Philip Freneau
Essays
ADVICE TO AUTHORS
BY THE LATE MR. ROBERT SLENDER*

There are few writers of books in this new world, and amongst these few that deal in works of imagination, and, I am sorry to say, fewer still that have any success attending their lucubrations. Perhaps, however, the world thinks justly on this subject. The productions of the most brilliant imagination are at best but mere beautiful flowers, that may amuse us in a walk through a garden in fine afternoon, but can by no means be expected to engage much of time which God and nature designed to be spent in very different employments. In a country, which two hundred years ago was peopled only by savages, and where the government has ever, in effect, since the first establishment of the white men in these parts, been no other than republican, it is really wonderful there should be any polite original authors at all in any line, especially when it is considered, that according to the common se of things, any particular nation or people must have arrived to, or rather passed, their meridian of opulence and refinement, before they consider the professors of the fine arts in any other light than a nuisance to the community. This is evidently the case at present in our age and country; all you have to do then, my good friends, is to graft your authorship upon some other calling, or support drooping genius by the assistance of some mechanical employment, in the same manner as the helpless ivy takes hold of the vigorous oak, and cleaves to it for support--I mean to say, in plain language, that you may make something by weaving garters, or mending old sails, when an Epic poem would be your utter destruction.
But I see no reason that, because we are all striving to live by the same idle trade, we should suffer ourselves to be imbittered against each other, like a fraternity of rival mechanics in the same street. Authors (such I mean as are not possessed of fortunes) are at present considered as the dregs of the community: their situation and prospects are truly humiliating, and any other sett of men in a similar state of calamitous adversity would unite together for their mutual defence, instead of worrying and lampooning each other for the amusement of the illiberal vulgar. --And I cannot do otherwise than freely declare, that where the whole profits of a company amount to little or nothing at all, there ought not, in the nature of things, to be any quarrelling about shares and dividends.
As to those authors who have lately exported themselves from Britain and Ireland, and boast that they have introduced the Muses among us since the conclusion of the late war, I really believe them to be a very good natured sett of gentlemen, notwithstanding they, in the course of the last winter, called me poetaster and scribbler, and some other names still more unsavoury. They are, however, excuseable in treating the American authors as inferiors; a political and a literary independence of their nation being two very different things--the first was accomplished in about seven years, the latter will not be completely effected, perhaps, in as many centuries. It is my opinion, nevertheless, that a duty ought to be laid upon all imported authors, the nett proceeds of which should be appropriated to the benefit of real American writers, when become old and helpless, and no longer able to wield the pen to advantage.
If a coach or a chariot constructed in Britain pays an impost of twenty pounds at the custom-house, why should not at least twice that sum be laid upon all imported authors who are able to do twice as much mischief with their rumbling pindaric odes, and gorgeous apparatus of strophes, antistrophes and recitativos? --I, for my own part, am clearly of opinion that these gentlemen should be taxed; not that I would wish to nip their buds of beauty with the untimely frost of excise, but merely to teach them that our own natural manufactures ought to be primarily attended to and encouraged.
I will now, gentlemen, with your leave, lay down a few simple rules, to which, in my opinion, every genuine author will make no difficulty to conform.
- When you write a book for the public, have nothing to do with Epistles dedicatory. They were first in-vented by slaves, and have been continued by fools and sycophants. I would not give a farthing more for a book on account of its being patronized by all the noblemen or crowned heads in Christendom. If it does not possess intrinsic merit enough to protect itself, and force its way through the world, their supposed protection will be of no avail: besides, by this ridiculous practice you degrade the dignity authorial, the honour of authorship, which ought evermore to be uppermost in your thoughts. The silly unthinking author addresses a great man in the stile of a servile dependent, whereas a real author, and a man of true genius, has upon all occasions a bold, disinterested and daring confidence in himself, and considers the common cant of adulation to the sons of fortune as the basest and most abominable of all prostitution.
- # Be particularly careful to avoid all connexion with doctors of law divinity, masters of arts, professors of colleges, and in general all that wear square black caps. A mere scholar and an original author are two animals as different from each as a fresh and salt water sailor. There has been an old rooted enmity between them from the earliest ages and which it is likely will forever continue. The scholar is not unlike that piddling orator, who, cold and inanimate, not roused into action by the impelling flame of inspiration, can only pronounce the oration he has learned by rote; the real author, on the contrary, is the nervous Demosthenes, who stored with an immensity of ideas, awakened within him he not how, has them at command upon every occasion; and must therefore be disregarded as a madman or an enthusiast by the narrow and limited capacity, as well as the natural self-sufficiency of the other.
