from hand to hand, in the transmission of a coin. The beggar boy who carries coppers to the apple woman, and commands her obsequious attention by the outlay of a cent, is momentarily, by the possession of the brass, a monied aristocrat; but we make bold to say that society suffers little damage by the momentary rise of so absurd a relationship; the coppers being transferred to the apple-woman, so much of power and confidence as they carry with them goes over to her side, and things, as in heaven, are made even. Hence it is that we are not disposed to indulge in invectives against the rich. The rich to-day are not the rich to-morrow. The monied body is a soulless and irre sponsible idea. Nor are we more disposed to give way to an exaggerated passion for the suffering and virtuous poor; since the poor of today were, perhaps, the rich of yesterday, and will be the rich of to-morrow. poor are not, with us, a class or a caste: we, too, have been poor, it may be, but we scorn to take pity upon ourselves. The In seeking, therefore, for a cause of the mischief, for a something to blame, we must look to the incompleteness, the imperfection of the means and ways of industry, and of the slowness and difficulty with which the wants and surpluses of one man are made known to the rest of society. This evil is to be met by a more complete and uniform system of public education, by the establishment of labor associations on the system of mutual aid; by the protection of the industry of the country against an unjust and overpowering foreign competition; (the Fourierite is, of necessity, a protectionist,) by facilitating the means of exchange, both of money and of goods; by the extension of the system of roads, bringing each man nearer to his neighbor; by the suppression of every trace of monopoly or corporate privilege, except such as are necessary for the development of new resources, and the encouragement of new inventions. In short, by proceeding, as we have begun, in a broad and liberal system of industrial reform, embracing every department of education, of labor, and of control; above all we must be patient; ideas themselves move slowly, much more do the reforms which follow them. "Society," says Considerant, "is tending to a division into two great classes, the capitalists, and those who live dependent upon capital;" but this is not what M. Considerant would make it, a phenomenon which characterizes civilization; for, in America, which now forms a very considerable portion of the civilized world, property changes hands, passing from rich to poor, and from poor to rich, with such wonderful rapidity, that a period of twenty years is sufficient to alter the grades of society, from highest to lowest. More than ninety men of business out of a hundred fail once in their lives, and the great majority several times. A property of £4,000 sterling is luxury in the country, respectability in the cities. The ruling members of society are the lawyers, divines and editors; merchants being not frequently educated men, control public movements as a body; rarely by individual influence: it is esteemed easier to make money than to keep it. Speculators lose all in the end in ninety-nine cases out of a hnndred. Of monied corporations, for one that is rich, an hundred are in debt; the money lenders are chiefly the bankscombinations of small capitals and savings of labor. In America we know of but one class who transmit political power fram father to son, and who are to be regarded as strictly and properly a ruling class, viz., the large planters of the South; who, taken altogether, with their families, will not make a population equal to that of the city of New York. The power which they hold is political, and is the result of constitutional arrangements; since the property which they represent, is not equal in the value of its products to those of the single State of Massachusetts. A great deal is said of the power of the manufacturing classes who represent and control a greater part of the personal property and floating capital of the North; but even they cannot procure a protective duty to enable them to employ their riches to advantage; they are, with few exceptions, men of moderate capital, who have entrusted their money to the management of skillful business men, and to the manufacturing agents. It is also to be remembered that there is no consolidation of the great manufacturing companies; they are rivals to each other in the different States of the Union, and their political efforts have been thus far confined to the procuring of protection for the artisans who work in their factories, against the depressing influence of English competition. There is no monied aristocracy in America; for the reason, first, that there is no aristocracy proper, and that fortunes are made and lost within the year; and that the son wastes the accumulated riches of the father. Nor is it possible for the possessor of vast estates in America, who has been the maker of his own fortune, to exercise political influence; the habits of his life forbid it; he is not eloquent, he is not courteous; his tenants are not for life, and if they do not like him they will leave him; his agents and dependents are not controlled by him; they can leave him and seek other situations; he cannot hinder their success; his time and his thoughts are wholly occupied in keeping together the monstrous aggregate of his possessions; he is looked upon