We are constantly told that regard to the interests of science requires that we should protect and enlarge the rights of authors; but does science make any such claim for herself? I doubt it. Men who make additions to science know well that they have, and can have, no rights whatever. Cuvier died very poor, and all the copyright that could have been given to him or Humboldt would not have enriched either the one or the other. Laplace knew well that his great work could yield him nothing. Our own Bowditch translated it as a labor of love, and left by his will the means required for its publication. The gentlemen who advocate the interests of science are literary men who use the facts and ideas furnished by scientific men, paying nothing for their use. Now, literature is a most honorable profession, and the gentlemen engaged in it are entitled not only to the respect and consideration of their fellow-men, but also to the protection of the law; but in granting it, the legislator is bound to recollect, that justice to the men who furnish the raw materials of books, and justice to the community that owns those raw materials, require that protection shall not, either in point of space or time, be greater than is required for giving the producer of books a full and fair compensation for his labor. How the present system operates in regard to English and American authors, I propose to consider in another letter.



LETTER III.

We are assured that justice requires the admission of foreign authors to the privilege of copyright, and in support of the claim that she presents are frequently informed of the extreme poverty of many highly popular English writers. Mrs. Inchbald, so well known as author of the "Simple Story" and other novels, as well as in her capacity of editor, dragged on, as we are told, to the age of sixty, a miserable existence, living always in mean lodgings, and suffering frequently from want of the common comforts of life. Lady Morgan, so well known as Miss Owenson, a brilliant and accomplished woman, is now to some extent dependent upon the public charity, administered in the form of a pension of less than five hundred dollars a year. Mrs. Hemans, the universally admired poetess, lived and died in poverty. Laman Blanchard lost his senses and committed suicide in consequence of being compelled, by his extreme poverty, to the effort of writing an article for a periodical while his wife lay a corpse in the house. Miss Mitford, so well known to all of us, found herself, after a life of close economy, so greatly reduced as to have been under the necessity of applying to her American readers for means to extricate her little property from the rude hands of the sheriff. Like Lady Morgan, she is now a public pensioner. Leigh Hunt is likewise dependent on the public charity. Tom Hood, so well known by his "Song of a Shirt"—the delight of his readers, and a mine of wealth to his publishers; a man without vices, and of untiring industry—lived always from day to day on the produce of his labor. On his death-bed, when his lungs were so worn with consumption that he could breathe only through a silver tube, he was obliged to be propped up with pillows, and, with shaking hand and dizzy head, force himself to the task of amusing his readers, that he might thereby obtain bread for his unhappy wife and children. With all his reputation, Moore found it difficult to support his family, and all the comfort of his declining years was due to the charity of his friend, Lord Lansdowne. In one of his letters from Germany, Campbell expresses himself transported with joy at hearing that a double edition of his poems had just been published in London. "This unexpected fifty pounds," says he, "saves me from jail." Haynes Bayley died in extreme poverty. Similar statements are furnished us in relation to numerous others who have, by the use of their pens, largely contributed to the enjoyment and instruction of the people of Great Britain. It would, indeed, be difficult to find very many cases in which it had been otherwise with persons exclusively dependent on the produce of literary labor. With few and brilliant exceptions, their condition appears to have been, and to be, one of almost hopeless poverty. Scarcely any thing short of this, indeed, would induce the acceptance of the public charity that is occasionally doled out in the form of pensions on the literary fund.

This is certainly an extraordinary state of things, and one that makes to our charitable feelings an appeal that is almost irresistible. Nevertheless, before giving way to such feelings, it would be proper to examine into the real cause of all this poverty, with a view to satisfy ourselves if real charity would carry us in the direction now proposed. The skilful physician always studies the cause of disease before he determines on the remedy, and this course is quite as necessary in prescribing for moral as for physical disorder. Failing to do this, we might increase instead of diminishing the evil, and might find at last that we had been taxing ourselves in vain.

What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universality of property in the clothing they supply for the body that is furnished to the world by other and unpaid men; and an examination of the course of proceeding in that country for the last century and a half shows that each step that has been taken has been in that direction. While denying to the producers of facts and ideas any right whatsoever, every act of legislation has tended to give more and more control over their dissemination to men who appropriated them to their own use, and brought them in an attractive form before the reader. Early in the last century was passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to have a monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt in coming before the world. The number of persons then living in England and Wales, and subjected to that monopoly, was about five millions. Since that time the field of its operation has been enlarged, until it now embraces not only England and Wales, but Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies, containing probably thirty-two millions of people who use the English language. The time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches forty-two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted. Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an Englishman dependent upon literary pursuits for support. Such men are almost universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson and Sir Francis Head for instance, gladly accept the public charity, in the form of pensions for less than five hundred dollars a year. This is not a consequence of limitation in the field of action, for that is six times greater than it was when Gay netted L1,600 from a single opera, and Pope received L6,000 for his "Homer;" five times greater than when Fielding had L1,000 for his "Amelia;" and four times more than when Robertson had L4,500 for his "Charles V.," Gibbon L5,000 for the second part of his history, and McPherson L1,200 for his "Ossian."[1] Since that time money has become greatly more abundant and less valuable; and if we desired to compare the reward of these authors with those of the present day, the former should be trebled in amount, which would give Robertson more than sixty thousand dollars for a work that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes of very moderate size. It is not a consequence of limitation of time, for that has grown from fourteen to forty-two years—more than is required for any book except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand. It should not be a consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure us that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent its too rapid growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for enabling the people of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast accumulations. What, then, is the cause of disease? Why is it that in so wealthy a nation literary men and women are so generally poor that it should be required to bring their poverty before the world, to aid in the demand for an extension to other countries of the monopoly so well secured at home? In that country the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being the case, an average contribution of a shilling a head towards paying for the copyright of books, would seem to be the merest trifle to be given in return for the pleasure and the instruction derived from the perusal of the works of English authors, and yet even that small sum does not appear to be paid. Thirty-two millions of shillings make almost eight millions of dollars; a sum sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than thirteen thousand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the chief magistrate of our Union. Admitting, however, that there were a thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly cover them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or one third more than we have been accustomed to allow to men who have devoted their lives to the service of the public, and have at length risen to be Secretaries of State. If English authors were thus largely paid, it would be deemed an absurdity to ask an enlargement of their monopoly; but, as they are not thus paid, it is asked. There is probably but a single literary man in England that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted if it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal $6,000; while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500, and very many of them greatly under it. Even were we to increase the number of authors to fifteen hundred, one to every 4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in the kingdom, and to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would require but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done by an average contribution of five pence per head of the population, a wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a nation claiming to be the wealthiest in the world. A shilling a head would give to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries; and yet we see clever and industrious men, writers of eminence whose readers are to be found in every part of the civilized world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying with the knowledge that they are leaving widows and children to the "tender mercies" of a world in which they themselves have shone and starved. Viewing all these facts, it may, I think, well be doubted if the annual contributions of the people subject to the British copyright act for the support of the persons who produce their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head; and here it is that we are to find the real difficulty—one not to be removed by us. The home market is the important one, whether for words or things, and when that is bad but little benefit can be derived from any foreign one; and every effort to extend the latter will, under such circumstances, be found to result in disappointment. It can act only as a plaster to conceal the sore, while the sore itself becomes larger and more dangerous from day to day. To effect a cure, the sore itself must be examined and its cause removed. To cure the disease so prevalent among British authors we must first seek for the causes why the home market for the products of their labor is so very small, and that will be found in the steadily growing tendency towards centralization, so obvious in every part of the operations of the British empire. Centralization and civilization have in all countries, and at all periods of the world, been opposed to each other, and that such is here the case can, I think, readily be shown.

