If justice requires the admission of foreigners to the enjoyment of a monopoly of the sale of their books it should be conceded at once to all, and it should be declared that no book should be printed here without the consent of its author, let him be Englishman, Frenchman, German, Russian, or Hindoo.  This would certainly greatly increase the difficulty now existing in relation to the dissemination of knowledge; but if justice does require it let it be done.  Would it, however, benefit the men who have real claims on our consideration?  Let us see.  A German devotes his life to the study of the history of his country, and at length produces a work of great value, but of proportional size.  Real justice says that his work may not be used without his permission; that the facts he has brought to light from among the vast masses of original documents he has examined are his property, and can be published by none others but himself.  The legislation, whose aid is invoked in the name of justice by literary men, speaks, however, very differently.  It says:  “This work is very cumbrous.  To establish his views this man has gone into great detail.  If translated, his book will scarcely sell to such extent as to pay the labor.  The facts are common property.  Out of this book you can make one that will be much more readable, and that will sell, for it will not be of more than one third the size.  Take it, then, and extract all you need, and you will do well.  You will have, too, another advantage.  Translation confers no reputation; but an original work, such as I now recommend to you, will give you such a standing as may lead you on to fortune.  Few people know any thing of the original work, and it will not be necessary for you to mention that all your materials are thence derived.”  On the other hand, a lady who has read the work of this poor German finds in it an episode that she expands into a novel, which sells rapidly, and she reaps at home a large reward for her labors; while the man who gave her the idea starves in a garret.  A literary friend of the lady novelist, delighted with her success, finds in his countrywoman’s treasury of facts the material for a poem out of which he, too, reaps a harvest.  Both of these are protected by international copyright, because they have furnished nothing but the clothing of ideas; but the man who supplied them with the ideas finds that his book is condensed abroad, and given to the public, perhaps, without even the mention of his name.

The whole tendency of the existing system is to give the largest reward to those whose labors are lightest, and the smallest to those whose labors are most severe; and every extension of it must necessarily look in that direction.  The “Mysteries of Paris” were a fortune to Eugene Sue, and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” has been one to Mrs. Stowe.  Byron had 2,000 guineas for a volume of “Childe Harold,” and Moore 3,000 for his “Lalla Rookh;” and yet a single year should have more than sufficed