even with pity, as a man overpowered with care, and whose anxieties can terminate only with his life. The monied aristocracy in Europe, says M. Considerant, has become the master of kings and governments; but it is not so with us; our government is not dependent for its existence upon a loan. The monarchies and aristocracies of Europe, making a virtue of necessity, have adopted the maxim that a public debt is in some measure necessary to the stability of the State; the art of government seems to have been summed up in a sentence: borrow to make war, lay taxes to pay the interest. The refunding of the principal does not enter into their calculations, and therefore it is that financiers become the masters of governments; that money lenders and brokers are able to advise and manage kings and parliaments; that great fortunes are great political powers; that the rich become richer, the poor poorer; that Europe is continually rushing into revolutions. M. Considerant, borrowing from Fourier, claims that capital, labor and talent, are the three elements of production; the great primitive means of social development. Talent, or more properly ability, gives to labor a wider and more profitable direction; for the development of ability a stimulus is needed; the stimulus of want or of necessity. By the system of Fourier, we venture to say, this stimulus would be taken away, and men would be content, working for the common good, with a moderate provision, such as might be attained with a moderate ability. The great Lord Hardwicke remarked, that successful English lawyers, who had come to great honors in the State, attained to eminence chiefly because they began with nothing. The finest productions of human genius, the most enchanting works of art, the most daring and fruitful enterprises, and the deeds of greatest generosity and magnanimity have been the offspring of necessity and pain; or of what is almost an equal stimulus, of solitary ambition, working out for itself, alone and unregarded, out of such rude material as chance might offer, some imperishable memorial; and the happiest moments of a virtuous and cultivated life are those which place us, by a powerful and delicate sympathy, in communion with minds thus struggling; as with heroes achieving victory against hope-with investigators detecting a law of nature by some rude experiment with philosophers, like Epictetus, pressing the wine of consolation from the bitter fennel-leaf of adversity. Let us imagine, for a period of a thousand years, if such a sensual monotony can enter the imagination, the history of a nation reared in phalanxes, educated by scores and thousands, confounded in a well-ordered army, so well-ordered and so conducted as to sink the individual in the system; would not one rather struggle through a short life, and perish early, leaving some memento of character developed in the strife against fortune, were it only to have it written upon one's tombstone, to be overgrown with moss after the fourth generation, that he, whose remains lie here, strove well with adversity during his honest life, and was a good citizen, a good father, a good neighbor in the ancient fashion, than to live a second century vegetating undistinguished among the industrial herd of a well-ordered, wellgoverned, well-fed phalanx ? Capital, labor and talent-capital possessed by an individual with all its risks and contingencies is a source of pride and of enjoyment; the possession of it, if it be but ten dollars, and be true capital, which he may lay by and not use. ORTHOGRAPHIC REFORM. following remarks occur on the subject of is in America, a career if not impossible and unknown, at least one to which the entrance is fenced off by difficulties that must deter many from venturing upon it. On this point, Mr. Griswold speaks with authority." The Reviewer then quotes at length a passage from Mr. Griswold, of which, however, the following portion alone has any direct bearing on the subject. "A short time before Mr. Washington Irving was appointed Minister to Spain, he undertook to dispose of a production of merit, written by an American who had not established a commanding name in the literary market, but found it impossible to get an offer from any of the principal publishers." They even declined, he states, "to publish it at the author's cost! alledging" (and truly) "that it was not worth their while to trouble themselves about native works, of doubt THE author of the ensuing essay has no reference to, and is but imperfectly acquainted with the Phonographic or Anglo-Saxon system of Mr. Pitman of England, and of Messrs. Andrews and Boyle of Boston, which notwithstanding the prejudices so generally entertained by scholars towards innovations of this kind, or against any attempts to disturb the ortho-to this system, authorship by profession, graphic standard and fixed forms of the language, appears to have met with some degree of favor and encourgement from the public. The strange and uncouth form, however, of some of the characters devised by the authors of the system to express dipthongal and other sounds, are little calculated to recommend them to general adoption; or to improve or beautify the aspect of the language, which as we humbly think, ought to form a part of every such scheme. The attempt, also, to effect a literal adaptation of the spelling to the pronunciation, can only be productive of discord and confusion; or will neither tend