[Footnote 1: The several figures here given are from a statement in a British journal. Whether they are perfectly accurate, or not, I have no means of determining.]

Among the earliest cases in which this tendency was exhibited was that of the Union by which the kingdom of Scotland was reduced to the condition of a province of England, and Edinburgh, from being the capital of a nation, to becoming a mere provincial town. By many and enlightened Scotchmen a federal union would have been preferred; but a legislative one was formed, and from that date the whole public revenue of Scotland tended towards London, towards which tended also, and necessarily, all who sought for place, power, or distinction. An absentee government produced, of course, absentee landholders, and with each step in this direction there was a diminution in the demand at home for talent, which thenceforward sought a market in the great city to which the rents were sent. The connection between the educated classes of Scotland and the Scottish seats of learning tended necessarily to decline, while the connection between the former and the universities of England became more intimate. These results were, of course, gradually produced, but, as is the case with the stone as it falls towards the earth, the attraction of centralization grew with the growth of the city that was built out of the contributions of distant provinces, while the counteracting power of the latter as steadily declined, and the greater the decline the more rapid does its progress now become. Seventy years after the date of the Union, Edinburgh was still a great literary capital, and could then offer to the world the names of numerous men of whose reputation any country of the world might have been proud: Burns and McPherson; Robertson and Hume; Blair and Kames; Reid, Smith, and Stewart; Monboddo, Playfair, and Boswell; and numerous others, whose reputation has survived to the present day. Thirty-five years later, its press furnished the world with the works of Jeffrey and Brougham; Stewart, Brown, and Chalmers; Scott, Wilson, and Joanna Baillie; and with those of many others whose reputation was less widely spread, among whom were Galt, Hogg, Lockhart, and Miss Ferrier, the authoress of "Marriage." The "Edinburgh Review" and "Blackwood's Magazine," then, to a great extent, represented Scottish men, and Scottish modes of thought. Looking now on the same field of action, it is difficult, from this distance, to discover more than two Scottish authors, Alison and Sir William Hamilton, the latter all "the more conspicuous and remarkable, as he now," says the "North British Review" (Feb. 1853), "stands so nearly alone in the ebb of literary activity in Scotland, which has been so apparent during this generation." McCulloch and Macaulay were both, I believe, born in Scotland, but in all else they are English. Glasgow has recently presented the world with a new poet, in the person of Alexander Smith, but, unlike Ramsay and Burns, there is nothing Scottish about him beyond his place of birth. "It is not," says one of his reviewers, "Scottish scenery, Scottish history, Scottish character, and Scottish social humor, that he represents or depicts. Nor is there," it continues, "any trace in him of that feeling of intense nationality so common in Scottish writers. London," as it adds, "a green lane in Kent, an English forest, an English manorhouse, these are the scenes where the real business of the drama is transacted."[1]

[Footnote 1: North British Review, Aug. 1863.]

The "Edinburgh Review" has become to all intents and purposes an English journal, and "Blackwood" has lost all those characteristics by which it was in former times distinguished from the magazines published south of the Tweed.

Seeing these facts, we can scarcely fail to agree with the Review already quoted, in the admission that there are "probably fewer leading individual thinkers and literary guides in Scotland at present than at any other period of its history since the early part of the last century," since the day when Scotland itself lost its individuality. The same journal informs us that "there is now scarcely an instance of a Scotchman holding a learned position in any other country," and farther says that "the small number of names of literary Scotchmen known throughout Europe for eminence in literature and science is of itself sufficient to show to how great an extent the present race of Scotchmen have lost the position which their ancestors held in the world of letters." [1]

[Footnote 1: North British Review, May, 1853.]

How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Centralization tends to carry to London all the wealth and all the expenditure of the kingdom, and thus to destroy everywhere the local demand for books or newspapers, or for men capable of producing either. Centralization taxes the poor people of the north of Scotland, and their complaints of distress are answered by an order for their expulsion, that place may be made for sheep and shepherds, neither of whom make much demand for books. Centralization appropriates millions for the improvement of London and the creation of royal palaces and pleasure-grounds in and about that city, while Holyrood, and all other of the buildings with which Scottish history is connected, are allowed to go to ruin. Centralization gives libraries and museums to London, but it refuses the smallest aid to the science or literature of Scotland. Centralization deprives the people of the power to educate themselves, by drawing from them more than thirty millions of dollars, raised by taxation, and it leaves the professors in the colleges of Scotland in the enjoyment of chairs, the emoluments of many of which are but $1,200 per annum. Whence, then, can come the demand for books, or the power to compensate the people who make them? Not, assuredly, from the mass of unhappy people who occupy the Highlands, whose starving condition furnishes so frequent occasion for the comments of their literary countrymen; nor, as certainly, from the wretched inhabitants of the wynds of Glasgow, or from the weavers of Paisley. Centralization is gradually separating the people into two classes—the very rich, who live in London, and the very poor, who remain in Scotland; and with the progress of this division there is a gradual decay in the feeling of national pride, that formerly so much distinguished the people of Scotland. The London "Leader" tells its readers that "England is a power made up of conquests over nationalities;" and it is right. The nationality of Scotland has disappeared; and, however much it may annoy our Scottish friends[1] to have the energetic and intelligent Celt sunk in the "slow and unimpressible" Saxon, such is the tendency of English centralization, everywhere destructive of that national feeling which is essential to progress in civilization.

[Footnote 1: See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since the Union."]

Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century the demand for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a large portion of those produced in England. The kingdom of Ireland of that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however, demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that time famines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the whole population is now being expelled to make room for the "slow and unimpressible" Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of international copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and the consumers of books.

Passing towards England we may for a moment look to Wales, and then, if we desire to find the effects of centralization and its consequent absenteeism, in neglected schools, ignorant teachers, decaying and decayed churches, and drunken clergymen with immoral flocks, our object will be accomplished by studying the pages of the "Edinburgh Review" [2] In such a state of things as is there described there can be little tendency to the development of intellect, and little of either ability or inclination to reward the authors of books. In my next, I will look to England herself.

[Footnote 2: April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains."]



LETTER IV.

Arrived in England, we find there everywhere the same tendency towards centralization. Of the 200,000 small landed proprietors of the days of Adam Smith but few remain, and of even those the number is gradually diminishing. Great landed estates have everywhere absentees for owners, agents for managers, and day laborers for workmen. The small landowner was a resident, and had a personal interest in the details of the neighborhood, not now felt by either the owner or the laborer. This state of things existed to a considerable extent five-and-thirty years ago, but it has since grown with great rapidity. At that time Great Britain could exhibit to the world perhaps as large a body of men and women of letters, with world-wide reputation, as ever before existed in any country or nation, as will be seen from the following list:—

Byron, Wilson, Clarkson, Moore, Hallam, Landor, Scott, Roscoe, Wellington,[1] Wordsworth, Malthus, Robert Hall, Rogers, Ricardo, Taylor, Campbell, Mill, Romilly, Joanna Baillie, Chalmers, Edgeworth, Southey, Coleridge, Hannah More, Gifford, Heber, Dalton, Jeffrey, Bentham, Davy, Sydney Smith, Brown, Wollaston, Brougham, Mackintosh, The Herschels, Horner, Stewart, Dr. Clarke.

