reprint of his principal work, the last chapter in which will be made to end exactly in an opposite way to that which he intended. Then there are the essayists who would be on our side, a host in themselves. Then the dramatists, both Henry Taylor and Tom Taylor, to shape our grievance into tragic or into comic form, whichever might have most influence on the public. The author of "Realmah," instead of pressing upon our unwilling minds, with his accustomed obstinacy, his views about Gibraltar, might give us a pre-Adamite tale, to show how the earliest authors were ill-treated by their countrymen, and by those States which had swarmed off from their country. Mr. Tupper, with his usual kind-heartedness, would not be found wanting when he could aid his poorer brethren. I foresee some threatening Proverbial Philosophy, which would run thus :

:

"You fear the lion, When you behold the foot-prints of his tawny self

Deep-marked upon the desert: fear far more The foot-prints on the yellow sands of time, More deeply marked, of meditative authors. To give, or to withhold, the meed of praise, Which Kings, and Presidents, and statesmen

crave,

And look for in the daily papers, theirs
It is the meditative authors-wherefore
Be wise, and thwart them not."

I am afraid this is not the right metre, but the idea will suffice.

Now, if authors would only combine in this way, the world would do anything to get rid of them and their grievance. Indeed, I believe the world, rather than be plagued by our remonstrances, would pay us our back dues, which, for living authors alone, would probably amount to 170,0007.

I write jestingly-it is my way—but I am very serious. I could not, however, advocate the claim of British authors in this matter, if I were not convinced that the interests of literature are seriously involved in it.

I suppose you will not dispute that British authors at present derive no benefit, or next to no benefit, from the reprints of their works in America. I

66

overheard some time ago a conversation upon this subject between two wellknown men of letters in this country, authors very popular in America, and one of them remembered, to use his own quaint phraseology, that he had once received an exiguous ten-pound note' from a publisher in America. This great author was a fortunate man, and must have been born under one of your own stars. It is well indeed if an author receives a copy of his pirated work from the pirate; and better still, if he is not served, as I have been, by having a book compounded out of some work or works of mine, and published in America under a title that was not in any way invented by me.

That the laws, or want of laws, of any country should enable a man to commit so great a wrong against his fellow-man as often is committed by this unauthorized reprinting, is astonishing. It is a wrong which is most peculiar in its nature. Mr. Bass would complain, and justly, at that red triangle of his being put upon a bottle of pale ale, not of his brewing; but what would he say if his mark were put upon a bottle of ale, which he could not declare was not brewed by him, but which was not first-rate, which required correction, and which, if not absolutely stolen, was taken from him before it was ready for issue? He would feel that his fame, as well as his pocket, would suffer. Now this instance has its parallel in what I have described above as the fate of a work, published in a British serial, and reprinted without correction in America.

Now this matter apparently touches us at present more than it does you. We are the older nation. We have, for a long time, had more leisure; and, not having so much land to spread ourselves over, we have given more time to writing books than you have. But your time is coming, and coming rapidly. You must become great writers of books; and you are subject to the same system of legal nefariousness that we have long laboured under. In another generation or two, the balance of writing power will perhaps be in your favour. There

will be many Hawthornes, Emersons, Motleys, and Longfellows, and, let us hope, many an Agassiz. Motives of self-interest will therefore soon compel you to consider this question; but, from what I know of your nation, I believe that you will previously be inclined to take it up and settle it upon much higher grounds.

I cannot help, however, insisting upon certain lower grounds of motive, for I believe they are unknown to most persons, even of those who have taken much interest in the general question of copyright. No man can doubt that the British author suffers severely from the want of international copyright between Great Britain and America. His is a most patent wrong; but wrongfulness is seldom or never isolated; and the indirect consequences of injustice are often more fatal than the direct. It is so in the present case. If British authors are injured, American authors are repressed-indeed I might almost say suppressed-by the present state of things, the tendency of which is to prevent all American authors but those of the highest eminence from getting a hearing. The reason is obvious. If an American publisher can publish a work, without giving its author any money for the copyright, why should he publish a work of a similar nature, unless it be of very superior merit, for the copyright of which he has to pay money? He must pay an American author something, he need not pay a British author anything. Of course he finds a peculiar merit in British authors. This principle of action will not apply to the greatest and most original works, but it will apply to all those which are of the second order. This must prove 66 a heavy blow and great discouragement" to men of letters in America.

