LITERARY PROPERTY AND REMUNERATION.

Among the ingenious pastimes of poets, we must notice the follow- «U-nite and untie are the same-so say yo-U ing, which is unique in its way-N-ot in wedlock, I ween has the unity bee-N each word reads the same backwards I-n the drama of marriage each wandering gou-T T-o a new face would fly-all except you and I and forwards :E-ach seeking to alter the spell in their scen-E."

LITERARY PROPERTY AND REMUNERATION.

The ultimate sale of the copy-pounds; Rowe for his Jane Shore, right of Paradise Lost produced to Milton's widow eight pounds; and Dryden received from Tonson two pounds thirteen shillings and nine pence for every hundred lines of his poetry.

The publisher of Lalla Rookh gave three thousand guineas for the copyright of that poem.

JACOB TONSON AND DRYDEN. Jacob Tonson, the most eminent of his profession as a publisher, hav

pression of five hundred to Mr. Arch, a London bookseller.

"On my reaching London, hav

ing refused to advance Dryden a sum of money for a work in which he was engaged, the enraged bard sent a message to him, and the fol-ing an account to settle with Messrs. lowing lines, adding, "Tell the dog that he who wrote these can write

Longman and Rees, the booksellers of Paternoster Row, I sold them all my copyrights, which were valued as one lot, by a third party. On my next seeing Mr. Longman, he told me that, in estimating the value of the copyrights, Fox's Achmed and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads were 'reckoned as nothing.' 'That being the case,' I replied, 'as both these authors are my personal friends, I should be obliged if you would return me again these two copyrights, that I may have the pleasure of presenting them to the respective writers.' Mr. Longman answered, with his accustomed li

"As a curious literary fact," says Cottle, "I might mention that the sale of the first edition of the Lyr-berality, 'You are welcome to them.' ical Ballads was so slow, and the severity of most of the reviews so great, that their progress to oblivion, notwithstanding the merit which I was quite sure they possessed, seemed to be ordained to be as rapid as it was certain. I had given thirty guineas for the copyright; but the heavy sale induced me at length to part with them at a loss -the largest proportion of the im-worth."

On my reaching Bristol, I gave Mr. Fox his receipt for twenty guineas, and on Coleridge's return from the north, I gave him Mr. Wordsworth's receipt for his thirty guineas; so that whatever advantage has arisen subsequently from the sale of this volume of the Lyrical Ballads, I am happy to say, has pertained exclusively to Mr. Words

MAGAZINES.

Sir John Hawkins, in his Memoirs of Johnson, ascribes the decline of literature to the ascendency of frivolous Magazines, between the years 1740 and 1760. He says that they render smatterers conceited, and confer the superficial glitter of knowledge instead of its substance. Sir Richard Phillips, upwards of forty years a publisher, gives the following evidence as to the sale of the Magazines in his time :

gazine, full 15,000 copies per month; and, of another, the Ladies' Magazine, from 16,000 to 22,000. Such circumstances, were, therefore, calculated to draw forth the observations of Hawkins. The Gentleman's Magazine, in its days of popular extracts, never rose above 10,000; after it became more decidedly antiquarian, it fell in sale, and continued for many years at 3000. There was also a lighter work, the "For my own part, I know that European Magazine, and one better in 1790, and for many years pre-selected, called the Universal Magaviously, there were sold of the trifle zine, both of which sold also to the called the Town and Country Ma- latter extent. These were the perio

*

MARRIAGES OF MEN OF GENIUS.

95

dicals with which I had to contend | years by the Gentleman's Journal when I began the Monthly Magazine of Motteux, a work much more in 1795; but, till 1824, when I sold closely resembling our modern mathat work, the average regular sale gazines, and from which Sylvanus did not exceed 3500 or 3750. Urban borrowed part of his title, and part of his motto; while on the first page of the first number of the Gentleman's Magazine itself, it is stated to contain "more than any book of the kind and price." (Mr. Watts, of the British Museum.)

THE FIRST MAGAZINE.

The Gentleman's Magazine unaccountably passes for the earliest periodical of that description; while, in fact, it was preceded nearly forty

MARRIAGES OF MEN OF GENIUS.

Marriages of men of genius is one of the strangest themes in the history of literature. Goethe married to become respectable; Niebuhr to please a mistress; Churchill because he was miserable; Napoleon to get a command; Wilkes to oblige his friends; Wycherly to spite his relations. The author of Salad for the Solitary, furnishes the following piquant morceaux, touching the marriage of two French litterateurs of celebrity:

the book she was in quest of was the pocket edition of his own works, adding that she never travelled without it, and that without it she could not exist! She drew the volume from beneath his elbow, and flew down stairs, obedient to the screaming summons of her husband--a pursy old gentleman, who was already seated in the carriage, railing in a loud voice against dilatory habits of women in general and his own spouse in particular; "M. Balzac, the French novelist, and the emblazoned vehicle drove exhibits another example of eccen- off, leaving the novelist in a state tricity in matrimonial affairs. Ac- of self-complacency the most enviacording to a Parisian correspondent, ble to be conceived. This was the the arrival of this celebrated author only occasion upon which Balzac from Germany caused an immense and the Princess Hanski had met, sensation in certain circles, owing till his recent visit to Germany, to the romantic circumstances con- when he presented himself as her nected with his marriage. When accepted husband. During these Balzac was at the zenith of his long intervening fifteen years, howfame, he was travelling in Switzer- ever, a literary correspondence was land, and had arrived at the inn steadily kept up between the parjust at the very moment the Prince ties, till at length instead of a letter and Princess Hanski were leaving containing literary strictures upon it. Balzac was ushered into the his writings, a missive of another room they had just vacated, and kind-having a still more directly was leaning from the window to personal tendency, reached him observe their departure, when his from the fair hand of the princess. attention was arrested by a soft It contained the announcement of voice at his elbow, asking for a the demise of her husband the book which had been left behind prince-that he had bequeathed upon the window-seat. The lady to her his domains, and his great was certainly fair, but appeared wealth-and consequently, that she doubly so in the eyes of the poor felt bound to requite him in some author, when she intimated that measure for his liberality, and had