[Footnote 1: Wellington's dispatches place him in the first rank of historians.]

DeQuincey was then just coming on the stage. Crabbe, Shelley, Keats, Croly, Hazlitt, Lockhart, Lamb, Hunt, Galt, Lady Morgan, Miss Mitford, Horace Smith, Hook, Milman, Miss Austen, and a host of others, were already on it. Many of these appear to have received rewards far greater than fall now to the lot of some of the most distinguished literary men. Crabbe is said to have received 3,000 guineas, or $15,000, for his "Tales of the Hall," and Theodore Hook 2,000 guineas for "Sayings and Doings," and, if the facts were so, they prove that poets and novelists were far more valued then than now. At that time, Croker, Barrow, and numerous other men of literary reputation co-operated with Southey and Gifford in providing for the pages of the "Quarterly." All these, men and women, were the product of the last century, when the small landholders of England yet counted by hundreds of thousands.

Since then, centralization has made great progress. The landholders now amount, as we are informed, to only 30,000, and the gulf which separates the great proprietor from the cultivator has gradually widened, as the one has become more an absentee and the other more a day laborer. The greater the tendency towards the absorption of land by the wealthy banker and merchant, or the wealthy cotton-spinner like Sir Robert Peel, the greater is the tendency towards its abandonment by the small proprietor, who has an interest in local self government, and the greater the tendency towards the centralization of power in London and in the great seats of manufacture. In all those places, it is thought that the prosperity of England is dependent upon "a cheap and abundant supply of labor."[1] The "Times" assures its readers that it is "to the cheap labor of Ireland that England is indebted for all her great works;" and that note is repeated by a large portion of the literary men of England who now ask for protection in the American market against the effects of the system they so generally advocate.

[Footnote 1: North British Review, November, 1852.]

The more the people of Scotland can be driven from the land to take refuge in Glasgow and Paisley, the cheaper must be labor. The more those of Ireland can be driven to England, the greater must be the competition in the latter for employment, and the lower must be the price of labor. The more the land of England can be centralized, the greater must be the mass of people seeking employment in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and the cheaper must labor be.

Low-priced laborers cannot exercise self-government. All they earn is required for supplying themselves with indifferent food, clothing, and lodging, and they cannot control the expenditure of their wages to such extent as to enable them to educate their children, and hence it is that the condition of the people of England is as here described:—

"About one half of our poor can neither read nor write. The test of signing the name at marriage is a very imperfect absolute test of education, but it is a very good relative one: taking that test, how stands Leeds itself in the Registrar-General's returns? In Leeds, which is the centre of the movement for letting education remain as it is, left entirely to chance and charity to supply its deficiencies, how do we find the fact? This, that in 1846, the last year to which these returns are brought down, of 1,850 marriages celebrated in Leeds and Hunslet, 508 of the men and 1,020 of the women, or considerably more than one half of the latter, signed their names with marks. 'I have also a personal knowledge of this fact—that of 47 men employed upon a railway in this immediate neighborhood, only 14 can sign their names in the receipt of their wages; and this not because of any diffidence on their part, but positively because they cannot write.' And only lately, the "Leeds Mercury" itself gave a most striking instance of ignorance among persons from Boeotian Pudsey: of 12 witnesses, 'all of respectable appearance, examined before the Mayor of Bradford at the court-house there, only one man could sign his name, and that indifferently.' Mr. Neison has clearly shown, in statistics of crime in England and Wales from 1834 to 1844, that crime is invariably the most prevalent in those districts where the fewest numbers in proportion to the population can read and write. Is it not, indeed, beginning at the wrong end to try and reform men after they have become criminals? Yet you cannot begin with children, from want of schools. Poverty is the result of ignorance, and then ignorance is again the unhappy result of poverty. 'Ignorance makes men improvident and thoughtless—women as well as men; it makes them blind to the future— to the future of this life as well as the life beyond. It makes them dead to higher pleasures than those of the mere senses, and keeps them down to the level of the mere animal. Hence the enormous extent of drunkenness throughout this country, and the frightful waste of means which it involves.' At Bilston, amidst 20,000 people, there are but two struggling schools—one has lately ceased; at Millenhall, Darlaston, and Pelsall, amid a teeming population, no school whatever. In Oldham, among 100,000, but one public day-school for the laboring classes; the others are an infant-school, and some dame and factory schools. At Birmingham, there are 21,824 children at school, and 23,176 at no school; at Liverpool, 50,000 out of 90,000 at no school; at Leicester, 8,200 out of 12,500; and at Leeds itself, in 1841 (the date of the latest returns), some 9,600 out of 16,400 were at no school whatever. It is the same in the counties. 'I have seen it stated that a woman for some time had to officiate as clerk in a church in Norfolk, there being no adult male in the parish able to read and write.' For a population of 17,000,000 we have but twelve normal schools; while in Massachusetts they have three such schools for only 800,000 of population."

Poverty and ignorance produce intemperance and crime, and hence it is that both so much abound throughout England. Infanticide, as we are told, prevails to an extent unknown in any other part of the world. Looking at all these facts, we can readily see that the local demand for information throughout England must be very small, and this enables us to account for the extraordinary fact, that in all that country there has been no daily newspaper printed out of London. There is, consequently, no local demand for literary talent. The weekly papers that are published require little of the pen, but much of the scissors. The necessary consequence of this is, that every young man who fancies he can write, must go to London to seek a channel through which he may be enabled to come before the public. Here we have centralization again. Arrived in London, he finds a few daily papers, but only one, as we are told, that pays its expenses, and around each of them is a corps of writers and editors as ill-disposed to permit the introduction of any new laborers in their field as are the street-beggars of London to permit any interference with their "beat." If he desires to become contributor to the magazines, it is the same. To obtain the privilege of contributing his "cheap labor" to their pages, he must be well introduced, and if he make the attempt without such introduction he is treated with a degree of insolence scarcely to be imagined by any one not familiar with the "answers to correspondents" in London periodicals. If disposed to print a book he finds a very limited number of publishers, each one surrounded with his corps of authors and editors, and generally provided with a journal in which to have his own books well placed before the world. If, now, he succeeds in gaining favorable notice, he finds that he can obtain but a very small proportion of the price of his book, even if it sell, because centralization requires that all books shall be advertised in certain London journals that charge their own prices, and thus absorb the proceeds of no inconsiderable portion of the edition. Next, he finds the Chancellor of the Exchequer requiring a share of the proceeds of the book for permission to use paper, and further permission to advertise his work when printed.[1] Inquiring to what purpose are devoted the proceeds of all these taxes, he learns that the centralization which it is the object of the British cheap-labor policy to establish, requires the maintenance of large armies and large fleets which absorb more than all the profits of the commerce they protect. The bookseller informs him that he must take the risk of finding paper, and of paying the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the "Times" and numerous other journals; that every editor will expect a copy; that the interests of science require that he, poor as he is, shall give no less than eleven copies to the public; and that the most that can be hoped for from the first edition is, that it will not bring him in debt. His book appears, but the price is high, for the reason that the taxes are heavy, and the general demand for books is small. Cheap laborers cannot buy books; soldiers and sailors cannot buy books; and thus does centralization diminish the market for literary talent while increasing the cost of bringing it before the world. Centralization next steps in, in the shape of circulating libraries, that, for a few guineas a year, supply books throughout the kingdom, and enable hundreds of copies to do the work that should be done by thousands, and hence it is that, while first editions of English works are generally small, so very few of them ever reach second ones. Popular as was Captain Marryat, his first editions were, as he himself informed me, for some time only 1,500, and had not then risen above 2,000. Of Mr. Bulwer's novels, so universally popular, the first edition never exceeded 2,500; and so it has been, and is, with others. With all Mr. Thackeray's popularity, the sale of his books has, I believe, rarely gone beyond 6,000 for the supply of above thirty millions of people. Occasionally, a single author is enabled to fix the attention of the public, and he is enabled to make a fortune—not from the sale of large quantities at low prices, but of moderate quantities at high prices. The chief case of the kind now in England is that of Mr. Dickens, who sells for twenty shillings a book that costs about four shillings and sixpence to make, and charges his fellow-laborers in the field of literature an enormous price for the privilege of attaching to his numbers the advertisements of their works, as is shown in the following paragraph from one of the journals of the day:—

