that it should be required to bring their poverty before the world, to aid in the demand for an extension to other countries of the monopoly so well secured at home?  In that country the fortunes of wealthy men count by millions, and, that being the case, an average contribution of a shilling a head towards paying for the copyright of books, would seem to be the merest trifle to be given in return for the pleasure and the instruction derived from the perusal of the works of English authors, and yet even that small sum does not appear to be paid.  Thirty-two millions of shillings make almost eight millions of dollars; a sum sufficient to give to six hundred authors more than thirteen thousand dollars a year, being more than half the salary of the chief magistrate of our Union.  Admitting, however, that there were a thousand authors worthy to be paid, and that would most certainly cover them all, it would give to each eight thousand dollars, or one third more than we have been accustomed to allow to men who have devoted their lives to the service of the public, and have at length risen to be Secretaries of State.  If English authors were thus largely paid, it would be deemed an absurdity to ask an enlargement of their monopoly; but, as they are not thus paid, it is asked.  There is probably but a single literary man in England that receives $8,000 a year for his labors, and it may be doubted if it would be possible to name ten whose annual receipts equal $6,000; while those of a vast majority of them are under $1,500, and very many of them greatly under it.  Even were we to increase the number of authors to fifteen hundred, one to every 4,000 males between the ages of 20 and 60 in the kingdom, and to allow them, on an average, $2,000 per annum, it would require but three millions of dollars to pay them, and that could be done by an average contribution of five pence per head of the population, a wonderfully small amount to be paid for literary labor by a nation claiming to be the wealthiest in the world.  A shilling a head would give to the whole fifteen hundred salaries nearly equal to those of our Secretaries; and yet we see clever and industrious men, writers of eminence whose readers are to be found in every part of the civilized world, living on in hopeless poverty, and dying with the knowledge that they are leaving widows and children to the “tender mercies” of a world in which they themselves have shone and starved.  Viewing all these facts, it may, I think, well be doubted if the annual contributions of the people subject to the British copyright act for the support of the persons who produce their books, much exceeds three pence, or six cents, per head; and here it is that we are to find the real difficulty—­one not to be removed by us.  The home market is the important one, whether for words or things, and when that is bad but little benefit can be derived from any foreign one; and every effort to extend the latter will, under such circumstances, be found to result