelled to own himself "not qualified," because he "understands no language but his own." "What! and translate Virgil!" exclaims the astonished bookseller. The detected author answers despondingly, "Alas! sir, I translated him out of Dryden!" The bookseller joyfully exclaims, "Not qualified! If I was an Emperor, thou should'st be my Prime Minister! Thou art as well vers'd in thy trade as if thou had'st laboured in my garret these ten years!"