Note 780 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

And the servility was, for the most part, well paid; indeed, rewarded far more than it was worth. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early part of the eighteenth century, a sum of money was invariably presented to the author in return for his dedication. Of course, the grosser the flattery, the larger the sum. On the relation thus established between authors and men of rank, and on the eagerness with which even eminent writers looked to their patrons for gratuities, varying from 40s. to 100l., see Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, 1817, 4to. vol. ii. p. 225; Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. i. pp. 194, 309; Whiston's Memoirs, p. 203; Nichols's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 709; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. iii. p. 35; Bunbury's Life of Hanmer, p. 81. Compare a note in Burton's Diary, vol. iii. p. 52; and as to the importance of fixing on a proper person to whom to dedicate, see Ellis's Letters Lit. Men, pp. 231–234; and the matter-of-fact remark in Bishop Newton's Life, p. 14; also, Hughes's Letters, edit. 1773, vol. iii. p. xxxi. appendix.

About the middle of the eighteenth century was the turning-point of this deplorable condition; and Watson, for instance, in 1769, laid it down as a rule, ‘never to dedicate to those from whom I expected favours.’ Watson's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 54. So, too, Warburton, in 1758, boasts that his dedication was not, as usual, ‘occupied by trifles or falsehoods.’ See his letter, in Chatham Correspond. vol. i. p. 315. Nearly at the same period, the same change was effected in France, where D'Alembert set the example of ridiculing the old custom. See Brougham's Men of Letters, vol. ii. pp. 439, 440; Correspond. de Madame Dudeffand, vol. ii. p. 148; and Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xl. p. 41, vol. lxi. p. 285.