five hundred dollars a year. In
what manner, now, would Humboldt be benefited by international copyright?
I know of none; but it is very plain to see that Dumas, Victor Hugo, and
George Sand, might derive from it immense revenues. In confirmation of
this view, I here ask you to review the names of the persons who urge most
anxiously the change of system that is now proposed, and see if you can
find in it the name of a single man who has done any thing to extend the
domain of knowledge. I think you will not. Next look and see if you do not
find in it the names of those who furnish the world with new forms of old
ideas, and are largely paid for so doing. The most active advocate of
international copyright is Mr. Dickens, who is said to realize $70,000 per
annum from the sale of works whose composition is little more than
amusement for his leisure hours. In this country, the only attempt that
has yet been made to restrict the right of translation is in a suit now
before the courts, for compensation for the privilege of converting into
German a work that has yielded the largest compensation that the world has
yet known for the same quantity of literary labor.

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 compe