g
answer, to which I take the liberty of prefixing a bit of leonine wisdom:

"Si doceas stultum, laetum non dat tibi vultum;
Odit te multum; vellet te scire sepultum.[658]"

"Sir,--I pray you pardon the error I unintentionally have fallen into;
deceived by the F.R.S. [I am not F.R.S.] I took you to be a man of science
[_omnis homo est animal, Sortes est homo, ergo Sortes est animal_][659]
instead of the mere mathematician, or human calculating-machine. Believe
me, Sir, you also have mistaken your mission, as I have mine. I wrote to
you as I would to any other man well up in mathematics, with the intent to
call your attention to a singular fact of omission by Euclid, and other
great mathematicians: and, in selecting you, I did you an honor which, from
what I have just now heard, was entirely out of place. I think, considering
the nature of the work set forth in the prospectus, you are guilty of both
folly and presumption, in assuming the character of a patron; for your own
sense ought to have assured you that was such my object I should not have
sought him in a De Morgan, who exists only by patronage of others. On the
other hand, I deem it to be an unpardonable piece of presumption in
offering your advice upon a subject the magnitude, importance, and real
utility of which you know nothing about: by doing so you have offered me a
direct insult. The system is a manual of Philosophy, a one inseparable
whole of metaphysics and physic; embracing points the most interesting,
laws the most important, {359} doctrines the most essential to advance man
in accordance with the spirit of the times. I may not live to see it in
print; for, at ----, life at best is uncertain: but, live or die, be
assured Sir, it is not my intention to debase the work by seeking
patronage, or pandering to the public taste. Your advice was the less
needed, seeing I am an old-established ----. I remain, etc.--P.S. You will
oblige me by returning the prospectus of my work."

My reader will, I am sure, not take this transition from the "profoundest
respect" to the loftiest insolence for an _apocraphical_ correspondence, to
use a word I find in the Prospectus: on my honor it is genuine. He will be
better employed in discovering whether I exist by patronizing others, or by
being patronized by them. I make any one who can find it out a fair offer:
I will give him my patronage if I turn out to be Bufo, on condition he
gives me his, if I turn out to be Ba