"Thus far, no writer has succeeded in drawing so large pecuniary profits from the exercise of his talents as Charles Dickens. His last romance, "Bleak House," which appeared in monthly numbers, had so wide a circulation in that form that it became a valuable medium for advertising, so that before its close the few pages of the tale were completely lost in sheets of advertisements which were stitched to them. The lowest price for such an advertisement was L1 sterling, and many were paid for at the rate of L5 and L6. From this there is nothing improbable in the supposition that, in addition to the large sum received for the tale, its author gained some L15,000 by his advertising sheets. The "Household Words" produces an income of about L4,000, though Dickens, having put it entirely in the hands of an assistant editor, has nothing to do with it beyond furnishing a weekly article. Through his talents alone he has raised himself from the position of a newspaper reporter to that of a literary Croesus."

[Footnote 1: The tax on advertisements has just now been repealed, but that tax was a small one when compared with that imposed by centralization.]

Centralization produces the "cheap and abundant supply of labor" required for the maintenance of the British manufacturing system, and "cheap labor" furnishes Mr. Dickens with his "Oliver Twist," his "Tom-all-alone's," and the various other characters and situation by aid of whose delineation he is enabled, as a German writer informs us, to have dinners

"at which the highest aristocracy is glad to be present, and where he equals them in wealth, and furnishes an intellectual banquet of wit and wisdom which they, the highest and most refined circles, cannot imitate."

Centralization enables Mr. Dickens to obtain vast sums by advertising the works of the poor authors by whom he is surrounded, most of whom are not only badly paid, but insolently treated, while even of those whose names and whose works are well known abroad many gladly become recipients of the public charity. In the zenith of her reputation, Lady Charlotte Bury received, as I am informed, but L200 ($960) for the absolute copyright of works that sold for $7.50. Lady Blessington, celebrated as she was, had but from three to four hundred pounds; and neither Marryat nor Bulwer ever received, as I believe, the selling price of a thousand copies of their books as compensation for the copyright.[1] Such being the facts in regard to well-known authors, some idea may be formed in relation to the compensation of those who are obscure. The whole tendency of the "cheap labor" system, so generally approved by English writers, is to destroy the value of literary labor by increasing the number of persons who must look to the pen for means of support, and by diminishing the market for its products. What has been the effect of the system will now be shown by placing before you a list of the names of all existing British authors whose reputation can be regarded as of any wide extent, as follows:—

Tennyson, Thackeray, Grote, McCulloch, Carlyle, Bulwer, Macaulay, Hamilton, Dickens, Alison, J. S. Mill, Faraday.

[Footnote 1: This I had from Captain Marryat himself.]

This list is very small as compared with that presented in the same field five-and-thirty years since, and its difference in weight is still greater than in number. Scott, the novelist and poet, may certainly be regarded as the counterpoise of much more than any one of the writers of fiction in this list. Byron, Moore, Rogers, and Campbell enjoyed a degree of reputation far exceeding that of Tennyson. Wellington, the historian of his own campaigns, would much outweigh any of the historians. Malthus and Ricardo were founders of a school that has greatly influenced the policy of the world, whereas McCulloch and Mill are but disciples in that school. Dalton, Davy, and Wollaston will probably occupy a larger space in the history of science than Sir Michael Faraday, large, even, as may be that assigned to him.

Extraordinary as is the existence of such a state of things in a country claiming so much to abound in wealth, it is yet more extraordinary that we look around in vain to see who are to replace even these when age or death shall withdraw them from the literary world. Of all here named, Mr. Thackeray is the only one that has risen to reputation in the last ten years, and he is no longer young; and even he seeks abroad that reward for his efforts which is denied to him by the "cheap labor" system at home. Of the others, nearly, if not quite all, have been for thirty years before the world, and, in the natural course of things, some of them must disappear from the stage of authorship, if not of life. If we seek their successors among the writers for the weekly or monthly journals, we shall certainly fail to find them. Looking to the Reviews, we find ourselves forced to agree with the English journalist, who informs his readers that "it is said, and with apparent justice, that the quarterlies are not as good as they were." From year to year they have less the appearance of being the production of men who looked to any thing beyond mere pecuniary compensation for their labor. In reading them we find ourselves compelled to agree with the reviewer who regrets to see that the centralization which is hastening the decline of the Scottish universities is tending to cause the mind of the whole youth of Scotland to be

"Cast in the mould of English universities, institutions which, from their very completeness, exercise on second-rate minds an influence unfavorable to originality and power of thought."—North British Review, May 1853.

Their pupils are, as he says, struck "with one mental die," than which nothing can be less favorable to literary or scientific development.

Thirty years since, Sir Humphrey Davy spoke with his countrymen as follows:—

"There are very few persons who pursue science with true dignity; it is followed more as connected with objects of profit than fame."— Consolation in Travel.

Since then, Sir John Herschel has said to them:—

"Here whole branches of continental study are unstudied, and indeed almost unknown by name. It is in vain to conceal the melancholy truth. We are fast dropping behind."—Treatise on Sound.

A late writer, already quoted, says that learning is in disrepute. The English people, as he informs us, have

"No longer time or patience for the luxury of a learned treatment of their interests; and a learned lawyer or statesmen, instead of being eagerly sought for, is shunned as an impediment to public business." —North British Review.

The reviewer is, as he informs us, "far from regarding this tendency, unfavorable as it is to present progress, as a sign of social retrogression." He thinks that

"Reference to general principles for rules of immediate action on the part of those actually engaged in the dispatch of business, must, from the delay which it necessarily occasions, come to be regarded as a worse evil than action which is at variance with principle altogether."

