What is claimed by English authors is perpetuity and universality of property in the clothing they supply for the body that is furnished to the world by other and unpaid men; and an examination of the course of proceeding in that country for the last century and a half shows that each step that has been taken has been in that direction.  While denying to the producers of facts and ideas any right whatsoever, every act of legislation has tended to give more and more control over their dissemination to men who appropriated them to their own use, and brought them in an attractive form before the reader.  Early in the last century was passed an act well known as the Statute of Queen Anne, giving to authors fourteen years as the period during which they were to have a monopoly of the peculiar form of words they chose to adopt in coming before the world.  The number of persons then living in England and Wales, and subjected to that monopoly, was about five millions.  Since that time the field of its operation has been enlarged, until it now embraces not only England and Wales, but Scotland, Ireland, and the British colonies, containing probably thirty-two millions of people who use the English language.  The time, too, has been gradually extended until it now reaches forty-two years, or thrice the period for which it was originally granted.  Nevertheless, no life is more precarious than that of an Englishman dependent upon literary pursuits for support.  Such men are almost universally poor, and leading men among them, Tennyson and Sir Francis Head for instance, gladly accept the public charity, in the form of pensions for less than five hundred dollars a year.  This is not a consequence of limitation in the field of action, for that is six times greater than it was when Gay netted L1,600 from a single opera, and Pope received L6,000 for his “Homer;” five times greater than when Fielding had L1,000 for his “Amelia;” and four times more than when Robertson had L4,500 for his “Charles V.,” Gibbon L5,000 for the second part of his history, and McPherson L1,200 for his “Ossian."[1] Since that time money has become greatly more abundant and less valuable; and if we desired to compare the reward of these authors with those of the present day, the former should be trebled in amount, which would give Robertson more than sixty thousand dollars for a work that is comprised in three 8vo. volumes of very moderate size.  It is not a consequence of limitation of time, for that has grown from fourteen to forty-two years—­more than is required for any book except, perhaps, one in five or ten thousand.  It should not be a consequence of poverty in the nation, for British writers assure us that wealth so much abounds that wars are needed to prevent its too rapid growth, and that foreign loans are indispensable for enabling the people of Britain to find an outlet for all their vast accumulations.  What, then, is the cause of disease?  Why is it that in so wealthy a nation literary men and women are so generally poor