It is thus that they are prevented from adopting the higher walks of literature, and must, in many instances, content themselves with writing for ephemeral productions which do not suffer from competition with unpaid-for British writing.

I began this letter, thinking that

British authors had the largest grievance to complain of: in working out the subject, however, in my own mind, and availing myself of the knowledge and experience of men possessing special knowledge and experience in these matters, I have come most decisively to the conclusion, that the American author, or rather the man who would be, and who could be, an American author, has the greater grievance to complain of. I have gone round to his side, and feel that I am an advocate for his interests far more than for those of my friends and brethren, the British authors, when I ask for International Copyright.

Now let us look at the interests of the American public. Lord Russell once said, "I hear a great deal about this interest and that interest, but I do not so often hear about the interest of the great body of the public at large."

His lordship, if he were to read this letter, might say to me, "You have spoken much about the interests of authors, British and American; you have spoken of the interests of literature; but I have not heard much about the interests of the British and American public." I cannot reply to him in the words of a great wit, who was also a very High Churchman, and who said, "I really cannot see what the laity were made for." I feel very much for our laity, and if their interest were really adverse to ours, the priesthood's, I should say, Let the priesthood give way. But I contend that both the American and the British public would gain enormously by a good system of international copyright. If both the American and the British authors possessed the advantage to be gained from entering upon an equal footing into both markets, British and American, the works published in both countries by these authors would be more numerous, could be produced at a lower price, and yet would admit of more labour, skill, and money being expended upon them. The present system of legalized robbery on both sides tends to stint and dwarf the literatures of both countries, and to make the public in

Numerous illustrations might be drawn from other branches of human labour to fortify the position taken above. The interests of the public generally go hand in hand with those of the promoters of any material undertaking, such as the making of canals and railways, or the establishment of international communication. The interests of all people throughout the world are in these days so closely combined, that a mistake made by, or a wrong committed upon, any class of producers inevitably reacts upon the consumers.

Now, how should these injuries and scandals be prevented? Diplomatists I will not be able to do much for us, although several of them, yours as well as ours, are men who love literature, and have distinguished themselves in literature. Still we must not look for any signal help from them, unless they are stimulated by the demand of the public on both sides of the water that divides us. It is to that public that I would appeal through you; and I believe that if the American authors, and the American public, would bestir themselves in this matter, they would find that the British authors, and the British public, would be anxious and ready to co-operate with them, and would force upon governments and diplomatists a due consideration of this important matter.

Why do I say that it is important? For four reasons.

1. Because the present system, or rather want of system, is injurious to authors, both American and British; especially to the American, for, as I have shown, it tends to suppress him.

2. Because it is very damaging to literature.

3. Because it prevents both the American and the British public from profiting by the united and the best efforts in literature, of authors having the advantage of writing in that great

4. Because it hinders the amity of two nations which, for their own interests and the interests of the world, should be the closest friends.

Authors are, after all, the people who give the tone to the mind and thought of each generation. They have, at least, much to do with creating future peace or war, far more perhaps than diplomatists or statesmen. It is of great importance that the genus irritabile of authors should have a friendly feeling to the inhabitants of other countries if there is to be peace between those countries and their own.

I do not mind confessing to you, for you are a kind-hearted man, and will readily give me absolution if you can, that I have sometimes felt a shade of bitterness come over me against all Americans, when I have seen how my works have been dealt with in America; but I have got rid of it, at once, when I have seen any of you, and have found out what good-natured fellows you are, and how tolerant you are of our bad grammar, and of our shortcomings in political development.-I am, as always, Your sincere Friend,

A BRITISH AUTHOR.