Demand tends to procure supply. Destroy the demand, and the supply will cease. Science, whether natural or social, is not in demand in Great Britain, and hence the diminution of supply. We have here the secret of literary and scientific decline, so obvious to all who study English books or journals, or read the speeches of English statesmen. Empiricism prevails everywhere, and there is a universal disposition to avoid the study of principles. The "cheap labor" system, which it is the object of the whole British policy to establish, cannot be defended on principle, and therefore principles are avoided. Centralization, cheap labor, and enslavement of the body and the mind, travel always in company, and with each step of their progress there is an increasing tendency towards the accumulation of power in the hands of men who should be statesmen, the difficulties of whose positions forbid, however, that they should refer to scientific principles for their government. Action must be had, and immediate action in opposition to principle is preferable to delay; and hence it is that real statesmen are "shunned as an impediment to public business." The greater the necessity for statesmanship, the more must statesmen be avoided. The nearer the ship is brought to the shoal, the more carefully must her captain avoid any reference to the chart. That such is the practice of those charged with the direction of the affairs of England, and such the philosophy of those who control her journals, is obvious to all who study the proceedings of the one or the teachings of the other. From year to year the ship becomes more difficult of management, and there is increasing difficulty in finding responsible men to take the helm. Such are the effects upon mind that have resulted from that "destruction of nationalities" required for the perfection of the British system of centralization.

England is fast becoming one great shop, and traders have, in general, neither time nor disposition to cultivate literature. The little proprietors disappear, and the day laborers who succeed them can neither educate their children nor purchase books. The great proprietor is an absentee, and he has little time for either literature or science. From year to year the population of the kingdom becomes more and more divided into two great classes; the very poor, with whom food and raiment require all the proceeds of labor, and the very rich who prosper by the cheap labor system, and therefore eschew the study of principles. With the one class, books are an unattainable luxury, while with the other the absence of leisure prevents the growth of desire for their purchase. The sale is, therefore, small; and hence it is that authors are badly paid. In strong contrast with the limited sale of English books at home, is the great extent of sale here, as shown in the following facts: Of the octavo edition of the "Modern British Essayists," there have been sold in five years no less than 80,000 volumes. Of Macaulay's "Miscellanies," 3 vols. 12mo., the sale has amounted to 60,000 volumes. Of Miss Aguilar's writings, the sale, in two years, has been 100,000 volumes. Of Murray's "Encyclopedia of Geography," more than 50,000 volumes have been sold, and of McCulloch's "Commercial Dictionary," 10,000 volumes. Of Alexander Smith's poems, the sale, in a few months, has reached 10,000 copies. The sale of Mr. Thackeray's works has been quadruple that of England, and that of the works of Mr. Dickens counts almost by millions of volumes. Of "Bleak House," in all its various forms—in newspapers, magazines, and volumes—it has already amounted to several hundred thousands of copies. Of Bulwer's last novel, since it was completed, the sale has, I am told, exceeded 35,000. Of Thiers's "French Revolution and Consulate," there have been sold 32,000, and of Montagu's edition of Lord Bacon's works 4,000 copies.

If the sales of books were as great in England as they are here, English authors would be abundantly paid. In reply it will be said their works are cheap here because we pay no copyright. For payment of the authors, however, a very small sum would be required, if the whole people of England could afford, as they should be able to do, to purchase books. A contribution of a shilling per head would give, as has been shown, a sum of almost eight millions of dollars, sufficient to pay to fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries of State. Centralization, however, destroys the market for books, and the sale is, therefore, small; and the few successful writers owe their fortunes to the collection of large contributions made among a small number of readers; while the mass of authors live on, as did poor Tom Hood, from day to day, with scarcely a hope of improvement in their condition.

Sixty years since, Great Britain was a wealthy country, abounding in libraries and universities, and giving to the world some of the best, and best paid, writers of the age. At that time the people of this country were but four millions, and they were poor, while unprovided with either books or libraries. Since then they have grown to twenty-six millions, millions of whom have been emigrants, in general arriving here with nothing but the clothing on their backs. These poor men have had every thing to create for themselves—farms, roads, houses, libraries, schools, and colleges; and yet, poor as they have been, they furnish now a demand for the principal products of English mind greater than is found at home. If we can make such a market, why cannot they? If they had such a market, would it not pay their authors to the full extent of their merits? Unquestionably it would; and if they see fit to pursue a system tending to cheapen the services of the laborer in the field, in the workshop, and at the desk, there is no more reason for calling upon the people of this country to make up their deficiencies towards those who contribute to their pleasure or instruction by writing books, than there would be in asking us to aid in supporting the hundreds of thousands of day laborers, their wives and children, whom the same system condemns, unpitied, to the workhouse.

But, it will be asked, is it right that we should read the works of Macaulay, Dickens, and others, without compensation to the authors? In answer, it may be said, that we give them precisely what their own countrymen have given to their Dalton, Davy, Wollaston, Franklin, Parry, and the thousands of others who have furnished the bodies of which books are composed—and more than we ourselves give to the men among us engaged in cultivating science—fame. This, it will be said, is an unsubstantial return; yet Byron deemed it quite sufficient when he first saw an American edition of his works, coming, as it seemed to him, "from posterity." Miss Bremer found no small reward for her labors in knowing the high regard in which she was held; and it was no small payment when, even in the wilds of the West, she met with numerous persons who would gladly have her travel free of charge, because of the delight she had afforded them. Miss Carlen tells her readers that "of one triumph" she was proud. "It was," she says, "when I held in my hand, for the first time, one of my works, translated and published in America. My eyes filled with tears. The bright dreams of youth again passed before me. Ye Americans had planted the seed, and ye also approved of the fruit!" This is the feeling of a writer that cultivates literature with some object in view other than mere profit. It differs entirely from that of English authors, because in England, more than in any other country, book-making is a trade, carried on exclusively with a view to profit; and hence it is that the character of English books so much declines.

But is it really true that foreign authors derive no pecuniary advantage from the republication of their books in this country? It is not. Mr. Macaulay has admitted that much of his reputation, and of the sale of his books at home, had been a consequence of his reputation here, where his Essays were first reprinted. At the moment of writing this, I have met with a notice of his speeches, first collected here, from which the following is an extract:—

"We owe much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties to a friendly understanding."—Morning Chronicle.

