It was this feeling which provoked such intense indignation in the
trade against the publishers who took advantage of their strict legal
rights to invade what was generally regarded as the property of their
brethren; while the sense of what was due to the credit, as well as to
the interest, of a great organized body, made the associated
booksellers zealous in the promotion of all enterprises likely to add to
the fame of English literature.
Again, there was something, in the best sense of the word, aristocratic
in the position of literature itself. Patronage, indeed, had declined.
The patron of the early days of the century, who, like Halifax, sought
in the Universities or in the London Coffee-houses for literary talent
to strengthen the ranks of political party, had disappeared, together
with the later and inferior order of patron, who, after the manner of
Bubb Dodington, nattered his social pride by maintaining a retinue of
poetical clients at his country seat. The nobility themselves, absorbed
in politics or pleasure, cared far less for letters than their fathers
in the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges.
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