My Literary Life

The ups and downs of the professional writer in society continue to disturb us. From the time that the emphasis was put on that word professional, the days of the opening of Grub Street, with people such as Steele, Goldsmith and Johnson as its representatives, the writer was set down as a hack. The eighteenth century treated him much as we treat cub reporters on provincial papers today—or with even less respect. Scribblers were indeed seated below the salt! If possible, they were considered of lower status than those “rogues and vagabonds”, the actors and actresses, contemporaries of David Garrick and later of Mrs. Siddons.