author waited not a second nursed this sentiment in secret, ns; they were forthwith and being apprised of the embarin wedlock, at her château rassed state of his affairs, she wrote Rhine, and a succession of him, tendering him the bulk of her d fêtes celebrated the auspi- fortune. Touched with this revent. The story of the mar-markable proof of her generosity, f Lamartine is also one of and supposing it could only be ic interest. The lady, whose caused by a preference for himself, name was Birch, was pos- he at once made an offer of his hand of considerable property, and and heart. He judged rightly, and past the bloom of youth, the poet was promptly accepted."

ributing, as they do, to our which unites two distant seas-the mediate and pressing wants bridge and the aqueduct, which span aling to the eye by their an impassable valley-the harbour ude, and often by their gran- and the breakwater, which shelter nd associated in many cases our vessels of peace and of war-the he warmer impulses of hu- railway, which hurries us along on and personal safety-the the wings of mechanism, and the of the mechanist and engi- light beacon which throws its diequire a contemporary cele-recting beams over the deep-adwhich is not vouchsafed to the dress themselves to the secular inof scientific research, or to terests of every individual, and ductions of literature and the obtain for the engineer who invented s. The gigantic steam-vessel, or who planned them a high and expedites and facilitates the well-merited popular reputation.urse of nations-the canal, (Macaulay.)

HARVEY.

MEDICAL MEN.

Harvey had made the great ry of the circulation of the ne durst not for many years op a hint upon the subject in paratively private lectures, was not until nearly thirty ad elapsed that he ventured ish to the world, not in his untry, but at Frankfort, the of his experiments. And then could exceed the contempt licule with which it was reHad he lived in a country ed with the light of the Re

As it

and author of a

alworks, was a great econome. In the intervals of al duty his pen was alhis hand, and he was accuswrite with great fluency. ring his manuscript upon articular subject-as, for inmore especially his articles Cyclopedia-he was in the noting down on a scrap er the heads into which he of dividing his subject, of ling all the books upon it he had occasion to consult, ich he arranged in his mind proposed to say, so that when to write he considered his de. He wrote, indeed, as pen could move, and with necessity of correction or ation, that his first copy ent to the printer. Neither part of this process hastily derately performed. He to prepare for the single "Imagination," in the Encyclopedia, he read er part of one-and-twenty

ECOVERY OF VACCINATION. long after Dr. Jenner first ed the idea of preventing by vaccination that he ted his great discovery, and ger before he durst promulto the world. In 1780, he his views to a friend, exhis confident conviction as destined to benefit the race. It was not till after years of patient and searchestigation that the efficacy discovery was effectually on the human subject. The of failure, in the casual distion of the disease, were next ined, and his chief care was il them in attempting to pro

formation, he would probably have
shared the fate of Galileo.
was, he was accused of propagating
doctrines tending to subvert the
authority of Holy Scripture; the
epithet circulator, in its Latin in-
vidious signification (quack), was
applied to him; it was given out
that he was "crack-brained," and
his practice as a physician sensibly
declined. In a quarter of a cen-
tury more his system was re-
ceived in all the universities of
the world, and Harvey lived to
enjoy the reputation he so justly
merited.

thor of a number period. "While the vaccine diswas a great econo- covery was progressive, the joy I n the intervals of felt at the prospect before me, of his pen was al- being the instrument destined to. and he was accus- take away from the world one of with great fluency. its greatest calamities, blended with manuscript upon the fond hope of enjoying independubject-as, for in-ence, and domestic peace and happiness, were often so excessive, that, in pursuing my favourite subject among the meadows, I have sometimes found myself in a kind of reverie. It is pleasant to me to recollect that those reflections always ended in devout acknowledgments to that Being from whom this and all other blessings flow."

ecially his articles ia-he was in the down on a scrap ds into which he ing his subject, of the books upon it casion to consult, ranged in his mind say, so that when he considered his wrote, indeed, as ld move, and with y of correction or at his first copy printer. Neither his process hastily performed. He are for the single gination," in the clopædia, he read of one-and-twenty

VACCINATION.

er Dr. Jenner first ea of preventing ecination that he eat discovery, and he durst promulrld. In 1780, he is to a friend, exfident conviction ed to benefit the was not till after atient and searchthat the efficacy

At length, on the 14th of May, 1796, an opportunity occurred of making a decisive trial.-(On the annual occurrence of this day a festival is held at Berlin to commemorate the event.)-Matter was taken from the hand of Sarah Nelmes, who had been infected by her master's cows, and inserted by two superficial incisions into the arms of James Phipps, a healthy boy of about eight years of age. He went through the disease apparently in a very satisfactory manner, but the most anxious part of the trial still remained to be performed. Was he secure against the contagion of small-pox? This point was fully put to issue. Variolous matter immediately taken from a pustule was carefully inserted by several incisions, and the result is related by Jenner to his friend Gardner in the

following language: "But now listen to the most delightful part of my story. The boy has since been inoculated for the small-pox, which, was effectually as I ventured to predict, produced an subject. The no effect. I shall now pursue my in the casual dis- studies with redoubled ardour." disease, were next is chief care was ttempting to pro

After zealously multiplying his experiments, Jenner published his first memoir in June, 1798. He

G