eater number, I suppose, of those who write books
at all, write in order that I may have something to read in my old age
when I can write no longer. I know what I shall like better than any one
can tell me, and write accordingly; if my career is nipped in the bud, as
seems only too likely, I really do not know where else I can turn for
present agreeable occupation, nor yet how to make suitable provision for
my later years. Other writers can, of course, make excellent provision
for their own old ages, but they cannot do so for mine, any more than I
should succeed if I were to try to cater for theirs. It is one of those
cases in which no man can make agreement for his brother.

I have no heart for continuing this article, and if I had, I have nothing
of interest to say. No one's literary career can have been smoother or
more unchequered than mine. I have published all my books at my own
expense, and paid for them in due course. What can be conceivably more
unromantic? For some years I had a little literary grievance against the
authorities of the British Museum because they would insist on saying in
their catalogue that I had published three sermons on Infidelity in the
year 1820. I thought I had not, and got them out to see. They were
rather funny, but they were not mine. Now, however, this grievance has
been removed. I had another little quarrel with them because they would
describe me as "of St. John's College, Cambridge," an establishment for
which I have the most profound veneration, but with which I have not had
the honour to be connected for some quarter of a century. At last they
said they would change this description if I would only tell them what I
was, for, though they had done their best to find out, they had
themselves failed. I replied with modest pride that I was a Bachelor of
Arts. I keep all my other letters inside my name, not outside. They
mused and said it was unfortunate that I was not a Master of Arts. Could
I not get myself made a Master? I said I understood that a Mastership
was an article the University could not do under about five pounds, and
that I was not disposed to go sixpence higher than three ten. They again
said it was a pity, for it would be very inconvenient to them if I did
not keep to something between a bishop and a poet. I might be anything I
liked in reason, provided I showed proper respect for the alphabet; but
they had got me between "Samuel Butler, bishop," and