When they want business, he either finds
employment for them in his own service, or recommends them to
booksellers to execute some project he has formed for their
subsistence. They are always welcome to his table (which though
plain, is plentiful) and to his good offices as far as they will
go, and when they see Occasion, they make use of his name with
the most petulant familiarity; nay, they do not even scruple to
arrogate to themselves the merit of some of his performances, and
have been known to sell their own lucubrations as the produce of
his brain. The Scotchman you saw at dinner once personated him at
an alehouse in West-Smithfield and, in the character of S--, had
his head broke by a cow-keeper, for having spoke disrespectfully
of the Christian religion; but he took the law of him in his own
person, and the assailant was fain to give him ten pounds to
withdraw his action.'
I observed, that all this appearance of liberality on the side of
Mr S-- was easily accounted for, on the supposition that they
flattered him in private, and engaged his adversaries in public;
and yet I was astonished, when I recollected that I often had
seen this writer virulently abused in papers, poems, and
pamphlets, and not a pen was drawn in his defence 'But you will
be more astonished (said he) when I assure you, those very guests
whom you saw at his table to-day, were the authors of great part
of that abuse; and he himself is well aware of their particular
favours, for they are all eager to detect and betray one
another.
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