to symmetrize the former, or soften the hissing hardness of the latter, which occasions it to grate so unpleasantly on the ears of foreigners, and renders the English the least agreeable of the cultivated languages of Europe-though it otherwise yields to none in copiousness and sig-ful success, while they could pick and nificance, or in dignity and force. A superior degree, therefore, of tact and taste, a nice sense of symmetry, and a finely at tuned ear, should be possessed by those who undertake to modify, or who would simplify and improve it. But before entering upon the main subject of the ensuing essay, we will offer a few remarks upon a topic intimately connected with it; which though it has been much discussed of late, both in England and this country, is still, as we humbly think, but imperfectly understood by the public, or by authors and publishers, who are particularly interested in having it put in its true light, and finally set at rest. In an article on Griswold's "Prose Writers of America," which appeared not long since in the "Westminster Review," the - for choose among the successful works daily do but little towards effecting the objects | expect from any other.* If the fame of aimed at by its advocates, and which they so confidently expect to accomplish by it. For the true source of the evil complained of, and which it is designed to remedy, lies far deeper than is generally supposed, and forms a difficulty, that must first be clearly understood and appreciated, before the radical treatment which the case requires, can either be attempted, or successfully entered upon. The injustice practised towards English writers, by American publishers, and the discouragement under which our own literature labors, from the ascendancy of that of the mother country among us, are evils properly due-not so much to the want of a copy-right law as to the community of language existing between the two countries a circumstance, unusual in the relations of independent nations, and which is necessarily attended by disadvantages and inconveniences, which no act of ordinary legislation can either effectually counteract, or partially remedy. In addition to this, the almost actual contact into which the two countries have been brought, by means of the space-annihilating powers of steam; or by the rapidity with which the transit over the Atlantic is now effected, renders a work published in London, nearly as easily accessible to readers on this side of the water, as one simultaneously issued in New York or Philadelphia. Hence, the intellectual influence which the mother country necessarily and naturally exercises over us, through her literature and language, is artificially extended, and daily strengthened and confirmed, by the increased facility of communication between the two countries; and this again leads, by necessary consequence, to the practices on the part of our publishers, so much complained of by British writers. In a word, we naturally enough, under such circumstances, demur to giving the English author a second monopoly in this country, where a reprint of his work, at least, operates to extend its circulation and fame-though it may diminish the profit which he might otherwise derive from it, both at home and abroad. For the copy-right which he enjoys thereby, securing to him all that he can ask from his own government, gives him more than he can reasonably ask or his writings extend to other countries, those countries stand towards him in the relation of posterity, or in a position so far analogous to it, as to render it unreasonable for him to expect from the one anything more than he hopes to receive from the other, or that wide-spread renown, which is so nearly equivalent to the after-glory, which forms the reward and crowning recompense of genius and true ambition. Nor can he, as a non-resident, with any justice demand to be placed on an equal footing, as respects the right of property, with the alien or denizen; who owes the protection he receives to actual inhabitancy; or on a better footing than the holder of a patent, whose privilege is confined to the land of his birth. The relation we bear to England, as her juniors, or descendants, places us, in this country, still more in the position of posterity towards her; and we may surely, at any rate, be allowed to pluck from the exuberant tree of knowledge, which she has so effectually secured against domestic depredation, the fruits that hung over the highway which a common language has established between us the more especially, as we are cultivating a promising crop of our own, to which we are perfectly willing that she should help herself in turn, and continue to do so, however rich and abundant it may become. If, then, we desire to put an end to the injustice complained of by English writers, and to give an impulse to our own literature, by freeing it from the chilling adumbration to which it is at present subjected, by that of the mother country, we must gird up our loins for some stronger and more comprehensive measure than that of passing an international copy-right law-which, we repeat, can do but little towards effecting the object aimed at, and realizing the advantages which its advocates so fondly anticipate from it. Though it may give a just protection to the authors of both countries, and, in so far, promote their * In the instance of a translation, no claim of this kind is set up; and the community of