Some men write their lives to save themselves from ennui, careless of the amount they inflict on their readers. <br />Others write their personal history, lest some kind friend should survive them, and, in showing off his own talent, unwittingly show them up. <br />Others, again, write their own life from a different motive—from fear that the vampires of literature might make it their prey. <br />I have frequently had applications to write my life, both from my countrymen and from foreigners. Some caterers for the public offered to pay me for it. Others required that I should pay them for its insertion; others offered to insert it without charge. One proposed to give me a quarter of a column gratis, and as many additional lines of eloge as I chose to write and pay for at ten-pence per line. To many of these I sent a list of my works, with the remark that they formed the best life of an author; but nobody cared to insert them. <br />I have no desire to write my own biography, as long as