If the people of England are largely indebted to America for being made acquainted with the merits of their authors, are not these latter also indebted to America for much of their pecuniary reward? Undoubtedly they are. Mr. Macaulay owes much of his fortune to American publishers, readers, and critics; and such is the case to perhaps a greater extent with Mr. Carlyle, whose papers were first collected here, and their merits thus made known to his countrymen. Lamb's papers of "Elia" were first collected here. It is to the diligence of an American publisher that De Quincey owes the publication of a complete edition of his works, now to be followed by a similar one in England. The papers of Professor Wilson owe their separate republication to American booksellers. The value of Mr. Thackeray's copyrights has been greatly increased by his reception here. So has it been with Mr. Dickens. All of those persons profit largely by their fame abroad, while the men who contribute to the extension of knowledge by the publication of facts and ideas never reap profit from their publication abroad, and are rarely permitted to acquire even fame. Godfrey died poor. The merchants of England gave no fortune to his children, and Hadley stole his fame. The people of that country, who travel in steam-vessels, have given to the family of Fulton no pecuniary reward, while her writers have uniformly endeavored to deprive him of the reputation which constituted almost the sole inheritance of his family. The whole people of Europe are profiting by the discovery of chloroform; but who inquires what has become of the family of its unfortunate discoverer? Nobody! The people of England profit largely by the discoveries of Fourcroy, Berzelius, and many other of the continental philosophers; but do those who manufacture cheap cloth, or those who wear it, contribute to the support of the families of those philosophers? Did they contribute to their support while alive? Certainly not. To do so would have been in opposition to the idea that the real contributors to knowledge should be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the gentlemen who dress up their facts and ideas in an attractive form and place them before the world in the form of cloth or books.

We are largely indebted to the labors of literary men, and they should be well paid, but their claims to pecuniary reward have been much exaggerated, because they have held the pen and have had always a high degree of belief in their own deserts. Their right in the books they publish is precisely similar to, and no greater than, that of the man who culls the flowers and arranges the bouquets; and, when that is provided for, their books are entitled to become common property. English authors are already secured in a monopoly for forty-two years among a body of people so large that a contribution of a shilling a head would enable each and all of them to live in luxury; and if British policy prevents their countrymen from paying them, it is to the British Parliament they should look for redress, and not to our Executive. When they shall awaken to the fact that "cheap labor" with the spade, the plough, and the loom, brings with it necessarily "cheap labor" with the pen, they will become opponents, and cease to be advocates of the system under which they suffer. All that, in the mean time, we can say to them is, that we protect our own authors by giving them a monopoly of our own immense and rapidly growing market, and that if they choose to come and live among us we will grant them the same protection. We may now look to the condition of our own literary men.



LETTER V.

Our system is based upon an idea directly the reverse of the one on which rests the English system—that of decentralization; and we may now study its effects as shown in the development of literary tendencies and in the reward of authors.

Centralization tends towards taxing the people for building up great institutions at a distance from those who pay the taxes; decentralization towards leaving to the people to tax themselves for the support of common and high schools in their immediate neighborhood. The first tends towards placing the man who has instruction to sell at a distance from those who need to buy it; while the other tends towards bringing the teacher to the immediate vicinity of the scholars, and thus diminishing the cost of education. The effects of the latter are seen in the fact that the new States, no less than the old ones, are engaged in an effort to enable all, without distinction of sex or fortune, to obtain the instruction needful for enabling them to become consumers of books, and customers to the men who produce them. Massachusetts exhibits to the world 182,000 scholars in her public schools; New York, 778,000 in the public ones, and 75,000 in the private ones; and Iowa and Wisconsin are laying the foundation of a system that will enable them, at a future day, to do as much. Boston taxes herself $365,000 for purposes of education, while Philadelphia expends more than half a million for the same purposes, and exhibits 50,000 children in her public schools. Here we have, at once, a great demand for instructors, offering a premium on intellectual effort, and its effect is seen in the numerous associations of teachers, each anxious to confer with the others in regard to improvement in the modes of education. School libraries are needed for the children, and already those of New York exhibit about a million and a half of volumes. Books of a higher class are required for the teachers, and here is created another demand leading to the preparation of new and improved books by the teachers themselves. The scholars enter life and next we find numerous apprentices' libraries and mercantile libraries, producing farther demand for books, and aiding in providing reward for those to whom the world is indebted for them. Everybody must learn to read and write, and everybody must therefore have books; and to this universality of demand it is due that the sale of those required for early education is so immense. Of the works of Peter Parley it counts by millions; but if we take his three historical books (price 75 cents each) alone, we find that it amounts to between half a million and a million of volumes. Of Goodrich's United States it has been a quarter of a million. Of Morse's Geography and Atlas (50 cents) the sale is said to be no less than 70,000 per annum. Of Abbott's histories the sale is said to have already been more than 400,000, while of Emerson's Arithmetic and Reader it counts almost by millions. Of Mitchell's several geographies it is 400,000 a year.

In other branches of education the same state of things is seen to exist. Of the Boston Academy's collection of sacred music the sale has exceeded 600,000; and the aggregate sale of five books by the same author has probably exceeded a million, at a dollar per volume. Leaving the common schools we come to the high schools and colleges, of which latter the names of no less than 120 are given in the American Almanac. Here again we have decentralization, and its effect is to bring within reach of almost the whole people a higher degree of education than could be afforded by the common schools. The problem to be solved is, as stated by a recent and most enlightened traveller, "How are citizens to be made thinking beings in the greatest numbers?" Its solution is found in making of the educational fabric a great pyramid, of which the common schools form the base and the Smithsonian Institute the apex, the intermediate places being filled with high schools, lyceums, and colleges of various descriptions, fitted to the powers and the means of those who need instruction. All these make, of course, demand for books, and hence it is that the sale of Anthon's series of classics (averaging $1) amounts, as I am told, to certainly not less than 50,000 volumes per annum, while of the "Classical Dictionary" of the same author ($4) not less than thirty thousand have been sold. Of Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon" ($5), edited by Prof. Drisler, the sale has been not less than 25,000, and probably much larger. Of Webster's 4to. "Dictionary" ($6) it has been, I am assured, 60,000, and perhaps even 80,000; and of the royal 8vo. one ($3.50), 250,000. Of Bolmar's French school books not less than 150,00 volumes have been sold. The number of books used in the higher schools—text-books in philosophy, chemistry, and other branches of science—is exceedingly great, and it would be easy to produce numbers of which the sale is from five to ten thousand per annum; but to do so would occupy too much space, and I must content myself with the few facts already given in regard to this department of literature.

Decentralization, or local self-government, tends thus to place the whole people in a condition to read newspapers, while the same cause tends to produce those local interests which give interest to the public journals, and induce men to purchase them. Hence it is that their number is so large. The census of 1850 gives it at 2,625; and the increase since that time has been very great. The total number of papers printed can scarcely be under 600,000,000, which would give almost 24 for every person, old and young, black and white, male and female, in the Union. But recently the newspaper press of the United Kingdom was said to require about 160,000 reams of paper, which would give about 75,000,000 of papers, or two and a half per head.

The number of daily papers was returned at 350, but it has greatly increased, and must now exceed four hundred. Chicago, which then was a small town, rejoices now in no less than 24 periodicals, seven of which are daily, and five of them of the largest size. At St. Louis, which but a few years since was on the extreme borders of civilization, we find several, and one of these has grown from a little sheet of 8 by 12 inches to the largest size, yielding to its proprietors $50,000 per annum, while Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham are still compelled to depend upon their tri-weekly sheets. St. Louis itself furnishes the type, and Louisville furnishes the paper. Everywhere, the increase in size is greater than that in the number of newspapers, and the increase of ability in both the city and country press, greater than in either number or size. These things are necessary consequences of that decentralization which builds school-houses and provides teachers, where centralization raises armies and provides generals. The schools enable young men to read, think, and write, and the local newspaper is always at hand in which to publish. Beginning thus with the daily or weekly journal, the youth of talent makes his way gradually to the monthly or quarterly magazine, and ultimately to the independent book.