- It is risquing a great deal to propose a subscription for an original work. The world will be ready enough to anticipate your best endeavours; and that which has been long and anxiously expected, rarely or never comes up to their expectations at last.
- If you are so poor that you are compelled to live in some miserable garretl or cottage; do not repine, but give thanks to heaven that you are not forced to pass your life in a tub, as was the fate of Diogenes of old. Few authors in any country are rich, because a man must first be reduced to a state of penury before he will commence author. Being poor therefore in externals, take care, gentlemen, that you say or do nothing that may argue a poverty of spirit. Riches, we have often heard, are by no means the standard of the value of a man. This maxim the world allows to be true, and yet contradicts it every hour and minute in the year. Fortune most commonly bestows wealth and abundance upon fools and idiots; and men of the dullest natural parts are, notwithstanding, generally calculated to acquire large estates, and hoard up immense sums from small beginnings.If you are so poor that you are compelled to live in some miserable garretl or cottage; do not repine, but give thanks to heaven that you are not forced to pass your life in a tub, as was the fate of Diogenes of old. Few authors in any country are rich, because a man must first be reduced to a state of penury before he will commence author. Being poor therefore in externals, take care, gentlemen, that you say or do nothing that may argue a poverty of spirit. Riches, we have often heard, are by no means the standard of the value of a man. This maxim the world allows to be true, and yet contradicts it every hour and minute in the year. Fortune most commonly bestows wealth and abundance upon fools and idiots; and men of the dullest natural parts are, notwithstanding, generally calculated to acquire large estates, and hoard up immense sums from small beginnings.
- # Never borrow money of any man, for if you should once be mean enough to fall into such a habit you will find yourselves unwelcome guests every where. If upon actual trial you are at length convinced you possess no abilities that will command the esteem, veneration or gratitude of mankind, apply yourselves without loss of time to some of the lower arts, since it is far more honourable to be a good bricklayer or a skilful weaver than an indifferent poet. --If you cannot at all exist without now and then gratifying your itch for scribbling, follow my example who can both weave stockings and write poems. --But, if really possess that sprightliness of fancy and elevation of soul which constitute an author, do not on that account be troublesome to your friends. A little reflection will point out other means to extract money from the hands and pockets of your fellow citizens than by poorly borrowing what, perhaps, you will never be able to repay.
- # Never engage in any business as an inferior or understrapper. I can not endure to see an author debase his profession so far as to submit to be second or third in any office or employment whatever. If fortune, or the ill taste of the public compels you even to turn shallopman on the Delaware, let it be your first care to have the command of the boat. Beggary itself, with all its hideous apparatus of rags and misery, becomes at once respectable whenever it exhibits the least token of independence of spirit and a single spark of laudable ambition.
- If you are in low circumstances, do not forget that there is such a thing in the world as a decent pride. They are only cowards and miscreants that poverty can render servile in their behaviour. Your haughtiness should always rise in proportion to the wretchedness and desperation of your circumstances. If you have only a single guinea in the world be complaisant and obliging to every one: if you are absolutely destitute of a shilling, immediately assume the air of a despot, pull off your hat to no one, let your discourse, in every company, turn upon the vanity of riches, the insignificancy of the great men of the earth, the revolution of empires, and the final consummation of all things. --By such means you will at least conceal a secret of some importance to yourself--that you have not a shilling in the world to pay for your last night's lodging.
- Should you ever be prevailed upon to dedicate your book to any great man or woman, consider first, whether the tenor and subject of it be such as may in some measure coincide with the age, temper, education, business and general conversation of the person whose patronage is requested. A friend of mine once committed a great error on this score. He wrote a bawdy poem, and dedicated it to the principal in the department of finance.
- Never make a present of your works to great men. If they do not think them worth purchasing, trust me, they will never think them worth reading.
- If fortune seems absolutely determined to starve you, and you can by no mewhatever make your works sell; to keep up as much as in you lies, the expiring dignity of authorship, do not take to drinking, gambling or bridge-building as some have done, thereby bringing the trade of authorship into disrepute; but retire to some uninhabited island or desert, and there, at your leisure, end your life with decency.
1788
Notes:*THIS TEXT IS REPRINTED FROM The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. Philip Freneau, Containing His Essays and Additional Poems (1788). THE NAME ROBERT SLENDER IS, OF COURSE, A PSEUDONYM.