actory manner in which, on a
former occasion, I answered your grave inquiries about the pirates who
thrive on the plunder of Maga. The jocular vein which I incontinently
struck and perseveringly followed up, led me very wide of your mark,
and I was obliged to leave you quite unsatisfied on another point,
about which, for one who is not an author, you seem to be singularly
excited. To waive my astonishment at the _Benthamism_ of the phrase,
pray what is "International Copyright" to Godfrey, that he should weep
for such a Hecuba? I should have been as little surprised, had you
asked me to inquire the opinion of the Indians as to the best regimen
for infants. A veritable author, suffering by wholesale American
rapine, would have commanded my sympathies, and I should have replied
instinctively, in that tone of consideration which is always due to
dignified misfortune; but when you, with your rod and gun, soberly
popped me a query in which I could not see that either widgeon or
gudgeon were particularly concerned, I confess I feared you were
quizzing me, and was fairly off my guard. Forgive me that I was so
slow to appreciate the true state of the case. It has only very lately
occurred to me that both you and I are somewhat changed since we
placed the _summum bonum_ in Waltonian idleness, and that you have
very possibly renounced fly-fishing, and settled down into a literary
incubation, likely to bless the world with a brood of booklings. With
this consideration, I now again address you, intending to preserve
that propriety of thought and speech, which on the subject of literary
property, I feel due to the future Great Unknown of Southern Britain.
You observe that I take it for granted, you will affect the anonymous;
and I would venture to add my counsel to your choice of a course so
judicious. You have no idea how great an inconvenience you would
suffer, should Godfrey Hall be turned prematurely into another
Abbotsford--an event which is certain, should you allow the secret of
your new character to transpire. Your comparative nearness to the
metropolis would greatly facilitate the irruption of bores; especially
as there would probably be a branch railway chartered forthwith, for
the express purpose of setting down company at the nearest possible
point of access to your venerable gateway. Besides, even you have too
much regard to the land of Kit North, to entertain any desire to see
its most attractive shrine of pilgrimage to