At last I began to write, and as I finished any section of my book, read it to such of my friends, as were most skilful in the matter which it treated.  None of them were satisfied; one disliked the disposition of the parts, another the colours of the style; one advised me to enlarge, another to abridge.  I resolved to read no more, but to take my own way and write on, for by consultation I only perplexed my thoughts and retarded my work.

The book was at last finished, and I did not doubt but my labour would be repaid by profit, and my ambition satisfied with honours.  I considered that natural history is neither temporary nor local, and that though I limited my inquiries to my own country, yet every part of the earth has productions common to all the rest.  Civil history may be partially studied, the revolutions of one nation may be neglected by another; but after that in which all have an interest, all must be inquisitive.  No man can have sunk so far into stupidity as not to consider the properties of the ground on which he walks, of the plants on which he feeds, or the animals that delight his ear, or amuse his eye; and, therefore, I computed that universal curiosity would call for many editions of my book, and that in five years I should gain fifteen thousand pounds by the sale of thirty thousand copies.

When I began to write, I insured the house; and suffered the utmost solicitude when I entrusted my book to the carrier, though I had secured it against mischances by lodging two transcripts in different places.  At my arrival, I expected that the patrons of learning would contend for the honour of a dedication, and resolved to maintain the dignity of letters, by a haughty contempt of pecuniary solicitations.

I took my lodgings near the house of the Royal Society, and expected every morning a visit from the president.  I walked in the Park, and wondered that I overheard no mention of the great naturalist.  At last I visited a noble earl, and told him of my work:  he answered, that he was under an engagement never to subscribe.  I was angry to have that refused which I did not mean to ask, and concealed my design of making him immortal.  I went next day to another, and, in resentment of my late affront, offered to prefix his name to my new book.  He said, coldly, that he did not understand those things; another thought, there were too many books; and another would talk with me when the races were over.

Being amazed to find a man of learning so indecently slighted, I resolved to indulge the philosophical pride of retirement and independence.  I then sent to some of the principal booksellers the plan of my book, and bespoke a large room in the next tavern, that I might more commodiously see them together, and enjoy the contest, while they were outbidding one another.  I drank my coffee, and yet nobody was come; at last I received a note from one, to tell me that he was going out of town; and from another, that natural history was out of his way.  At last there came a grave man, who desired to see the work, and, without opening it, told me, that a book of that size would never do.