Such having been the result of half a century, during which we have had to lay the foundation of the system that has furnished so vast a body of readers, what may not be expected in the next half century, during which the population will increase to a hundred millions, with a power to consume the products of literary labor growing many times faster than the growth of numbers?  If this country is properly termed “the paradise of women,” may it not be as correctly denominated the paradise of authors, and should they not be content to dwell in it as their predecessors have done?  Is it wise in them to seek a change?  Their best friends would, I think, unite with me in advising that it is not.  Should they succeed in obtaining what they now desire, the day will, as I think, come, when they will be satisfied that their real friends had been, those who opposed the confirmation of the treaty now before the Senate.

LETTER VI.

We have commenced the erection of a great literary and scientific edifice.  The foundation is already broad, deep, and well laid, but it is seen to increase in breadth, depth, and strength, with every step of increase in height; and the work itself is seen to assume, from year to year, more and more the natural form of a true pyramid.  To the height that such a building may be carried, no living man will venture to affix a limit.  What is the tendency to durability in a work thus constructed, the pyramids of Egypt and the mountains of the Andes and of the Himalaya may attest.  That edifice is the product of decentralization.

Elsewhere, centralization is, as has been shown, producing the opposite effect, narrowing the base, and diminishing the elevation.  Having prospered under decentralization, our authors seek to introduce centralization.  Failing to accomplish their object by the ordinary course of legislation, they have had recourse to the executive power; and thus the end to be accomplished, and the means used for its accomplishment, are in strict accordance with each other.

We are invited to grant to the authors and booksellers of England, and their agent or agents here, entire control over a highly important source from which our people have been accustomed to derive their supplies of literary food.  Before granting to these persons any power here, it might be well to inquire how they have used their power at home.  Doing this, we find that, as is usually the case with those enjoying a monopoly, they have almost uniformly preferred to derive their profits from high prices and small sales, and have thus, in a great degree, deprived their countrymen of the power to purchase books; a consequence of which has been that the reading community has, very generally, been driven to dependence upon circulating libraries, to the injury of both the authors and the public.  The extent to which this system of high prices in regard to school-books has been carried, and the danger of