Examine where we may through the newspaper press, there is seen the activity which always accompanies the knowledge that men can rise in the world if they will; but this is particularly obvious in the daily press of cities, whose efforts to obtain information, and whose exertions to lay it before the public, are without a parallel. Centralization, like that of the London "Times," furnishes its readers with brief paragraphs of telegraphic news, where decentralization gives columns. The New York "Tribune" furnishes, for two cents, better papers than are given in London for ten, and it scatters them over the country by hundreds of thousands. Decentralization is educating the whole mind of the country, and it is to this it is due that the American farmer is furnished with machines which are, according to the London "Times," "about twice as light in draught as the lightest of English machines of the same description, doing as much, if not more work than the best of them, and with much less power; dressing the grain, which they do not, and which can be profitably disposed of at one half, or at least one third less money than its British rivals"—and is thus enabled to purchase books. Centralization, on the other hand, furnishes the English farmer, according to the same authority, "with machines strong and dear enough to rob him of all future improvements, and tremendously heavy, either to work or to draw;" and thus deprives him of all power to educate his children, or to purchase for himself either books or newspapers.

Religious decentralization exerts also a powerful influence on the arrangements for imparting that instruction which provides purchasers for books. The Methodist Society, with its gigantic operations; the Presbyterian Board of Publication; the Baptist Association; the Sunday-school, and other societies, are all incessantly at work creating readers. The effect of all these efforts for the dissemination of cheap knowledge is shown in the first instance in the number of semi-monthly, monthly, and quarterly journals, representing every shade of politics and religion, and every department of literature and science.

The number of these returned to the census was 175; but that must, I think, have been even then much below the truth. Since then it has been much increased. Of two of them, Putnam's and Harper's, the first exclusively original, and the latter about two thirds so, the sale is about two millions of numbers per annum; while of three others, published in Philadelphia, it is about a million. Cheap as are these journals, at twenty-five cents each, the sum total of the price paid for them by the consumers is about $700,000. The quantity of paper required for a single one of them is about 16,000 reams of double medium, being one tenth as much as has recently been given as the consumption of the whole newspaper press of Great Britain and Ireland. Every pursuit in life, and almost every shade of opinion, has its periodical. A single city in Western New York furnishes no less than four agricultural and horticultural journals, one of them published weekly, with a circulation of 15,000, and the others, monthly, with a joint circulation of 25,000. The "Merchants' Magazine," which set the example for the one now published in London, has a circulation of 3,500. The "Bankers' Magazine" also set the example recently followed in England. Medicine and Law have their numerous and well supported journals; and Dental Surgery alone has five, one of which has a circulation of 5,000 copies, while all Europe has but two, and those of very inferior character.[1] North, south, east, and west, the periodical press is collecting the opinions of all our people, while centralization is gradually limiting the expression of opinion, in England, to those who live in and near London. Upon this extensive base of cheap domestic literature rests that portion of the fabric composed of reproduction of foreign books, the quantities of some of which were given in my last. The proportion which these bear to American books has been thus given for the six months ending on the 30th of June last:

Republications 169 Original 522

691

[Footnote 1: It is a remarkable fact that there should be in this country no less than four Colleges of Dental Surgery, while all Europe presents not even a single one.]

Of these last, 17 were original translations.

We see, thus, that the proportion of domestic to foreign products is already more than three to one. How the sale of the latter compares with that of the former, will be seen by the following facts in relation to books of almost all sizes, prices, and kinds; some of which have been furnished by the publishers themselves, whilst others are derived from gentlemen connected with the trade whose means of information are such as warrant entire reliance upon their statements.

Of all American authors, those of school-books excepted, there is no one of whose books so many have been circulated as those of Mr. Irving. Prior to the publication of the edition recently issued by Mr. Putnam, the sale had amounted to some hundreds of thousands; and yet of that edition, selling at $1.25 per volume, it has already amounted to 144,000 vols. Of "Uncle Tom," the sale has amounted to 295,000 copies, partly in one, and partly in two volumes, and the total number of volumes amounts probably to about 450,000.

Price per vol. Volumes.

Of the two works of Miss Warner, Queechy, and the Wide, Wide World, the price and sale have been. $ 88 104,000

Fern Leaves, by Fanny Fern, in six months. 1 25 45,000

Reveries of a Bachelor, and other books, by Ike Marvel. 1 25 70,000

Alderbrook, by Fanny Forester, 3 vols. 50 33,000

Northup's Twelve Years a Slave 1 00 20,000

Novels of Mrs. Hentz, in three years 63 93,000

Major Jones' Courtship and Travels 50 31,000

Salad for the Solitary, by a new author, in five months 1 25 5,000

Headley's Napoleon and his Marshals, Washington and his Generals, and other works. 1 25 200,000

Stephen's Travels in Egypt and Greece. 87 80,000

" " Yucatan and Central America 2 50 60,000

Kendall's Expedition to Santa Fe 1 25 40,000

Lynch's Expedition to the Dead Sea, 8vo. $3 00 15,000

" " 2mo. 1 25 8,000

Western Scenes 2 50 14,000

Young's Science of Government 1 00 12,000

Seward's Life of John Quincy Adams. 1 00 30,000

Frost's Pictorial History of the World, 3 vols. 2 50 60,000

Sparks' American Biography, 25 vols 75 100,000

Encyclopaedia Americana, 14 vols. 2 00 280,000

Griswold's Poets and Prose Writers of America, 3 vols. 3 00 21,000

Barnes' Notes on the Gospels, Epistles, &c., 11 vols. 75 300.000

Aiken's Christian Minstrel, in two years. 62 40,000

Alexander on the Psalms, 3 vols. 1 17 10,000

Buist's Flower Garden Directory 1 25 10,000

Cole on Fruit Trees. 50 18,000

" Diseases of Domestic Animals 50 34,000

Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees. 50 15,000

" Rural Essays. 3 50 3,000

" Landscape Gardening. 3 50 9,000

" Cottage Residences. 2 00 6,250

" Country Homes. 4 00 3,500

Mahan's Civil Engineering. 3 00 7,500

Leslie's Cookery and Receipt-books. 1 00 96,000

Guyot's Lectures on Earth and Man. 1 00 6,000

Wood and Bache's Medical Dispensatory 5 00 60,000

Dunglison's Medical Writings, in all 10 vols. 2 50 50,000

Pancoast's Surgery, 4to. 10 00 4,000

Rayer, Ricord, and Moreau's Surgical Works (translations). 15 00 5,500

Webster's Works, 6 vols. 2 00 46,800

Kent's Commentaries, 4 vols. 3 38 84,000

Next to Chancellor Kent's work comes Greenleaf on Evidence, 3 vols., $16.50; the sale of which has been exceedingly great, but what has been its extent, I cannot say.

Of Blatchford's General Statutes of New York, a local work, price $4.50, the sale has been 3,000; equal to almost 30,000 of a similar work for the United Kingdom.

