ump, and rather contemptuously (like 'reading, writing, and
arithmetic'), and have no settled position whatever. In a book of
precedence, however--a charming class of work, and much more full of
humour than the peerage--I recently found indicated for the first time
the relative place of Literature in the social scale. After a long list
of Eminent Personages and Notables, the mere perusal of which was
calculated to bring the flush of pride into my British cheek, I found at
the very bottom these remarkable words, 'Burgesses, Literary Persons,
and others.' Lest haughtiness should still have any place in the breasts
of these penultimates of the human race, the order was repeated in the
same delightful volume in still plainer fashion, 'Burgesses, Literary
Persons, etc.' It is something, of course, to take precedence--in going
down to dinner, for example--even of an et cetera; but who are
Burgesses? I have a dreadful suspicion they are not gentlemen. Are they
ladies? Did I ever meet a Burgess, I wonder, coming through the rye? At
all events, after so authoritative a statement of its social position, I
feel that to speak of Literature as a profession would be an hyperbole.

On the other hand, 'The Literary Calling' is not a title that satisfies
me. For the word 'calling' implies a certain fitness; in the religious
sense it has even more significance; and it cannot be denied that there
are a good many persons who devote--well, at least, their time to
literature, who can hardly be said to have 'a call' in that direction,
nor even so much as a whisper. At the same time I will venture to
observe, notwithstanding a great deal of high-sounding twaddle talked
and written to the contrary, that it is not necessary for a man to feel
any miraculous or even extraordinary attraction to this pursuit to
succeed in it very tolerably. I remember a now distinguished personage
(in another line) who had written a very successful work, expressing his
opinion to me that unless a certain divine afflatus animated a man, he
should never take up his pen to address the public. The writing for pay,
he added (he had at least L5,000 a year of his own), was the degradation
of literature. As I had written about a dozen books myself at the time,
and most decidedly with an eye to profit, and had never experienced much
afflatus, this remark discouraged me very much. However, as the
gentleman in question did essay another volume, which was so absolute
and distinc