of persons they were sooner, for I should not have enjoyed the plays at all. As it is, when I go up stairs again my eyes are dazzled by their brilliancy. The little girl whom I took down to supper has acquired a new and fearful attraction for me. Her mouth seems to drop pearls, and I seem to be the-but I won't pursue the comparison any further. My brain fairly whirls with the sight, and with the consciousness of my enviable position. If Tape, our head clerk, could only see me, I would die willingly of that charlotte russe I ate for supper. Luckily for me, Scribbner and Docket take me away before I have committed any indiscretion. So intoxicated am I by the glimpse I have had of society so high, mighty and exclusive, and so excited by the information and list of names so indiscreetly furnished by Mr. A. Spindle, that I am obliged on the way home to resort to the soothing influence of an excellent cigar. I arrive at the house in very good condition, and without any very violent outbreak on the road. I dream all night of kings and queens, and titled dames and lords of high degree, and wake up in the morning unrefreshed, and dissatisfied with my own lot in life, which obliges me to visit Tarleton, Muslin & Co.'s, not to make a purchase, but to stay there. I fear that some of these "nobs," as Docket calls them, may see me in the store and prosecute me, or have me incarcerated in some gloomy dungeon, for having, by some underhand means, obtained admission to and enjoyed, though I think I should plead "not guilty" to that charge, their select acquaintance, to say nothing of the cake and wine. These reflections embitter my existence, and cast a gloomy veil over my hitherto cheerful countenance. And I rapidly review, and feel remorse and regret for my conduct of the night before. That I, a simple, unpretending worker for my daily bread, Bagges,-you see I have added a g and an e to my namethat I, Bagges, should shove a Knickerbocker one side in order to pass to the ice cream! That I should stumble over the toes of a Rip Van Winkle, and plant my foot upon her aristocratic and family corns!! That I should spill champagne down and over the back breadths of Mrs. Winslow Plantagenet's brocade !!!-Mrs. W. Plantagenet, Mrs. Spindle's friend from Boston, who, I believe, came over in the Mayflower herself, and owned all the oldfashioned furniture with which that capacious craft was so abundantly suppliedthat I should spill champagne over this great lady's new silk; a silk she bought at Tarleton's only the week before, and which cost her, even upon Tarleton's liberal terms, more than my whole year's salary! That I, Bagges, should do these, and a dozen other awkward and disgraceful things! I am conscious I shouldn't. And what is more, never will I expose myself again to the chance of so violating the rules of society and propriety; and never will I, even upon Docket's solicitations, venture among his married and Fifth Avenue acquaintance. In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall? VI. Oh, thou of home the guardian Lar, Our brave old poets: at thy touch how stirs Through its dead mass the incandescent verse, It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought By the fast-throbbing hammers of the poet's thought! Thou murmurest, too, divinely stirred, The aspirations unattained, The rhythms so rathe and delicate They bent and strained And broke beneath the sombre weight Of any airiest mortal word. LETTER TO THE EDITOR. MR. Editor: The reading of Mr. Henry C. Carey's notes in your Magazine suggested to me some questions touching that gentleman's views upon International Copyright. These questions I put, by letter, to Mr. Carey. He has been so kind as to forward me his pamphlet containing his answer to Senator Cooper's inquiries concerning the Copyright Treaty. In a note accompanying the pamphlet Mr. Carey says:-"You will find in the pamphlet that accompanies this, a reference to Mr. Kirkwood, school-teacher, who has given to science a highly important law, but is yet entirely unknown. Read that pamphlet, and you will find an answer to your questions on copyright; after which you can tell me whether they are answered satisfactorily. Your view of the copyright matter is the common one, but it is not, you may be assured, the correct one. In writing as I have, I have gone in opposition to all the popular prejudices." Since those questions have reference to a matter of public interest, I indicate publicly my opinion as to how they are met in Mr. Carey's pamphlet. First, an inference from a statement of the gentleman in his note to you, Mr. Editor, published in your issue of last September-namely, the statement that he had never, until then, written for publication a line on copyright-there is a possibility of his not having examined thoroughly the subject, preparatory to his writing upon it in accordance with the request of Senator Cooper. The premises taken by Mr. Carey in his pamphlet are, that the ideas contained in a book, the facts which constitute its body, are the common property of the world; and that, therefore, no mere clother of the book's body, no mere arranger of those ideas, has any exclusive right in the book. These premises are false entirely. The world has not a jot of ownership in a fact, unless by discovery, or by purchase, or by gift, any more than it has to a piece of gold which has been quarried, or to a steam-engine which has been invented, by an individual. Yet, the world has laid claim to such ownership from time immemorial; and Mr. Carey is but continuing the rule of his masters and his compeers -the self-appointed judges in the casein allowing the claim. It is high time that these judges were impeached. I clothe myself with authority, and pitch, eyes foremost, into the impeachment of them, thus:-Suppose the sun to be burned up completely-that is, to have evaporated all away, and recondensed into planets, comets, and the zodiacal light. (By the way I would inform whomsoever it may concern, that the spots observed upon the sun are nothing more nor less than huge meteorolites which have formed from the gases and mineral vapors sent off from the flaming orb, and fallen back into the abyss; hence the reason why the sun was not exhausted myriads of centuries agothe "Monthly" is copyrighted; so have a care, Mr. World, how you be appropriating this my fact!) The earth is without light, save that from close stoves, tallow candles, and from the far away glimmering stars. Suppose the Yankees own the western hemisphere, and the English own the eastern hemisphere, constituting this darkened earth. Suppose Henry Paine to be an Englishman, dwelling upon his portion of the eastern half of the sphere. Suppose that Paine has discovered the process of making fire out of water-that he has, in fact, found or manufactured something which answers every way for the sun to his side of the earth. The light-light white and light analyzed-of this substitute for the sun is, exclusively, English property. Suppose the English should, by an agreement between themselves and some individual, or some company of individuals, among us, see fit to pass a tube through the earth, such as would convey to this individual or company portions of their red and blue light. We western hemispherists have just as much right to use these (direct) red and blue lights, as the individual or company owning them has a mind to grant but we have no right, present or pros pective, either to pass a tube for their conveyance from their fountain in England, or to reflect them (translate them-note Mrs. Stowe's case) from their reservoir here. The purchaser of them may experiment with them in whatever way he chooses, so long as he confines his operations to his own domain-he may combine them into purple; which purple light will be his own exclusive property. Neither the "sovereign people of Yankeedom nor the representatives of Mr. Paine in England can have, naturally, the smallest us; |