known, technically, as real or personal property; still, outside of the ethical or abstract right, copyright is a modern development of the principle of property which commends itself to every sentiment of honor and justice, regardless of any obscurity which may have surrounded or inspired its conception. Who steals a man’s book may, indeed, steal trash, but, at least, it is his own trash, more closely his own than his purse. In a high state of civilization, a man’s book should be everywhere regarded as his property, and should ever be protected as scrupulously as if it were a pair of shoes, upon the construction of which he has also expended his time, his thought, his patience, and such talent and skill as he possesses. The sophistical plea that the culture and education of our people are to be imperilled, and the cost of books to be placed beyond the reach of the masses, is the mere weak subterfuge of those who are unwilling to be disturbed in their wrongful appropriation of the labor of others. The reverse of this claim has been abundantly shown. France has had an international copyright law for years, and series of books are issued there for five cents, and even two cents a number; it is the same with Germany; and these cheap publications represent all that is best in the literature of their respective countries. The spirit of literary ambition and activity is daily becoming greater and more diffused among the people of the United States, quickening and nourishing into life the seeds of a vigorous and vast native literature. It is impossible to determine the elements which must conspire to form and build up a native literature. It is a mystery, not solved to the satisfaction of scholars, why it should have put forth so early and transitory a bloom in Italy; why it should have ripened so late in Germany and Scotland; why in England alone it should know no vicissitudes of seasons, but smile in eternal spring. But we may be confidently assured that a people to whom Providence has given a stirring history, a land abounding in landscapes of beauty and grandeur, and a high degree of mental activity, extending the range of knowledge and scattering its seeds among all classes without price, cannot and will not remain long without an extensive and superior native literature. The literature of a people is the noblest emanation and truest measure of the intellect and earnestness and progression of that community. But there can be no decided literature, national in its basis, original in its character, independent in its aim, in any country where authorship is not a firm, reliable, and safe possession. Already the peer of the proudest in military achievements and material prosperity, truth, freedom, and civilization never presented a richer field and a brighter future for intellectual laborers than is to be found in the United States. Inexhaustible materials sleep in the womb of the morning, awaiting the forming hand of letters to seize and