of great merit and admirably adapted to the modes of thought of the hour, had been enabled to earn in a single year, the large sum of $40,000, though still deprived of two hundred other thousands she is here said to have fairly earned; of a historian whose labors, after deducting what had been applied to the creation of a most valuable library, had scarcely yielded fifty cents per day; of another who had had but $1000 per month; and, passing rapidly from the sublime to the ridiculous, of a school copy-book maker who had seen his improvements copied, without compensation to himself, for the benefit of English children.

   [Footnote 2:  See Atlantic Monthly for October.]

These may and perhaps should be regarded as very sad facts; but had not the picture a brighter side, and might it not have been well for the eminent counsel to have presented both?  Might he not, for instance, have told his readers that, in addition to the $200,000 above referred to, and wholly as acknowledgment of his literary services, the eminent recipient had for many years enjoyed a diplomatic sinecure of the highest order, by means of which he had been enabled to give his time to the collection of materials for his most important works?  Might he not have further told us how other of the distinguished men he had named, as well as many others whose names had not been given, have, in a manner precisely similar, been rewarded for their literary labors?  Might he not have said something of the pecuniary and societary successes that had so closely followed the appearance of the novel to whose publication he had attributed so great an influence?  Might he not, and with great propriety, have furnished an extract from the books of the “New York Ledger,” exhibiting the tens and hundreds of thousands that had been paid for articles which few, if any, would care to read a second time?  Might he not have told his readers of the excessive earnings of public lecturers?  Might he not, too, have said a word or two of the tricks and contrivances that are being now resorted to by men and women—­highly respectable men and women too—­for evading, on both sides of the Atlantic, the spirit of the copyright laws while complying with their letter?  Would, however, such a course of proceeding have answered his present purpose?  Perhaps not!  His business was to pass around the hat, accompanying it with a strong appeal to the charity of the defendants, and this, so far as we can see, is all that thus far has been done.

Might not, however, a similar, and yet stronger, appeal now be made in behalf of other of the public servants?  At the close of long lives devoted to the public service, Washington, Hamilton, Clay, Clayton, and many other of our most eminent men have found themselves largely losers, not gainers, by public service.  The late Governor Andrew’s services were surely worth as much, per hour, as those of the authoress of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” yet did he give five years