The Rewards of Literature

Then as now, the 18th Century Literary Muse was a harsh mistress, whose amateurs knew little rest and less riches:

"I am every moment threatened to be turned out [of my lodgings] because I have not money to pay for my bed two nights past, which is usually paid beforehand... I hope therefore you will have the humanity to send me half a guinea for support, till I finish your papers in my hands. The ode on the British Nation I hope to have done today and want proof copy of that part of Stowe you'd choose for the present magazine, that it may be compressed as far as possible...

I humbly entreat your answer, having not tasted anything since Tuesday evening I came in here, and my coat will be taken off my back, for the charge of the bed. So that I must go into prison naked, which is too shocking for me to think of."

[Poet Samuel Boyse, written to a printer/publisher Edward Cave]

Boyse wasn't exaggerating his penury. Engaged in an almost constant circuit between his lodgings and the pawn shop, he often had to go shirtless: at which times he would cut paper into strips and bind them round his wrists and neck to resemble the collar and cuffs he was lacking.

As a young man Samuel Johnson, a friend of Boyse, once scrimped enough money to redeem all Boyse's clothes back - only to find that two days later, they'd been pawned once more.

Where I admire the man, is that he never lost a taste for luxury, or a sense that he deserved it. Johnson recalled of him that even when he was ill from hunger:

"And some money was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could not eat it without ketchup, and laid out the last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed, too, for want of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in."