a sequence like that of The Edinburgh and
Quarterly Reviews. These two were the first,
and till The Edinburgh Review, the leading
representatives of literary criticism. Both of them were
edited by the publishers. Griffiths, in particular,
is famous as the taskmaster of Goldsmith. When
a publisher has to do with a man of genius,
especially with a man of genius over whom it is
proper to be sentimental, he may be pretty certain
of contemptuous treatment by the biographers of
his client. Yet it is possible than even Griffiths
had something to say for himself, and that if he
was a hard master, Goldsmith may not have been a
very business-like subordinate. Still, as Griffiths
is said to have made £2000 a year by a venture
to which Goldsmith only owed a bare escape
from starvation, the printer may have been of
opinion that the immediate profit was worth a
good deal of posthumous abuse. However this
may be, it is noticeable that the men of letters
who appear in Boswell's great portrait gallery had
no haven of editorship to drift into. They might
be employed by the publisher of a magazine, and
no doubt their drudgery would involve some of
the work of a modern editor. But there was no
such pillow for the wearied author as a regular
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THE EVOLUTION OF EDITORS
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