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SOME NOTICE
OF THE
MERCHANTS are not much given to the making of books. Few merchants
They seldom leave behind them any of their own compos- ai
ing, save their cash books and their ledgers. There can
scarcely be named a merchant in the ranks of literary
writers, except Rogers, author of the " Pleasures of Memory "
and other poems, rather satirically described by Byron as
" the bard, the beau, the banker."
But a banker is not a merchant, and often gives no more
to the bank than his money and his name, and employs
his time and his leisure as he likes.
Whence comes this disinclination to literary labour ? It
is not so much perhaps that the merchant's mind is too
absorbed in business to leave him leisure as that it would
detract from his character to be suspected of literary pur-
suits.
Poetry was at one time held to be as derogatory to a lawyer.
Sir Richard Cox had a strong bent to poetry (says Walter
Harris). He wrote some lines on the death, in 1G96, of
Lord Chancellor Porter, Sir Richard being at that time a
Judge of the Common Pleas. But his verses being transmitted
to his friend and patron, Sir Robert Southwell, Sir
Robert wrote in reply that poetry was not the way to pre-
ferment, but a weed in a judge's garden.
Poetry is classed among the liberal arts. If there be
illiberal ones perhaps they may be those having the direct
pursuit
of wealth for their aim.
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