still be left in a state even of pauperism.  These victims perish in silence!  No one has attempted to suggest even a palliative for this great evil; and when I asked the greatest genius of our age to propose some relief for this general suffering, a sad and convulsive nod, a shrug that sympathised with the misery of so many brothers, and an avowal that even he could not invent one, was all that genius had to alleviate the forlorn state of the literary character.[A]

[Footnote A:  It was the late Sir WALTER SCOTT—­if I could assign the date of this conversation, it would throw some light on what might be then passing in his own mind.]

The only man of genius who has thrown out a hint for improving the situation of the literary man is ADAM SMITH.  In that passage in his “Wealth of Nations” to which I have already referred, he says, that “Before the invention of the art of printing, the only employment by which a man of letters could make anything by his talents was that of a public or a private teacher, or by communicating to other people the various and useful knowledge which he had acquired himself; and this surely is a more honourable, a more useful, and in general even a more profitable employment than that other of writing for a bookseller, to which the art of printing has given occasion.”  We see the political economist, alike insensible to the dignity of the literary character, incapable of taking a just view of its glorious avocation.  To obviate the personal wants attached to the occupations of an author, he would, more effectually than skilfully, get rid of authorship itself.  This is not to restore the limb, but to amputate it.  It is not the preservation of existence, but its annihilation.  His friends Hume and Robertson must have turned from this page humiliated and indignant.  They could have supplied Adam Smith with a truer conception of the literary character, of its independence, its influence, and its glory.

I have projected a plan for the alleviation of the state of these authors who are not blessed with a patrimony.  The trade connected with literature is carried on by men who are usually not literate, and the generality of the publishers of books, unlike all other tradesmen, are often the worst judges of their own wares.  Were it practicable, as I believe it to be, that authors and men of letters could themselves be booksellers, the public would derive this immediate benefit from the scheme; a deluge of worthless or indifferent books would be turned away, and the name of the literary publisher would be a pledge for the value of every new book.  Every literary man would choose his own favourite department, and we should learn from him as well as from his books.