with a power of consumption that will probably be ten times greater than
now exists. If the Commentaries of Chancellor Kent continue to maintain
their present position, as they probably will, may we not reasonably
suppose that the demand for them will continue as great, or nearly so, as
it is at present, and that the total sale during the period of copyright
will reach a quarter of a million of volumes? So, too, of the histories of
Bancroft and Prescott, and of other books of permanent character.

Such being the extent of the market for the products of literary labor, we
may now inquire into its rewards.

Beginning with the common schools, we find a vast number of young men and
young women acting as teachers of others, while qualifying themselves for
occupying other places in life. Many of them rise gradually to become
teachers in high schools and professors in colleges, while all of them
have at hand the newspaper, ready to enable them, if gifted with the power
of expressing themselves on paper, to come before the world. The numerous
newspapers require editors and contributors, and the amount appropriated
to the payment of this class of the community is a very large one. Next
come the magazines, many of which pay very liberally. I have now before me
a statement from a single publisher, in which he says that to Messrs.
Willis, Longfellow, Bryant, and Alston, his price was uniformly $50 for a
poetical article, long or short--and his readers know that they were
generally very short; in one case only fourteen lines. To numerous others
it was from $25 to $40. In one case he has paid $25 per page for prose. To
Mr. Cooper he paid $1,800 for a novel, and $1,000 for a series of naval
biographies, the author retaining the copyright for separate publication;
and in such cases, if the work be good, its appearance in the magazine
acts as the best of advertisements. To Mr. James he paid $1,200 for a
novel, leaving him also the copyright. For a single number of the journal