Chapter 58

Arlington Street, Jan. 3, 1761. (page 107)

Sir, I stayed till I had the Lucan ready to send you, before I thanked you for your letter, and for the pane of glass, about which you have given yourself so much kind trouble, and which I have received; I think it is clearly Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Illuminated MSS., unless they have portraits of particular persons, I do not deal in; the extent of my collecting is already full asgreat as I can afford. I am not the less obliged to you, Sir, for thinking Of me. Were my fortune larger, I should go deeper into printing, and having engraved curious MSS. and drawings; as I cannot, I comfort myself with reflecting on the mortifications I avoid, by the little regard shown by the world to those sort of things. The sums laid out on books one should, at first sight, think an indication of encouragement to letters; but booksellers only are encouraged, not books. Bodies of sciences, that is, compilations and mangled abstracts, are the only saleable commodities. Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill(121) earned fifteen guineas a-week by working for wholesale dealers: he was at once employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, etc. published weekly. I am sorry to say, this journeyman is one of the first men preferred in the new reign: he is made gardener of Kensington, a place worth two thousand pounds a-year.(122) The King and lord Bute have certainly both of them great propensity to the arts; but Dr. Hill, though undoubtedly not deficient in parts, has as little claim to favour in this reign, as Gideon, the stock-jobber, in the last; both engrossers without merit. Building, I am told, is the King's favourite study; I hope our architects will not be taken from the erectors of turnpikes.

(121) Dr. Hill's were among the first works in which scientific knowledge was put in a popular shape, by the system of number publishing. The Doctor's performances in this way are not discreditable, and are still useful as works of reference.-C.

(122) This was an exaggeration of the emoluments of a place, which, after all was not improperly bestowed on a person of his pursuits and merits.-C.