language, which happens to exist between this country and England, surely does not vary the principle involved, or add any feature of injustice to the case between British writers or American publishers. copy-right. This simple fact spoke volumes to me, as I trust it will do to all who peruse these lines. I do not mean to enter into the discussion of a subject that has already been treated so voluminously. I will barely observe that I have seen few arguments advanced against the proposed act that ought to weigh with intelligent and high-minded men; while I have noticed some that have been urged, so sordid and selfish in their nature, and so narrow in the scope of their policy, as almost to be insulting to those to whom they are addressed. individual or pecuniary interests; it can successful works daily poured out by the Britdo little towards counteracting the "in-ish press, for which they had nothing to pay for fluence unbenign," which the elder country exercises over the minds of her descendants, and must ever exercise, while this unpropitious state of things lasts, or is permitted to continue. The following views and suggestions, therefore, will, we hope, be indulgently received, as they are submitted without any ambition or wish to constrain the opinions of others, but are merely intended to pass for what they may be worth, among the theories and speculations of the day: "TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER: "WASHINGTON IRVING." "I had a little talk with Morier on copyright. I told him that the English novelists, spite of our injustice to them, were dogs in the manger. No publisher would buy a novel from me, for instance, when they could get all his, and Bulwer's and D'Israeli's, and everybody's else, for nothing. The consequence is, I trust that, whenever this question comes before Congress, it will at once receive an action prompt and decided, and will be carried by an overwhelming, if not unanimous vote, "SIR: Having seen it it stated more than worthy of an enlightened, a just, and a generous once in the public papers that I declined sub-nation. Your obedient servant, scribing my name to the petition presented to Congress, during a former session, for an act of international copy-right, I beg leave, through your pages, to say, in explanation, that I declined, not from any hostility or indifference to the object of the petition, in favor of which my sentiments have always been openly expressed, but merely becaue I did not relish the phrase ology of the petition, and because I expected to see the measure pressed from another quarter. I wrote about the same time, however, tomembers of Congress in support of the application. "As no other petition has been sent to me for signature, and as silence on my part may misconstrued, I now, as far as my name may be thought of any value, enrol it among those who pray most earnestly to Congress for this act of international equality. I consider it due, not only to foreign authors, to whose lucubrations we are so deeply indebted for constant instruction and delight, but to our own native authors, who are implicated in the effects of the wrong done by our present laws. be "For myself, my literary career, as an author, is drawing to a close, and cannot be much affected by any disposition of this question; but we have a young literature springing up, and daily unfolding itself with wonderful energy and luxuriance, which, as it promises to shed a grace and lustre upon the nation, deserves all its fostering care. How much this growing literature may be retarded by the present state of our copy-right law, I had recently an instance, in the cavalier treatment of a work of merit, written by an American, who had not yet established a commanding name in the literary market. I undertook, as a friend, to dispose of it for him, but found it impossible to get an offer from any of our principal publishers. They even declined to publish it at the author's cost, alledging that it was not worth their while to trouble themselves about native works of doubtful success while they could pick and choose among the that American writers shrink from elaborate works, and spend their efforts on periodical writing, or do anything-follow any profession rather than help the national literature and starve. The question then came very naturally, Why does not Congress see this, and agree to mend the obvious injustice by a proper copy-right law?' Answer-because it would slightly raise the prices of literature, and shortsighted demagogues find excellent stuff for speeches in the advocacy of cheap books for the people.' Result--that the people get no American books, and are impregnated exclusively by foreign writers, and with English and monarchial principles! But this begins to read like an essay."-Willis's Letters. As the want of an international copyright law does not produce similar consequences in England, or operate to the discouragement of literature there, we cannot but wonder that Messrs. Irving and Willis should persist in attributing the state of things which they describe, and so eloquently lament, to a cause thus partial and unilateral in its effects. The ascendancy of the literature of England is, we repeat, the true cause of the depression of ours; and this, again, is due to the community of language between the two countries; and the superior capital possessed by British publishers, which enables them to embark more boldly in literary |