which they then so much desired to see created. Let our authors reflect on
this advice! Success now, were it possible that it should be obtained,
would be productive of great danger in the already not distant future. In
the natural course of things, most of our authorship, for many years to
come, will be found east of the Hudson, most of the buyers of books,
meanwhile, being found south and west of that river. International
copyright will give to the former limited territory an absolute monopoly
of the business of republication, the then great cities of the West being
almost as completely deprived of participation therein as are now the
towns and cities of Canada and Australia. On the one side, there will be
found a few thousand persons interested in maintaining the monopolies that
had been granted to authors and publishers, foreign and domestic. On the
other, sixty or eighty millions, tired of taxation and determined that
books shall be more cheaply furnished. War will then come, and the
domestic author, sharing in the "disgrace and danger" attendant upon his
alliance with foreign authors and domestic publishers, may perhaps find
reason to rejoice if the people fail to arrive at the conclusion that the
last extension of _his own privileges_ had been inexpedient and should be
at once recalled. Let him then study that well-known fable of Aesop
entitled "The Dog and the Shadow," and take warning from it!

The writer of these Letters had no personal interest in the question
therein discussed. Himself an author, he has since gladly witnessed the
translation and republication of his works in various countries of Europe,
his sole reason for writing them having been found in a desire for
strengthening the many against the few by whom the former have so long, to
a greater or less extent, been enslaved. To that end it is that he now
writes, fully believing that the _right_ is on the side of the consumer of
books, and not with their producers, whether authors or publishers.
Between the two there is, however, a perfect harmony of all real and
permanent interests, and greatly will he be rejoiced if he shall have
succeeded in persuading even some few of his literary countrymen that such
is the fact, and that the path of safety will be found in the direction of
letting well enough alone.

The reward of literary service, and the estimation in which literary men
are held, both grow with growth in that power of combination which results