E.

There is much private history which will never come to light, _caret quia
vate sacro_,[442] because no Budgeteer comes across it. Many years ago a
man of business, whose life was passed in banking, amused his leisure with
quadrature, was successful of course, and bequeathed the result in a sealed
book, which the legatee was enjoined not to sell {279} under a thousand
pounds. The true ratio was 3.1416: I have the anecdote from the legatee's
executor, who opened the book. That a banker should square the circle is
very credible: but how could a City man come by the notion that a thousand
pounds could be got for it? A friend of mine, one of the twins of my
zodiac, will spend a thousand pounds, if he have not done it already, in
black and white cyclometry: but I will answer for it that he, a man of
sound business notions, never entertained the idea of [pi] recouping him,
as they now say. I speak of individual success: of course if a company were
formed, especially if it were of unlimited lie-ability, the shares would be
taken. No offence; there is nothing but what a pun will either sanctify,
justify, or nullify:

"It comes o'er the soul like the sweet South
That breathes upon a bank of _vile hits_."

The shares would be at a premium of 3-1/8 on the day after issue. If they
presented me with the number of shares I deserve, for suggestion and
advertisement, I should stand up for the Archpriest of St. Vitus[443] and
3-1/5, with a view to a little more gold on the bridge.

I now insert a couple of reviews, one about Cyclopaedias, one about
epistolary collections. Should any reader wish for explanation of this
insertion, I ask him to reflect a moment, and imagine me set to justify all
the additions now before him! In truth these reviews are the repositories
of many odds and ends: they were not made to the books; the materials were
in my notes, and the books came as to a ready-made clothes shop, and found
what would fit them. Many remember Curll's[444] bequest of some very good
titles {280} which only wanted treatises written to them. Well! here were
some tolerable reviews--as times go--which only wanted books fitted to
them. Accordingly, some tags were made to join on the books; and then as
the reader sees.

I should find it hard to explain why the insertion is made in this place
rather than another. But again, suppose I were put to make such an
explanation throughout the volume. The improver who laid out grounds and