When I proposed that we should enter into terms of agreement, he gave me to understand that his bargains were always conditional, and his authors paid in proportion to the sale of their works.
"Having therefore settled these conditions, which (I do assure you) were not very advantageous to me, he assigned me a subject for ballad, which was to be finished in two hours; and I retired to my garret in order to perform his injunction.

As the theme happened to suit my fancy, I completed a pretty sort of an ode within the time prescribed, and brought it to him, big with hope of profit and applause.

He read it in a twinkling, and, to my utter astonishment, told me it would not do; though indeed he owned I wrote a good hand, an spelled very well, but my language was too high flown, and of consequence not at all adapted to the capacity and taste of his customers.

I promised to rectify that mistake and in half an hour humbled my style to the comprehension of vulgar readers; he approved of the alteration, and gave me some hopes of succeeding in time, though he observed that my performance was very deficient in the quaintness of expression that pleases the multitude: however, to encourage me, he ventured the expense of printing and paper, and, if I remember aright, my share of the sale amounted to fourpence halfpenny.
"From that day I studied the Grub Street manner with great diligence, and at length became such a proficient that my works were in great request among the most polite of the chairmen, draymen, hackney-coachmen, footmen, and servant maids: nay, I have enjoyed the pleasure of seeing my productions adorned with cuts, pasted upon the walls as ornaments in beer cellars and cobblers' stalls; and have actually heard them sung in clubs of substantial tradesmen--but empty praise (you know, my dear friend) will not supply the cravings nature.
I found myself in danger of starving in the midst of all my fame; for of ten songs I composed, it was well if two had the good fortune to please.
For this reason I turned my thoughts to prose, and, during a tract of gloomy weather, published an apparition, on the substance of which I subsisted very comfortably a whole month; I have made many a good meal upon a monster; a rape has often afforded me great satisfaction; but a murder, well timed, was my never-failing resource.

What then?
I was almost a slave to my employers, who expected to be furnished at a minute's warning with prose and verse, just as they thought the circumstances of the times required, whether the inclination was absent or present.