[Footnote B:  In this memoir it is stated that Mr. Buckle was born at Lee, November 24,1822.  If this date be correct, his age, at the time of his death at Damascus, May 29, 1862, fell short of forty years by five days less than six months.  In conversation, however, at this time, February, 1862, he spoke of his age as thirty-eight, notwithstanding the surprise that was expressed, for he appeared several years older.  Mr. Glennie, in his letter describing the circumstances of Mr. Buckle’s death, mentions his age as thirty-nine.]

I pointed out to Mr. Buckle the very important distinction between copyright for the British author and monopoly for the British publisher.  I told him that the American people and their representatives in Congress would not have the least objection to paying a trifling addition to the cost of books, which would make, upon the immense editions sold of the popular books, a handsome compensation to the foreign authors,—­but that they have very decided objections to the English system of enormously high prices for books.  I instanced to him several books which can be bought in the United States for a quarter or half a dollar, while in England they cannot be purchased for less than a guinea and a half, that is, for seven or eight dollars,—­although the author gains very little by these high prices, which, indeed, would be absolutely prohibitory of the circulation of the books in the United States.  And since the great literary market of the United States has been created at the public expense, by the maintenance of the system of universal education, it is perhaps not unreasonable that our legislators should insist upon preserving, by the competition among publishers, the advantages of low prices of books, in pursuance of a policy which looks to a wide circulation.  In Great Britain the publishers follow a different policy and insist on selling books at high prices to a comparatively small circle of readers.

Mr. Buckle was kind enough to listen attentively to this sort of reasoning and had the candor to admit that it is entitled to some degree of weight.  Indeed, he said at once that he had earnestly wished to bring out a cheap edition of his own book in England, omitting the notes and references, for the use of the working-classes, of whose appreciation, as I have previously mentioned, he had received many gratifying proofs; he had made his arrangements for this purpose, but was prevented from carrying them out by the opposition of his publishers, who objected that such an edition would injure their interest in the more costly edition.  But Mr. Buckle freely declared that he would, in his circumstances, rather forego the profit on the sale of his book than restrict its circulation.

I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention that another English author related to me his home experience, precisely to the same effect, in which the vested interests of his publishers thwarted him in his wish to publish an edition of his writings at a low price for general circulation.  It is quite certain that the British public must themselves be disenthralled from the tyranny of high prices with which they are now burdened, before they can ask to bring another land under the dominion of their exclusive system in literature.