CHAS. ELIOT NORTON, ESQ.

P.S.-I have shown to an eminent publisher this letter to you. He says that I have understated my case, and gives this notable instance of the injury done to young American authors by the present system. He has, before now, taken note of some work of much merit, or much promise, written by a young American author. He has felt that it would only interest a comparatively small circle of readers; but that it deserved to be made known. has, accordingly, communicated with the American author, and has published an edition of the book, got up in the way in which this publisher's books are always presented to the public. Then some other person, thinking that

He

if this well-known publisher has thought it worth while to publish the book in question, something may be made of it for him too, has forthwith published an inferior edition of it. The public, ever charmed by cheapness, buys the inferior edition; and the eminent publisher resolves for the future not to publish any more American books of this kind.

The said publisher also made me acquainted with another remarkable fact. There is an excellent work, well known, I have no doubt, to you, called Hallam's "History of Literature in

Europe." Mr. Hallam was a most painstaking, honest, accurate, observant writer. In the course of his life he very much improved this "History of Literature in Europe." But the copyright of the first edition published in 1826 has, according to our present law, expired, and this edition, without the author's later corrections, is now reprinted by an English publisher, who bears the same name as the eminent publisher of Hallam's works. The author's memory is thus injured, and the public is apt to be misled.

THE STORY.

CHAPTER I.

I AM going back in my history of Lady de Bougainville nearly fifty years.

But before taking it up at that faraway period, so long before I knew her, and continuing it down to the time when I did know her-where I have just now let it drop-let me say a few words.

To give the actual full details of any human life is simply impossible. History cannot do it, nor biography, nor yet autobiography; for, even if we wished, we could not tell the exact truth about ourselves. Paradoxical as it may sound, I have often thought that the nearest approximation to absolute truth is fiction;

because the novelist presents, not so much literal facts, which can be twisted and distorted to almost any shape, as the one underlying verity of human nature. Thus, Lady de Bougainville's story, as I have gradually gathered it from herself and others, afterwards putting together all the data which came into my hands, is given by me probably as near reality as any one not gifted with clairvoyance could give it. I believe I have put "the facts of the case" with as much veracity as most historians. Nor am I bolder in discriminating motives and judging actions than many historians-nay, than we all oiten assume to be, just as if we were omnipresent and omniscient, towards our poor fellow-worms.

But still, any one with common sense and common perception, studying human nature, must see that certain effects must follow certain causes, and produce certain final results, as sure as that the daylight follows the sun. Therefore, when we writers make a story, and our readers speculate about it, and "wonder

how it will end," we rather smile at them. We know that if it is true to human life it can end but in one way,subject to various modifications, but still only in one way. Granting such and such premises, the result must follow, inexorable as fate.

And so in course of years I arrived at Lady de Bougainville's history as accurately as if she herself had written it down: nay, more so, for upon various points of it her tongue was, and ever would have been, firmly sealed, while upon other points circumstances and her own peculiar character made her incompetent to form a judgment. But it was easy enough to form my own, less from what she related than by what she unwittingly betrayed, still more by what I learned,-though not till after she was gone,-by the one only person who had known her in her youth, the old Irishwoman, Bridget Halloran, who then lived a peaceful life of busy idleness in Lady de Bougainville's house, and afterwards ended her days as an honoured inmate in mine.

Bridget, as soon as she knew me and grew fond of me, had no reserves; but her mistress had many. Never once

did she sit down to relate to me her "history,"-people do not do that in real life; and yet she was for ever letting fall facts and incidents which, put together, made a complete and continuous autobiography. Her mind, ever dwelling on the past, and indifferent to, or oblivious of, the present, had acquired a vividness and minuteness of recollection that was quite remarkable. I never questioned her that was impossible. At the slightest indication of impertinent curiosity she would draw in her horns, or retire at once into her shell like any hermit crab, and it was difficult to lure her out again. But generally,