"Something rotten in the State of Denmark?" said the other. "Truly there is! Shakspeare may have unfeignedly admired Southampton and Spenser Sidney; but the relation between Patron and Client has degenerated into Something unworthy of free, upright Minds. Does my Thought jump with yours?"
"It does, I confess to you. I am poor; most of our Fraternity are. I am cut off from my professional Duties, and have employed a Season of Leisure, and cheated some Hours of Languor, by what, it must be owned, I composed for downright Pleasure rather than for Gain. Yet a Man does not willingly let his cherished Thoughts die."
"Certainly not."
"Therefore I aspired to see mine in Print; inscribed not to some bloated Peer, more competent to decide on the Merits of a Pipe of Bordeaux than of an Ode by Horace, but to some one whose Genius and turn of Thought I sincerely admired."
"Mr. Fenwick, have you a private Fortune?"
"Oh no, Sir ... only a poor Curacy of fifty Pounds a Year."
"Your Tastes are expensive, let me tell you, for a poor Man. Had you writ your Dedication to my Lord Earlstoke instead of to me, he might have given you twenty Pounds!"
"I would rather have burned my Poem."
"Sir Charles Sefton might have given you thirty."