ABSTRACT
Old Grub Street was poverty-stricken, but it was neither hopeless nor joyless. The children of this stony-hearted stepmother were merry enough, no doubt, in spite ofMr Pope, for their quarrel with him made them conspicuous, and they must have known that there was not in all their quivers so leaden a shaft but it pierced Pope's mail, and rankled in his vanity. Great men have sojourned in Grub Street; they have admitted that it was grubby; but even DrJohnson does not say that it was permanently gloomy. This chief of literary hacks did his work, which was usually job-work, and took his pay, and grumbled not, but consistently spoke well of the booksellers. In brie£: of old time Grub Street was a section ofhuman life on a low level, but the sun shone into the garrets. English Mimis and Musettes were visitors not unknown; Hope abode in it, and sometimes Fortune arrived with fame or a modest competence in her hands. At worst the work done was work in letters, and, toilsome and precarious as it might be, of letters it had the charm and the consolation.
