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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

type of political jobbery, was 'a very honest man.' This, as Dodington's account of him shows—with no sense of incongruity was—quite compatible with a readiness to sell himself to any party. It only meant that he kept the bargain for the time. Honesty, that is, did not imply so quixotic a principle as adherence to political principles, but adherence for the time being to the man who had bought you; and even that naturally appeared an exceptionally lofty strain to Dodington. Ralph himself complains bitterly of the niggardly patronage of literature, but he ended with a pension of £600 a year. Among his allies and enemies were men like Amhurst and Arnall and Concanen and others, who, chiefly again through references in the Dunciad, have got their names into biographical dictionaries. Some of them gained humble rewards. Amhurst, a clever writer, who began, like Shelley, by expulsion from Oxford, seems to represent the nearest approach to the modern editor. As 'Caleb Danvers,' imaginary author of The Craftsman, he received the most brilliant political writing of the day from Bolingbroke, Pulteney, and the 'patriots'; and Ralph declares that he died of a broken heart when, upon Walpole's fall, his services met with no reward