nered up, for conversion, as
opportunity offers, into the current coin of the realm. There is some
periodical vehicle, nowadays, for the reception of every possible kind
of literary ware. The literary man converses now through the medium of
the Press, and turns every thing into copyright at once. He can not
afford to drop his ideas by the way-side; he must keep them to himself,
until the printing-press has made them inalienably his own. If a happy
historical or literary illustration occurs to him, it will do for a
review article; if some un-hackneyed view of a great political question
presents itself to him, it may be worked into his next leader; if some
trifling adventure has occurred to him, or he has picked up a novel
anecdote in the course of his travels, it may be reproduced in a page of
magazine matter, or a column of a cheap weekly serial. Even puns are not
to be distributed gratis. There is a property in a _double-entente_,
which its parent will not willingly forego. The smallest jokelet is a
marketable commodity. The dinner-table is sacrificed to _Punch_. There
is too much competition in these days, too many hungry candidates for
the crumbs that fall from the thinker's table, not to make him chary of
his offerings. In these days, every scrap of knowledge--every happy
thought--every felicitous turn of expression, is of some value to a
literary man; the forms of periodical literature are so many and so
varied. He can seldom afford to give any thing away; and there is no
reason why he should. It is not so easy a thing to turn one's ideas into
bread, that a literary man need be at no pains to preserve his property
in them. We do not find that artists give away their sketches, or that
professional singers perform promiscuously at private parties. Perhaps,
in these days of much publishing, professional authors are wise in
keeping the best of themselves for their books and articles. We have
known professional writers talk criticism; but we have generally found
it to be the very reverse of what they have published.

* * * * *

REWARDS OF LITERATURE.--Literature has been treated with much
ingratitude, even by those who owe most to it. If we do not quite say
with Goldsmith, that it supports many dull fellows in opulence, we may
assert, with undeniable truth, that it supports, or ought to support,
many clever ones in comfort and respectability. If it does not it is
less the fault of the pro