How great is the sale of Judge Story's books can be judged only from the fact that the copyright now yields, and for years past has yielded, more than $8,000 per annum. Of the sale of Mr. Prescott's works little is certainly known, but it cannot, I understand, have been less than 160,000 volumes. That of Mr. Bancroft's History, has already risen, certainly to 30,000 copies, and I am told it is considerably more; and yet even that is a sale, for such a work, entirely unprecedented.

Of the works of Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, Sedgwick, Sigourney, and numerous others, the sale is exceedingly great; but, as not even an approximation to the true amount can be offered, I must leave it to you to judge of it by comparison with those of less popular authors above enumerated. In several of these cases, beautifully illustrated editions have been published, of which large numbers have been sold. Of Mr. Longfellow's volume there have been no less than ten editions. These various facts will probably suffice to satisfy you that this country presents a market for books of almost every description, unparalleled in the world.

In reflecting upon this subject, it is necessary to bear in mind that the monopoly, granted to authors and their families, is for the term of no less than forty-two years, and that in that period the number of persons subjected to it is likely to grow to little short of a hundred millions, with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.

Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we may now inquire into its rewards.

Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs. Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a poetical article, long or short—and his readers know that they were generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication; and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal he has paid to authors $1,500. The total amount paid for original matter by two magazines—the selling price of which is $3 per annum—in ten years, has exceeded $130,000, giving an average of $13,000 per annum. The Messrs. Harper inform me that the expenditure for literary and artistic labor required for their magazine is $2,000 per month, or $24,000 a year.

Passing upwards, we reach the producers of books, and here we find rewards not, I believe, to be paralleled elsewhere. Mr. Irving stands, I imagine, at the head of living authors for the amount received for his books. The sums paid to the renowned Peter Parley must have been enormously great, but what has been their extent I have no means of ascertaining. Mr. Mitchell, the geographer, has realized a handsome fortune from his schoolbooks. Professor Davies is understood to have received more than $50,000 from the series published by him. The Abbotts, Emerson, and numerous other authors engaged in the preparation of books for young persons and schools, are largely paid. Professor Anthon, we are informed, has received more than $60,000 for his series of classics. The French series of Mr. Bolmar has yielded him upwards of $20,000. The school geography of Mr. Morse is stated to have yielded more than $20,000 to the author. A single medical book, of one 8vo. volume, is understood to have produced its authors $60,000, and a series of medical books has given to its author probably $30,000. Mr. Downing's receipts from his books have been very large. The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more. Mr. Headley is stated to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have yielded him about $20,000; a single one, "The Reveries of a Bachelor," produced more than $4,000 in the first six months. Mrs. Stowe has been very largely paid. Miss Leslie's Cookery and Receipt books have paid her $12,000. Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the copyright of his religious works. Fanny Fern has probably received not less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since. Mr. Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000 from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted. According to the rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft, the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale. Judge Story died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum; and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished. Mr. Webster's works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000. Kent's Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor unexampled in history. What has been the amount received by Professor Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal line, to that of Chancellor Kent. The price paid for Webster's 8vo. Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000. If now to this we add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time. What have been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they have been very large. It is not, however, only the few who are liberally paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the centralizing one of Great Britain. There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the means of support. Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving his family in hopeless poverty. Such is not here the case. Any manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication of books. No sooner had the story of "Hot Corn" appeared in "The Tribune," than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book. The competition is here for the purchase of the privilege of printing, and this competition is not confined to the publishers of a single city, as is the case in Britain. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and even Auburn and Cincinnati, present numerous publishers, all anxious to secure the works of writers of ability, in any department of literature; and were it possible to present a complete list of our well-paid authors, its extent could not fail to surprise you greatly, as the very few facts that have come to my knowledge in reference to some of the lesser stars of the literary world have done by me. You will observe that I have confined myself to the question of demand for books and compensation to their authors, without reference to that of the ability displayed in their preparation. That we may have good books, all that is required is that we make a large market for them, which is done here to an extent elsewhere unknown.

Forty years since, the question was asked by the "Edinburgh Review," Who reads an American book? Judging from the facts here given, may we not reasonably suppose that the time is fast approaching, when the question will be asked, Who does not read American books?

Forty years since, had we asked where were the homes of American authors, we should generally have been referred to very humble houses in our cities. Those who now inquire for them will find their answer in the beautiful volume lately published by Messrs. Putnam and Co., the precursor of others destined to show the literary men of this country enjoying residences as agreeable as any that had been occupied by such men in any part of the world; and in almost every case, those homes have been due to the profits of the pen. Less than half a century since, the race of literary men was scarcely known in the country, and yet the amount now paid for literary labor is greater than in Great Britain and France combined, and will probably be, in twenty years more, greater than in all the world beside. With the increase of number, there has been a corresponding increase in the consideration in which they are held; and the respect with which even unknown authors are treated, when compared with the disrespect manifested in England towards such men, will be obvious to all familiar with the management of the journals of that country who read the following in one of our principal periodicals:—

"The editor of Putnam's Monthly will give to every article forwarded for insertion in the Magazine a careful examination, and, when requested to do so, will return the MS. if not accepted."

Here, the competition is among the publishers to buy the products of literary labor, whereas, abroad, the competition is to sell them, and therefore is the treatment of our authors, even when unknown, so different. Long may it continue to be so!

Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the growth of numbers? If this country is properly termed "the paradise of women," may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors, and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have done? Is it wise in them to seek a change? Their best friends would, I think, unite with me in advising that it is not. Should they succeed in obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.



LETTER VI.

We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice. The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and more the natural form of a true pyramid. To the height that such a building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit. What is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest. That edifice is the product of decentralization.

Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation. Having prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce centralization. Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are in strict accordance with each other.

We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of literary food. Before granting to these persons any power here, it might be well to inquire how they have used their power at home. Doing this, we find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the public. The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to school-books has been carried, and the danger of intrusting such men with power, are well shown in the fact that the same government which has so recently concluded a copyright treaty with our own, has since entered "into the bookselling trade on its own account," competing "with the private dealer, who has to bear copyright charges." The subjects of this "reactionary step" on the part of a government that so much professes to love free trade, are, as we are told, "the famous school-books of the Irish national system."[1] A new office has been created, "paid for with a public salary," for "the issue of books to the retail dealers;" and the centralization of power over this important portion to the trade is, we are told,[2] defended in the columns of the "Times," as "tending to bring down the price of school-books; for booksellers who possess copyrights, now sell their books at exorbitant prices, and, by underselling them, the commissioners will be able to beat them." Judging from this, it would seem almost necessary, if this treaty is to be ratified, that there should be added some provision authorizing our government to appoint commissioners for the regulation of trade, and for "underselling" those persons who "now sell their books at exorbitant prices." If it be ratified, we shall be only entering on the path of centralization; and it may not be amiss that, before ratification, we should endeavor to determine to what point it will probably carry us in the end.

[Footnote 1: Spectator, June 4, 1853.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid.]

The question is often asked, What difference can it make to the people of this country whether they do, or do not, pay to the English author a few cents in return for the pleasure afforded by the perusal of his book? Not very much, certainly, to the wealthy reader; but as every extra cent is important to the poorer one, and tends to limit his power to purchase, it may be well to calculate how many cents would probably be required; and, that we may do so, I give you here a list[1] of the comparative prices of English and American editions of a few of the books that have been published within the last few years:—