from his books have been very large.  The two works of Miss Warner must have already yielded her from $12,000 to $15,000, and perhaps much more.  Mr. Headley is stated to have received about $40,000; and the few books of Ike Marvel have yielded him about $20,000; a single one, “The Reveries of a Bachelor,” produced more than $4,000 in the first six months.  Mrs. Stowe has been very largely paid.  Miss Leslie’s Cookery and Receipt books have paid her $12,000.  Dr. Barnes is stated to have received more than $30,000 for the copyright of his religious works.  Fanny Fern has probably received not less than $6,000 for the 12mo. volume published but six months since.  Mr. Prescott was stated, several years since, to have then received $90,000 from his books, and I have never seen it contradicted.  According to the rate of compensation generally understood to be received by Mr. Bancroft, the present sale of each volume of his yields him more than $15,000, and he has the long period of forty-two years for future sale.  Judge Story died, as has been stated, in the receipt of more than $8,000 per annum; and the amount has not, as it is understood, diminished.  Mr. Webster’s works, in three years, can scarcely have paid less than $25,000.  Kent’s Commentaries are understood to have yielded to their author and his heirs more than $120,000, and if we add to this for the remainder of the period only one half of this sum, we shall obtain $180,000, or $45,000 as the compensation for a single 8vo. volume, a reward for literary labor unexampled in history.  What has been the amount received by Professor Greenleaf I cannot learn, but his work stands second only, in the legal line, to that of Chancellor Kent.  The price paid for Webster’s 8vo.  Dictionary is understood to be fifty cents per copy; and if so, with a sale of 250,000, it must already have reached $125,000.  If now to this we add the quarto, at only a dollar a copy, we shall have a sum approaching to, and perhaps exceeding, $180,000; more, probably, than has been paid for all the dictionaries of Europe in the same period of time.  What have been the prices paid to Messrs. Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bryant, Willis, Curtis, and numerous others, I cannot say; but it is well known that they have been very large.  It is not, however, only the few who are liberally paid; all are so who manifest any ability, and here it is that we find the effect of the decentralizing system of this country as compared with the centralizing one of Great Britain.  There Mr. Macaulay is largely paid for his Essays, while men of almost equal ability can scarcely obtain the means of support.  Dickens is a literary Croesus, and Tom Hood dies leaving his family in hopeless poverty.  Such is not here the case.  Any manifestation of ability is sure to produce claimants for the publication of books.  No sooner had the story of “Hot Corn” appeared in “The Tribune,” than a dozen booksellers were applicants to the author for a book.  The competition is here for the purchase