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 th