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bacco and snuff, shooters of birds of particular kinds, and others; and they might also allow themselves to write without a licence, as they secure themselves from arrest for debt during certain seasons. might check the mischief a little and it would bring in money, which the State wants very much, since it will spend and will have the money some way. Printers of books might also be required to take out a licence; and finally the legislature might require a stamp to be placed on the title page of every copy of a book, a penny for every shilling in the price of a book and the same for every fraction of a shilling. To prevent any fraud, for I love to be exact when I am making a law, I should require every publisher to place in clear figures on the title page of every book the price of the same. Publishers and booksellers must of course take out a licence.

The paper duty might be laid again on all paper used for books, the duty not to be paid until the book is published. Every printer, publisher and maker of books will also pay what shall be called an income tax, which shall be estimated on the whole sum that the printer receives for printing a book, and the publisher for selling it; just as the bookmaker under the false name of income tax and out of

the whole capital sum which he receives as the price

of his book, pays the same amount that he pays as real income tax out of the same sum annually received from the rents of his manors, lands, tenements and other hereditaments, if he has them.

This is all that I propose at present. I offer it freely to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a help to his budget and to our fortifications. If necessary, and he will drop me a line, I will extend my plan so far as to save him all further trouble.

My reports from Germany inform me that scribblery has attained a height, as they express it, in that country or sunk to a depth, I hardly know which, that calls for the most active measures of repression. In my travels I have observed that a good deal of land is poorly cultivated in Germany. anything can be done there by the hand of power, I recommend simply a transfer of labor from the pen to the plough, or to the matches making business or the cutting out in wood, or anything.

As

As for America, the empire of Uncle Sam, who has entered on the career of conquest, borrowing and not paying, I hardly know what to say. He is gone crazy, and that is the whole in a few words. The United States have produced many excellent men,

and good writers, rather more than we could have expected. I have a sincere respect for the simple, sensible old gentlemen of their revolutionary age. I have seen them: I have talked with them and I shall not forget them. There are also poets, historical writers, and scientific writers who are worthy of honor. But unfortunately the men have now lost their wits both in matter political and in matter literary, if I may apply such a term to most.American books. No words can describe the scribblery in Uncle Sam's dominions. If he lays his heavy hand on the newspapers now, it is not because they are silly, but because he sees signs of sense in them. The literary trash I recommend to the care of the President's Chancellor of the Exchequer. He may raise a large sum of money, if he follows my plan, for the President's subjects will read the rubbish: they will be content to go without their cocktails rather than without their railway books.

Scribblery is prevalent in France. Its seat is Paris. There is not much done in the departments, where the people are better employed. But I have found in several French country towns a very good book by some resident or man of the country; a real good book, a history of the town or place or something else.

There are good local antiquaries, and some bad, good local writers on natural history, and other matters scattered over France, and some of these good books are printed in the country. The French have really a taste for literature and science. I have, as you may suppose, a strong sympathy with the makers of good books, who cannot gain much by them. We have some of these men in England. They are useful: they love their work, and they care not for gain; or if they do, they cannot always get it. They are not many, and it would be the more easy to do something for them. We might restore to them the masterships of grammar schools, but many of them might not be suited for that business. We might put them on the pension list; but there is room for very few there, and the places are generally occupied by others. At present I cannot think of anything for their benefit, except to recommend them to write something which will sell, if they can find out what it should be.

I am reminded by talking of grammar schools that I fear the acts under which the Ecclesiastical Commission works must have done some mischief. Is it true that if an old cathedral tumbles down, the house has no money to build with, and must go a begging?

This cannot be the constitution of a cathedral church. It ought to have money of its own to sustain the fabric. Are all the cathedral schools in good order, or what is become of those which no longer exist? I assume that all these venerable churches were in their origin places for teaching boys grammar and song, as well as for religious services.