"He must be of a well-settled and constant belief, to enjoy the benefit of his expectation; for than to despair, it were better never to be put in practice: and he must ever think, when the waters are pleasant, and any thing likely, that there the Creator of all good things, hath stored up much of plenty; and though your satisfaction be not as ready as your wishes, yet you must hope still, that with perseverance you shall reap the fullness of your harvest with contentment. Then he must be full of love both to his pleasure, and his neighbor—to his pleasure, which will otherwise be irksome and tedious—and to his neighbor, that he never give offense in any particular, nor be guilty of any general destruction; then he must be exceeding patient, and neither vex nor excruciate himself with any losses or mischances, as in losing the prey when it is almost in hand, or by breaking his tools by ignorance or negligence; but with pleased sufferance amend errors, and think mischances instructions to better carefulness."
We commend all this to the trout fishers among the musquitos, and black flies of Hamilton County—for even into that dim, and barbarian region, our monthly budget finds its way.
Among other things of the hour, we must spare a note for those pleasant statistics of author-and-bookdom, which the international discussion of Copyright has called into print.
Heretofore, the man of books has been reckoned as a liver, for the most part, upon such manna as rained down from time to time, from a very imaginative heaven; he has lived, by a certain charitable courtesy of the world, (which is coy of ferreting out its injustices) beyond the tongue of talk, and his pride and poverty have suffered an amiable reprieve.
The time, it seems, is now gone by; and we find Prescott and Irving submitted to the same fiscal measurement, as are the brokers upon 'Change. We wish the whole author fraternity might come as bravely out of it as the two we have named: and should it ever come to pass, that the fraternity were altogether rich, we hope they will not neglect the foundation of some quiet hospital for the poor fellows (like ourselves) who record their progress, and chronicle their honors.
In old times a fancy held men's minds, that the payment for poetry came only from Heaven: and that so soon as the Divine fingers which caught the minstrelsy of the angel world, touched upon gold, they palsied, and lost their power. Under the present flattering condition of the author world (of which, alas, we only read!) it may be well to revive the caution: the poor may, at the least, console themselves thereby; and as for the rich—they need no consolation.
Time and time again, we believe, spicy authors have threatened to take the publisher's business off his hands; and in lieu of half the profits, to measure them all with themselves. But, unfortunately for the credit of the calling, authors are, in the general way, blessed with very moderate financial capacity; and from Scott to Lamartine, they have in such venture, to the best of our observation, worked very hard—for very little pay.
Speaking of Lamartine, reminds us of a little episode of French life, which has latterly crept into the French papers, and which would have made (as the publishers say) a "companion volume" to Lamartine's Raphael—always provided it were as well written out. The episode is dismissed in two or three lines of the journals, and is headed in very attracting way—"Died of Love."