The literary bohemians of London three hundred years ago were an impecunious and jealous lot of human pismires, who built their dens, carried their loads, and were filled with vaulting ambition just the same as we see them to-day.
The hack-writer for publishers, the actor for theatrical managers and the author of growing renown belonged to clubs and tavern coteries, pushing their way up the rocky heights of fame, and struggling, as now, for bread, clothes and shelter, many of the Bacchanalian creatures dying from hunger at the foothills of their ambition; and instead of winning a niche in the columned aisles of Westminster Abbey, dropped dead in some back alley or gloomy garret, to be carted away by the Beadle to the voracious Potter's field.
They often courted Dame Suicide, who never fails to relieve the wicked, wretched, insane or desperate from their intolerable situation.
"Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Content and beggary hang upon thy back;
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law!"
How often at the Miter or Falcon taverns have I seen these little great literary men swell like a toad or puff like a pigeon at the flattery bestowed on them by fawning bohemians, meaner than themselves, who sought a midnight snack and a tankard of foaming ale.
Of all the despicable and miserable creatures I have ever known it is the poor starving devil, with latent genius, who attempts to pay court to a cad, snob, or drunken lord around the refuse of literary or sporting clubs in midnight hours.
William was always very kind to these threadbare wanderers, and although they often gave him pen prods behind his back, he never betrayed any recognition of their envious stings, but like the lion in his jungle, brushed these busy bees away by the underbrush of his philosophy.
He mildly rebuked their pretense, but relieved their immediate wants, impressing upon them the study of Nature and not the blandishments of art, having the appearance of Oriental porcelain or Phœnician glass, when it was really crude crockery painted to deceive the sight and auctioned off to the unwary purchaser as genuine material.
How many authors, artists and actors of to-day follow in the path of their London ancestors who blow, and brag, and strut in midnight clubs and taverns to the pity and disgust of their table tooters.
Speaking one evening at the Red Lion, in the rooms of Florio, I asked William how it was that his plays were so successful, while those of other authors had almost been banished from the dramatic boards. He at once replied: